A possibility that ought to be aired (though I don’t in any way endorse it’s truth):
Less Wrong is just a community that is on the whole, and despite it’s best efforts and intentions, toxic to rationality. The reasons for this are perhaps the belief that members of this community possess a special kind of ethically-significant knowledge or skill, a special ethically-significant mission, and that members of this community routinely express contempt for the beliefs of outsiders.
Now, again, I don’t think this is true, and if I did I would be unjustified in thinking so, newcomer that I am. In my conversations here with particular people, I’ve found members of this community to be very reasonable and resistant to clubishness.
The fallacy of singling out a particular hypothesis for attention when there is insufficient evidence already in hand to justify such special attention.
I don’t think I’m committing this fallacy, because I think there is significant evidence supporting this hypothesis (including the article about which we are commenting). Is this controversial? Acknowledging evidence does not imply consent with the hypothesis. As I said I don’t think the hypothesis is true, but it would be a much greater fallacy to make that our standard for forwarding a hypothesis.
Normally, a true hypothesis which is supported by evidence will generate someone who thinks it is true. Such a person can and should advance the hypothesis. No such person existing is massive evidence against the truth of the proposition.
Advancing a hypothesis you think is false for the sake of the discussion is equivalent to one of the popular definitions of trolling.
Normally, a true hypothesis which is supported by evidence will generate someone who thinks it is true.
Only if the hypothesis has been well promulgated and understood, along with its supporting evidence. I expect many hypotheses (including many we consider to be true) are raised in the spirit in which this one was raised: a plausible suggestion supported by evidence that is nevertheless not immediately convincing.
Advancing a hypothesis you think is false for the sake of the discussion is equivalent to one of the popular definitions of trolling.
Would it’s meeting that definition speak for or against the hypothesis? And I didn’t say I thought the hypothesis was false. I just don’t think it’s true. That’s an extremely important distinction, I think.
Only if the hypothesis has been well promulgated and understood, along with its supporting evidence. I expect many hypotheses (including many we consider to be true) are raised in the spirit in which this one was raised: a plausible suggestion supported by evidence that is nevertheless not immediately convincing.
I expect that true hypotheses are generally raised first by those who believe them, and that the extent to which there are exceptions does not make a significant impact in my claim:
No such person existing is massive evidence against the truth of the proposition.
...
Would it’s meeting that definition speak for or against the hypothesis?
No, its meeting that definition would speak against you committing the act of raising the hypothesis. Don’t troll.
And I didn’t say I thought the hypothesis was false. I just don’t think it’s true. That’s an extremely important distinction, I think.
I don’t think it’s much of a distinction at all, and much less an important one. If you do think it’s important, I’ll happily submit to having my “you think is false” above translated into “you don’t think is true”, with the same intended meaning and truth value from my end.
No such person existing is massive evidence against the truth of the proposition.
Well, to clarify, I agree with everything but the ‘massive’ here. It is evidence against the truth of a proposition, but not great evidence. It seems obvious to me that it should never be taken as conclusive: I am certain you would agree that we shouldn’t refuse to entertain any hypothesis that isn’t thought true by other people. If not, then I take your point: it is evidence against the hypothesis. It belongs on the list alongside other evidence against it, and whatever evidence is for it.
If you do think it’s important, I’ll happily submit to having my “you think is false” above translated into “you don’t think is true”, with the same intended meaning and truth value from my end.
Well, then your statement is “forwarding theses about which one is agnostic for the sake of discussion is trolling”. This is obviously false, since many if not nearly all discussions on this site would be cases of trolling.
I admit, I’m not sure I understand how your comments address my original hypothesis. If you don’t think it’s worth entertaining, then don’t entertain it. I just wanted it to be on the list. If you think the hypothesis is false, then argue against it. Don’t argue against my raising it. That’s not worth your time.
it is evidence against the hypothesis. It belongs on the list alongside other evidence against it, and whatever evidence is for it.
Yes, that is how evidence works.
Well, to clarify, I agree with everything but the ‘massive’ here.
I was assuming that much. It certainly isn’t evidence for the proposition, and I’d have expected you to advance an argument in that direction if you thought that was the case. And it also is obviously evidence about the proposition, so it should shift the probability mass in one direction or the other.
