It’s a common failure mode on the Internet (and, by extension, on LW) that people believe a public response to/a criticism of an author’s writing or ideas is meant to convince the author that they’re wrong. It’s not. as a general matter, people believe what they believe and it takes a tremendous amount of time and effort to get them to change their minds, regardless of how smart or LW-”rational” they are.[1] It’s very rarely worth it to try to convince any single person of anything, unless they are super high-status or have a ton of decision-making power. And in any case, if I want to personally convince someone of something, I just PM them; humans more readily admit to mistakes when they’re not blasted in public from the outset.
That’s a fair point, but if someone is fully on the side of “I’m not actually trying to have a conversation with the author, I’m writing for the rest of the readership” then it is bad faith to write as though you are having a conversation with them e.g. addressing them with ‘you’ and writing to them questions and so forth, which I also think is a common bad discourse pattern.
… if someone is fully on the side of “I’m not actually trying to have a conversation with the author, I’m writing for the rest of the readership” then it is bad faith to write as though you are having a conversation with them …
This is a strawman of @sunwillrise’s point. He did not say anything about “not trying to have a conversation with” someone. What he said was:
… people believe a public response to/a criticism of an author’s writing or ideas is meant to convince the author that they’re wrong. It’s not.
It is entirely possible to have a conversation with someone without any intent or expectation of convincing that person that they’re wrong. (Indeed, it’s by far the more common scenario.)
Your response, on the other hand, implies that the only reason to have a conversation with someone who you think is wrong, is to try to convince them that they’re wrong. I hope you can see how silly that is. (I don’t think that you actually think this—but what you wrote implies it.)
I am not strawmanning sunwillrise’s position, I am making an additional related point.
Your response, on the other hand, implies that the only reason to have a conversation with someone who you think is wrong, is to try to convince them that they’re wrong.
I do not believe it is the only reason, but it is a common reason, and it is costly for people to repeatedly come to believe (based on the common social cues) that it is what is happening and engage on those terms, only to find out later that it is not and that they were engaged in a different social game they would rather not be playing where the goal is to make them look bad and for them to defend themselves.
I am not strawmanning sunwillrise’s position, I am making an additional related point.
You wrote:
if someone is fully on the side of “I’m not actually trying to have a conversation with the author, I’m writing for the rest of the readership”
Whom does this describe? Who has expressed any such sentiment?
The implicature of your comment was that the quoted bit was a restatement of the point to which you were responding. You were absolutely strawmanning sunwillrise’s position.
I do not believe it is the only reason, but it is a common reason, and it is costly for people to repeatedly come to believe (based on the common social cues) that it is what is happening and engage on those terms
If someone mistakenly believes that their interlocutor in a public conversation on a public discussion forum is just trying to convince them, personally, to change their minds, then this is almost certainly an error on their part. As a moderator of said forum, it would behoove you to spread awareness of the fact that such is not the default or the usual motivation for people to have public conversations on said public forum.
only to find out later that it is not and the person is substantially motivated by wanting to make them look bad.
This, too, is a strawman: “substantially motivated by wanting to make them look bad” is a tendentious description, and is certainly not one which most people would endorse, as applied to their own contributions to such conversations.
That’s a fair point, but if someone is fully on the side of “I’m not actually trying to have a conversation with the author, I’m writing for the rest of the readership” then it is bad faith to write as though you are having a conversation with them e.g. addressing them with ‘you’ and writing to them questions and so forth, which I also think is a common bad discourse pattern.
This is a strawman of @sunwillrise’s point. He did not say anything about “not trying to have a conversation with” someone. What he said was:
It is entirely possible to have a conversation with someone without any intent or expectation of convincing that person that they’re wrong. (Indeed, it’s by far the more common scenario.)
Your response, on the other hand, implies that the only reason to have a conversation with someone who you think is wrong, is to try to convince them that they’re wrong. I hope you can see how silly that is. (I don’t think that you actually think this—but what you wrote implies it.)
I am not strawmanning sunwillrise’s position, I am making an additional related point.
I do not believe it is the only reason, but it is a common reason, and it is costly for people to repeatedly come to believe (based on the common social cues) that it is what is happening and engage on those terms, only to find out later that it is not and that they were engaged in a different social game they would rather not be playing where the goal is to make them look bad and for them to defend themselves.
You wrote:
Whom does this describe? Who has expressed any such sentiment?
The implicature of your comment was that the quoted bit was a restatement of the point to which you were responding. You were absolutely strawmanning sunwillrise’s position.
If someone mistakenly believes that their interlocutor in a public conversation on a public discussion forum is just trying to convince them, personally, to change their minds, then this is almost certainly an error on their part. As a moderator of said forum, it would behoove you to spread awareness of the fact that such is not the default or the usual motivation for people to have public conversations on said public forum.
This, too, is a strawman: “substantially motivated by wanting to make them look bad” is a tendentious description, and is certainly not one which most people would endorse, as applied to their own contributions to such conversations.