Okay, but why? I think being faux-polite is social deception because the purpose it serves usually isn’t to take a more cooperative approach with the person you’re arguing with, but to look nice to other people less invested in the argument who are reading through the comments. I’ve seen instances where people are genuinely trying to be nice, and I woud agree that that is “having manners”. I’ve just seen much more (esp. on LessWrong) of people sneering while pretending not to sneer, and when they do that to me it’s pretty obvious what they’re doing and I’m upset at the deception, but when they do it to others I notice it takes me longer to catch, and I’m sure the agree/upvote balance has been skewed by that.
I think a great example of this is many of the comments that reply to some of John Wentsworth’s more controversial opinions, like “My Empathy is Rarely Kind”.
I think, when someone feels negatively toward a post, that choosing to translate that feeling as “I think this conclusion requires a more delicate analysis” reflects more epistemic humility and willingness to cooperate than does translating it as “your analysis sucks”. The qualifier, first of all, requires you to keep in mind the fact that your perceptions are subjective, and could be incorrect (while also making it clear to other people that you’re doing so). Trying to phrase things in ways that are less than maximally rude is cooperative because it makes interacting with you more pleasant for the other person. Using words that aren’t strongly valenced and leave the possibility open that the other person is right also means that your words, if believed, are likely to provoke a smaller negative update about the other person; you do increase your credibility by doing so, but I’m skeptical that this cancels out that effect. (Also: it’s impossible not to make decisions about how you phrase things in order to communicate your intended message, and given that this is impossible, I think condemning the choice to phrase things more nicely is pretty much the opposite of what one should do.) As for the part where it makes you look good, the other person can look equally good simply by being equally polite. Of course if they respond with insults this might be bad for their image, but being polite makes insults less tempting for the typical interlocutor.
I would generalize my argument to: charisma is an adversarial game. If you are more charismatic, it does not mean you actually know what you are talking about, or are actually more skilled, but because you make people feel good about themselves, they will still choose you over someone who could actually help them out.
Part of this is an intelligence issue: if everyone had much more INT than CHA, people would easily notice and dismiss charismatic influences. In real life, too high-INT and low-CHA groups will get invaded (arbitraged?) by higher-CHA individuals. On forums, the dynamic plays out where people with more charisma get more upvotes, even if they’re actively making the discussion worse. So, we see dynamics like this:
There are about a dozen top-level comments similar to cata’s, but despite getting 10x the upvotes as Ben’s, they do not actually provide anything useful to the discussion. Basically, all of these comments say something like, “because you did not get the outcome I expected, you must have done the procedure wrong.” They do not justify why their expected outcome is the right one, and if they had a modicum of respect for John’s intelligence they would not believe he had done the procedure wrong. The only thing arguably useful about these comments is building a consensus around being fake-polite while saying, “John is stupid and wrong.” If they just said that, with none of the charisma, their comment would probably be as visible as it actually deserves to be.
I think, when someone feels negatively toward a post, that choosing to translate that feeling as “I think this conclusion requires a more delicate analysis” reflects more epistemic humility and willingness to cooperate than does translating it as “your analysis sucks”.
I think the epistemically humble thing to do is say, “this seems wrong because <...> though I notice I’m not super confident.” Or, if you don’t know why it seems wrong, just say, “this seems to go against my intuitions. There’s probably a reason I (and most people) have these intuitions, so a priori I want to say you’re wrong, but I can only vaguely point out that something seems wrong.”
To be epistemically humble myself: your comment seems generally correct when you’re talking as individuals, and I think the issue only really comes about when you have lots of people interacting so that it’s too costly for them all to analyze every comment they read/upvote/reply to. Also, although I implied intention when I said things like, “I think your version of ‘having manners’ is social deception to get people to like you and hate the person you’re replying to,” it seems more a function of the system you’re interacting in (the system ends up promoting such things) rather than the individuals (except Reddit; there people are just karma farming). It isn’t really fair to say this is intentional.
As for the part where it makes you look good, the other person can look equally good simply by being equally polite.