If you don’t think it’s worth entertaining, then don’t entertain it.
I think it is harmful for it to be entertained, if it does not deserve to rise to the level of attention. In much the same way, I would prefer no one randomly picked John Q Snodgrass for consideration in a murder investigation; it would not be sufficient for me to personally not consider it.
Well, then your statement is “forwarding theses about which one is agnostic for the sake of discussion is trolling”. This is obviously false, since many if not nearly all discussions on this site would be cases of trolling.
I don’t believe it is true that nearly all discussions on this site involve forwarding theses about which one is agnostic. For one thing, I’m pretty sure most Lwers are generally against agnosticism. Also, I do agree that initiating such discussions is trolling.
Don’t argue against my raising it. That’s not worth your time.
Much of my time on this site is dedicated to improving the quality of the content on this site. I believe that providing a good argument against your raising that hypothesis will reduce the incidence of relevantly similar hypotheses in the future, which will improve the quality of content on this site.
I think that is worth my time because a higher-quality Less Wrong will more likely raise the sanity waterline, which will more likely result in a positive future.
I think it is harmful for it to be entertained, if it does not deserve to rise to the level of attention.
Well, now you’ve worried me. Could you explain why? I’ll certainly retract my comment if this is true.
For one thing, I’m pretty sure most Lwers are generally against agnosticism.
I...really? That’s shocking. Are you really telling me that people on LW believe it’s wrong to suspend judgement on a proposition? I really don’t think that can be true.
I think it is harmful for it to be entertained, if it does not deserve to rise to the level of attention.
Well, now you’ve worried me. Could you explain why? I’ll certainly retract my comment if this is true.
It is dangerous in the same way as bringing John Q. Snodgrass to trial for murder. We might overweight evidence in favor of the hypothesis. Once something has been raised to the level of attention, it is hard for humans to demote it again.
I...really? That’s shocking. Are you really telling me that people on LW believe it’s wrong to suspend judgement on a proposition? I really don’t think that can be true.
Any proposition worth talking about, is worth judging. If the evidence and your priors yield a 60% probability that the sky is blue and a 39% probability that the sky is green, then that is exactly to what extent you should think those propositions are true. Note you do not find many religious agnostics here, as compared to atheists, often for the same reason.
It is dangerous in the same way as bringing John Q. Snodgrass to trial for murder. We might overweight evidence in favor of the hypothesis.
Human intuition is a valuable heuristic. As a mathematician I constantly entertain hypotheses I don’t believe to be true, for the simple reason that my intuition presented them to be considered. I don’t believe I would be at all effective otherwise (although I did just now entertain the hypothesis, despite my lack of belief!)
It is dangerous in the same way as bringing John Q. Snodgrass to trial for murder. We might overweight evidence in favor of the hypothesis. Once something has been raised to the level of attention, it is hard for humans to demote it again.
Well, this is harmful in the case of John because we might imprison an innocent man, or perhaps just convict a guilty man in an unjust way and on insufficient grounds. Presumably there’s some corresponding harm here? What would that harm be?
If the evidence and your priors yield a 60% probability that the sky is blue and a 39% probability that the sky is green, then that is exactly to what extent you should think those propositions are true.
I’m happy to admit this as a description of my attitude toward the hypothesis. I think it X% true, and of course 100-X% false. But if raising propositions which one considers to be greater than 0% true and less then 100% true is trolling, then I repeat, most if not nearly all discussions on this site are trolling.
But if raising propositions which one considers to be greater than 0% true and less then 100% true is trolling, then I repeat, most if not nearly all discussions on this site are trolling.
I’ve raised some objections to the (quite justifiable I suppose) impression that I might be trolling or committing the fallacy you name. You haven’t responded to these, so I’ll tap out for now.
In my judgement ABrooks was not trolling, and instead raised a point of view that experience on LW encouraged me to consider.
I think it is true that some members of LW, on some occasions do believe they are justified in expressing contempt for the beliefs of outsiders, sometimes this is done without expressing the justification, on other occasions the justification has been expressed and refuted yet the contempt remains and on yet other occasions the justification is reasonable. I leave the other branches of the scenario for the community to express at their convenience.
