This would make sense to me applied to a generic person about whom you know very little; in context it feels to me like you’re outside viewing too hard here. It may be socially much less comfortable to give an inside view description of why you don’t find Val’s comments persuasive, so you don’t need to interpret this as a request for such a description, but this strikes me as reasoning that’s been optimized for defensibility instead of truth-seeking and that seems worth pointing out.
What I know about Val does not make me update downwards particularly strongly about the tendency to make up post-hoc stories. Very few people strike me as being particularly more trustworthy in that direction, which in itself might be a failure of outside-viewing too hard, but that’s definitely my considered epistemic state, taking into account what I know about Val.
(May it be said that my general distrust of people having developed real rationality skills has been a source of disagreement with many, and some source of personal tension between me and others, including me and Val in the past.)
[Meta note to onlookers who seem to have maybe downvoted Qiaochu’s comment]
I think a comment like the one Qiaochu wrote would indeed be out of place and weird for people who didn’t have a personal relationship with me, but given the kind of relationship me and Qiaochu do have, I found the comment to be well-placed and helpful, and expect that the general algorithm of highlighting these potential faults in my thinking patterns will be very useful for me in the long-run, if executed by Qiaochu.
This would make sense to me applied to a generic person about whom you know very little; in context it feels to me like you’re outside viewing too hard here. It may be socially much less comfortable to give an inside view description of why you don’t find Val’s comments persuasive, so you don’t need to interpret this as a request for such a description, but this strikes me as reasoning that’s been optimized for defensibility instead of truth-seeking and that seems worth pointing out.
What I know about Val does not make me update downwards particularly strongly about the tendency to make up post-hoc stories. Very few people strike me as being particularly more trustworthy in that direction, which in itself might be a failure of outside-viewing too hard, but that’s definitely my considered epistemic state, taking into account what I know about Val.
(May it be said that my general distrust of people having developed real rationality skills has been a source of disagreement with many, and some source of personal tension between me and others, including me and Val in the past.)
[Meta note to onlookers who seem to have maybe downvoted Qiaochu’s comment]
I think a comment like the one Qiaochu wrote would indeed be out of place and weird for people who didn’t have a personal relationship with me, but given the kind of relationship me and Qiaochu do have, I found the comment to be well-placed and helpful, and expect that the general algorithm of highlighting these potential faults in my thinking patterns will be very useful for me in the long-run, if executed by Qiaochu.
Thanks Oli, I appreciate your candor and your support.