I don’t however consider the LW community on the whole to be toxic to rationality as one cannot and shouldn’t judge an entire community based upon isolated actions of a potential unrepresentative sample. I think the statement
Less Wrong is just a community that is on the whole, and despite it’s best efforts and intentions, toxic to rationality
Is false, yet as one can see in my 2nd paragraph in this post, a change of the numbers from “on the whole” to “some members, some of the time” supports that the gist of the hypothesis deserves consideration, despite that I believe the original hypothesis is false.
Possibly a more succinct description of the issue under discussion is when an individuals self serving bias meets a groups group serving bias. The individual being an outsider.
When one considers that an aim of LW is the removal of biases, labelling a presentation of a possible group serving bias as a “troll” is not in the spirit—or vibe if you prefer—of LW. I do understand why one would want to not waste time on something as obviously false as the original hypothesis, yet I think that the updated hypothesis deserves consideration from members of the community.
What is quite interesting when reconsidering the original hypothesis of ABrook, is the taking into consideration of outsiders.
If outsiders strongly associate rationality with LW and LW is negatively perceived, then the original hypothesis has some weight.
Fortunately we have an outsider… that’s me, and,
I do have some negative perceptions of LW, yet more fortunately for rationality a negative perception of LW is that I do not strongly associate LW with rationality. I presume some will appreciate the beautiful irony of this construct and further appreciate and then avoid the infinite spirals it produces.
Less Wrong is just a community that is on the whole, and despite it’s best efforts and intentions, toxic to rationality. The reasons for this are perhaps the belief that members of this community possess a special kind of ethically-significant knowledge or skill, a special ethically-significant mission, and that members of this community routinely express contempt for the beliefs of outsiders.
Partially off-topic: Please avoid using the word “community” when referring to online social groups. A real-world community is a group of people who deal with one another in order to share protection from bodily harm and cultivate a nurturing environment. Invoking this nurturing metaphor in reference to a virtual social space is itself quite risky, in terms of irrationality, cultishness and other failures of social interaction. We should avoid doing this, much for the same reason some of us would consider declaring Crocker’s Rules: fostering rationality and truth-seeking is more important than preserving egos or good feelings.
Partially off-topic: Please avoid using the word “web” when referring to a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the internet. A real-world “web” is a device built by a spider out of silk for the purpose of trapping insects. Invoking this predatory metaphor in reference to a virtual information space is itself quite risky, in terms of irrationality, cultishness and other failures of information collection.
You’re right! To prevent this abhorrent crime against rationality, I hereby rename the web to SIHDAVI (short for ‘system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the internet’).
A real-world community is a group of people who deal with one another in order to share protection from bodily harm and cultivate a nurturing environment.
You know, you probably do have a community already. Your city, or neighborhood, or college campus. Nothing prevents you from valuing your local environment for what it is and protecting it from harm, while also engaging with an intelligent social group through computer-mediated communication.
As some folks say, it is best to think globally and act locally.
“You know, you probably do have a community already.”
Nobody is prevented from having more than one community, and nowadays most people do. That’s because communication isn’t strictly local anymore.
But even in older times there was usage of terms like “the academic community” or “the gay community” or the “feminist community” to describe groups of people that were not strictly bound together by locale, but nonetheless communicated/discussed and shared info and ideas with each other in a way much more dense than mere global dissemination across humanity.
But even in older times there was usage of terms like “the academic community” or “the gay community” or the “feminist community” …
Academics used to meet in person frequently in order to coordinate their work, and they still do so to an extent, so they naturally referred to academia as a community in the local sense. The usage of the term “community” by feminist and LGBT activists was politically motivated; it was intended to underscore the fact that women or LGBT people did really share significant bodily risks as a result of their relatively low status, and that they could only protect themselves from such harm by engaging in political activism and opposing their purported “communities”. Clearly, this does not apply here; by and large, LW readers are not risking bodily harm in their local environment as a result of being rationalists.
A real-world community is a group of people who deal with one another in order to share protection from bodily harm and cultivate a nurturing environment.
Bodily harm might not apply to online groups, but LW is definitely a community in the sense that it is nurturing people in the process of developing and refining ideas, many of which can’t be brought up in discussion with the users’ everyday circles of acquaintances and friends. The site has a shared vocabulary which makes it easier to discuss rationality-related concepts, and the fact that anyone can comment means that people spend quite a lot of time encouraging and giving feedback to other members. If this isn’t ‘nurturing’, then I don’t know what is.
LW is definitely a community in the sense that it is nurturing people in the process of developing and refining ideas …
So call it a community of practice. But again, a genuine CoP (in the cognitive anthropological sense) is not quite the same as a social club which just refers to itself as a “community” as an excuse for engaging in groupthink and petty politics. If you want to be understood by established researchers in this and related areas (such as epistemic community), it is very important to use correct terminology. Many of them would not advocate the term “community” without some clear qualifiers attached.
But again, a genuine CoP (in the cognitive anthropological sense) is not quite the same as a social club which just refers to itself as a “community” as an excuse for engaging in groupthink and petty politics.
Ah, I see you are familiar with the Connotation Game! For the sake of clarity, though, I’d recommend you phrase your entries like this:
OK. So the source of this argument is...you’re taking the “cognitive anthropological meaning” of community. I’ve never studied cognitive anthropology, so I guess I’m using the “folk” definition of community. Which is all fair and good–according to cognitive anthropologists, I’m wrong–except that (I strongly suspect) almost everyone else on this site is also using the folk definition, not the specialists’ one.
A possibility that ought to be aired (though I don’t in any way endorse it’s truth):
Less Wrong is just a community that is on the whole, and despite it’s best efforts and intentions, toxic to rationality. The reasons for this are perhaps the belief that members of this community possess a special kind of ethically-significant knowledge or skill, a special ethically-significant mission, and that members of this community routinely express contempt for the beliefs of outsiders.
Now, again, I don’t think this is true, and if I did I would be unjustified in thinking so, newcomer that I am. In my conversations here with particular people, I’ve found members of this community to be very reasonable and resistant to clubishness.
If you don’t think the possibility is true, it is probably not worth raising to attention. Beware privileging the hypothesis.
I don’t think I’m committing this fallacy, because I think there is significant evidence supporting this hypothesis (including the article about which we are commenting). Is this controversial? Acknowledging evidence does not imply consent with the hypothesis. As I said I don’t think the hypothesis is true, but it would be a much greater fallacy to make that our standard for forwarding a hypothesis.
Normally, a true hypothesis which is supported by evidence will generate someone who thinks it is true. Such a person can and should advance the hypothesis. No such person existing is massive evidence against the truth of the proposition.
Advancing a hypothesis you think is false for the sake of the discussion is equivalent to one of the popular definitions of trolling.
Only if the hypothesis has been well promulgated and understood, along with its supporting evidence. I expect many hypotheses (including many we consider to be true) are raised in the spirit in which this one was raised: a plausible suggestion supported by evidence that is nevertheless not immediately convincing.
Would it’s meeting that definition speak for or against the hypothesis? And I didn’t say I thought the hypothesis was false. I just don’t think it’s true. That’s an extremely important distinction, I think.
I invoke the Law of the Excluded Middle! ;)
Don’t do that. ‘I believe that P is true’ and ‘I believe that P is false’ aren’t contradictories.
I expect that true hypotheses are generally raised first by those who believe them, and that the extent to which there are exceptions does not make a significant impact in my claim:
...
No, its meeting that definition would speak against you committing the act of raising the hypothesis. Don’t troll.
I don’t think it’s much of a distinction at all, and much less an important one. If you do think it’s important, I’ll happily submit to having my “you think is false” above translated into “you don’t think is true”, with the same intended meaning and truth value from my end.
Well, to clarify, I agree with everything but the ‘massive’ here. It is evidence against the truth of a proposition, but not great evidence. It seems obvious to me that it should never be taken as conclusive: I am certain you would agree that we shouldn’t refuse to entertain any hypothesis that isn’t thought true by other people. If not, then I take your point: it is evidence against the hypothesis. It belongs on the list alongside other evidence against it, and whatever evidence is for it.
Well, then your statement is “forwarding theses about which one is agnostic for the sake of discussion is trolling”. This is obviously false, since many if not nearly all discussions on this site would be cases of trolling.
I admit, I’m not sure I understand how your comments address my original hypothesis. If you don’t think it’s worth entertaining, then don’t entertain it. I just wanted it to be on the list. If you think the hypothesis is false, then argue against it. Don’t argue against my raising it. That’s not worth your time.
Yes, that is how evidence works.
I was assuming that much. It certainly isn’t evidence for the proposition, and I’d have expected you to advance an argument in that direction if you thought that was the case. And it also is obviously evidence about the proposition, so it should shift the probability mass in one direction or the other.
I think it is harmful for it to be entertained, if it does not deserve to rise to the level of attention. In much the same way, I would prefer no one randomly picked John Q Snodgrass for consideration in a murder investigation; it would not be sufficient for me to personally not consider it.
I don’t believe it is true that nearly all discussions on this site involve forwarding theses about which one is agnostic. For one thing, I’m pretty sure most Lwers are generally against agnosticism. Also, I do agree that initiating such discussions is trolling.
Much of my time on this site is dedicated to improving the quality of the content on this site. I believe that providing a good argument against your raising that hypothesis will reduce the incidence of relevantly similar hypotheses in the future, which will improve the quality of content on this site.
I think that is worth my time because a higher-quality Less Wrong will more likely raise the sanity waterline, which will more likely result in a positive future.
Well, now you’ve worried me. Could you explain why? I’ll certainly retract my comment if this is true.
I...really? That’s shocking. Are you really telling me that people on LW believe it’s wrong to suspend judgement on a proposition? I really don’t think that can be true.
It is dangerous in the same way as bringing John Q. Snodgrass to trial for murder. We might overweight evidence in favor of the hypothesis. Once something has been raised to the level of attention, it is hard for humans to demote it again.
Any proposition worth talking about, is worth judging. If the evidence and your priors yield a 60% probability that the sky is blue and a 39% probability that the sky is green, then that is exactly to what extent you should think those propositions are true. Note you do not find many religious agnostics here, as compared to atheists, often for the same reason.
Human intuition is a valuable heuristic. As a mathematician I constantly entertain hypotheses I don’t believe to be true, for the simple reason that my intuition presented them to be considered. I don’t believe I would be at all effective otherwise (although I did just now entertain the hypothesis, despite my lack of belief!)
Well, this is harmful in the case of John because we might imprison an innocent man, or perhaps just convict a guilty man in an unjust way and on insufficient grounds. Presumably there’s some corresponding harm here? What would that harm be?
I’m happy to admit this as a description of my attitude toward the hypothesis. I think it X% true, and of course 100-X% false. But if raising propositions which one considers to be greater than 0% true and less then 100% true is trolling, then I repeat, most if not nearly all discussions on this site are trolling.
Also trivially true, as 0 and 1 are not probabilities.
Trolling diverts resources and reduces the quality of discussion.
Privileging the hypothesis can result in the usual features of coming to believe something which is false. It can poison one’s entire epistemic state.
I’ve raised some objections to the (quite justifiable I suppose) impression that I might be trolling or committing the fallacy you name. You haven’t responded to these, so I’ll tap out for now.
In my judgement ABrooks was not trolling, and instead raised a point of view that experience on LW encouraged me to consider.
I think it is true that some members of LW, on some occasions do believe they are justified in expressing contempt for the beliefs of outsiders, sometimes this is done without expressing the justification, on other occasions the justification has been expressed and refuted yet the contempt remains and on yet other occasions the justification is reasonable. I leave the other branches of the scenario for the community to express at their convenience.
I don’t however consider the LW community on the whole to be toxic to rationality as one cannot and shouldn’t judge an entire community based upon isolated actions of a potential unrepresentative sample. I think the statement
Is false, yet as one can see in my 2nd paragraph in this post, a change of the numbers from “on the whole” to “some members, some of the time” supports that the gist of the hypothesis deserves consideration, despite that I believe the original hypothesis is false.
Possibly a more succinct description of the issue under discussion is when an individuals self serving bias meets a groups group serving bias. The individual being an outsider.
When one considers that an aim of LW is the removal of biases, labelling a presentation of a possible group serving bias as a “troll” is not in the spirit—or vibe if you prefer—of LW. I do understand why one would want to not waste time on something as obviously false as the original hypothesis, yet I think that the updated hypothesis deserves consideration from members of the community.
What is quite interesting when reconsidering the original hypothesis of ABrook, is the taking into consideration of outsiders.
If outsiders strongly associate rationality with LW and LW is negatively perceived, then the original hypothesis has some weight.
Fortunately we have an outsider… that’s me, and,
I do have some negative perceptions of LW, yet more fortunately for rationality a negative perception of LW is that I do not strongly associate LW with rationality. I presume some will appreciate the beautiful irony of this construct and further appreciate and then avoid the infinite spirals it produces.
Partially off-topic: Please avoid using the word “community” when referring to online social groups. A real-world community is a group of people who deal with one another in order to share protection from bodily harm and cultivate a nurturing environment. Invoking this nurturing metaphor in reference to a virtual social space is itself quite risky, in terms of irrationality, cultishness and other failures of social interaction. We should avoid doing this, much for the same reason some of us would consider declaring Crocker’s Rules: fostering rationality and truth-seeking is more important than preserving egos or good feelings.
You’re right! To prevent this abhorrent crime against rationality, I hereby rename the web to SIHDAVI (short for ‘system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the internet’).
That’s not the generally accepted definition of community.
I disagree. I love having a community, and feeling like I’m part of an intelligent but caring environment on LessWrong.
However, I’d love to see you expand your thoughts about that and turn it into a discussion post.
You know, you probably do have a community already. Your city, or neighborhood, or college campus. Nothing prevents you from valuing your local environment for what it is and protecting it from harm, while also engaging with an intelligent social group through computer-mediated communication.
As some folks say, it is best to think globally and act locally.
“You know, you probably do have a community already.”
Nobody is prevented from having more than one community, and nowadays most people do. That’s because communication isn’t strictly local anymore.
But even in older times there was usage of terms like “the academic community” or “the gay community” or the “feminist community” to describe groups of people that were not strictly bound together by locale, but nonetheless communicated/discussed and shared info and ideas with each other in a way much more dense than mere global dissemination across humanity.
Academics used to meet in person frequently in order to coordinate their work, and they still do so to an extent, so they naturally referred to academia as a community in the local sense. The usage of the term “community” by feminist and LGBT activists was politically motivated; it was intended to underscore the fact that women or LGBT people did really share significant bodily risks as a result of their relatively low status, and that they could only protect themselves from such harm by engaging in political activism and opposing their purported “communities”. Clearly, this does not apply here; by and large, LW readers are not risking bodily harm in their local environment as a result of being rationalists.
Bodily harm might not apply to online groups, but LW is definitely a community in the sense that it is nurturing people in the process of developing and refining ideas, many of which can’t be brought up in discussion with the users’ everyday circles of acquaintances and friends. The site has a shared vocabulary which makes it easier to discuss rationality-related concepts, and the fact that anyone can comment means that people spend quite a lot of time encouraging and giving feedback to other members. If this isn’t ‘nurturing’, then I don’t know what is.
So call it a community of practice. But again, a genuine CoP (in the cognitive anthropological sense) is not quite the same as a social club which just refers to itself as a “community” as an excuse for engaging in groupthink and petty politics. If you want to be understood by established researchers in this and related areas (such as epistemic community), it is very important to use correct terminology. Many of them would not advocate the term “community” without some clear qualifiers attached.
Ah, I see you are familiar with the Connotation Game! For the sake of clarity, though, I’d recommend you phrase your entries like this:
We are a community.
You guys are a social club.
They are a clique.
OK. So the source of this argument is...you’re taking the “cognitive anthropological meaning” of community. I’ve never studied cognitive anthropology, so I guess I’m using the “folk” definition of community. Which is all fair and good–according to cognitive anthropologists, I’m wrong–except that (I strongly suspect) almost everyone else on this site is also using the folk definition, not the specialists’ one.
No. I think you are wrong. “Community” is sometimes the appropriate word.
That’s not saying much. Do you agree with my statement about the connotation of the term “community”?