This is just unfortunately not true. They cannot always respond politely while remaining honest. For example, a Mormon might find it impolite if, when they ask why you don’t want to join their church, you say, “it’s a cult.” If you instead say, “it’s just not my cup of tea—or more like, I enjoy my cups of tea too much,” it would definitely be more polite, but they’ll also always wonder why people are willing to give up on eternal happiness for a little caffeine. You might think someone else will surely come along and be a little more rude and honest and help them overcome their confusion, but I think most Mormons below the age of sixteen have invited a friend or two to church and also have no idea most people consider their church a cult.
Good for you. I think you’re stupid.
Okay, but why? I think being faux-polite is social deception because the purpose it serves usually isn’t to take a more cooperative approach with the person you’re arguing with, but to look nice to other people less invested in the argument who are reading through the comments. I’ve seen instances where people are genuinely trying to be nice, and I woud agree that that is “having manners”. I’ve just seen much more (esp. on LessWrong) of people sneering while pretending not to sneer, and when they do that to me it’s pretty obvious what they’re doing and I’m upset at the deception, but when they do it to others I notice it takes me longer to catch, and I’m sure the agree/upvote balance has been skewed by that.
I think a great example of this is many of the comments that reply to some of John Wentsworth’s more controversial opinions, like “My Empathy is Rarely Kind”.
I think, when someone feels negatively toward a post, that choosing to translate that feeling as “I think this conclusion requires a more delicate analysis” reflects more epistemic humility and willingness to cooperate than does translating it as “your analysis sucks”. The qualifier, first of all, requires you to keep in mind the fact that your perceptions are subjective, and could be incorrect (while also making it clear to other people that you’re doing so). Trying to phrase things in ways that are less than maximally rude is cooperative because it makes interacting with you more pleasant for the other person. Using words that aren’t strongly valenced and leave the possibility open that the other person is right also means that your words, if believed, are likely to provoke a smaller negative update about the other person; you do increase your credibility by doing so, but I’m skeptical that this cancels out that effect. (Also: it’s impossible not to make decisions about how you phrase things in order to communicate your intended message, and given that this is impossible, I think condemning the choice to phrase things more nicely is pretty much the opposite of what one should do.) As for the part where it makes you look good, the other person can look equally good simply by being equally polite. Of course if they respond with insults this might be bad for their image, but being polite makes insults less tempting for the typical interlocutor.
I would generalize my argument to: charisma is an adversarial game. If you are more charismatic, it does not mean you actually know what you are talking about, or are actually more skilled, but because you make people feel good about themselves, they will still choose you over someone who could actually help them out.
Part of this is an intelligence issue: if everyone had much more INT than CHA, people would easily notice and dismiss charismatic influences. In real life, too high-INT and low-CHA groups will get invaded (arbitraged?) by higher-CHA individuals. On forums, the dynamic plays out where people with more charisma get more upvotes, even if they’re actively making the discussion worse. So, we see dynamics like this:
There are about a dozen top-level comments similar to cata’s, but despite getting 10x the upvotes as Ben’s, they do not actually provide anything useful to the discussion. Basically, all of these comments say something like, “because you did not get the outcome I expected, you must have done the procedure wrong.” They do not justify why their expected outcome is the right one, and if they had a modicum of respect for John’s intelligence they would not believe he had done the procedure wrong. The only thing arguably useful about these comments is building a consensus around being fake-polite while saying, “John is stupid and wrong.” If they just said that, with none of the charisma, their comment would probably be as visible as it actually deserves to be.
I think the epistemically humble thing to do is say, “this seems wrong because <...> though I notice I’m not super confident.” Or, if you don’t know why it seems wrong, just say, “this seems to go against my intuitions. There’s probably a reason I (and most people) have these intuitions, so a priori I want to say you’re wrong, but I can only vaguely point out that something seems wrong.”
To be epistemically humble myself: your comment seems generally correct when you’re talking as individuals, and I think the issue only really comes about when you have lots of people interacting so that it’s too costly for them all to analyze every comment they read/upvote/reply to. Also, although I implied intention when I said things like, “I think your version of ‘having manners’ is social deception to get people to like you and hate the person you’re replying to,” it seems more a function of the system you’re interacting in (the system ends up promoting such things) rather than the individuals (except Reddit; there people are just karma farming). It isn’t really fair to say this is intentional.
This is just unfortunately not true. They cannot always respond politely while remaining honest. For example, a Mormon might find it impolite if, when they ask why you don’t want to join their church, you say, “it’s a cult.” If you instead say, “it’s just not my cup of tea—or more like, I enjoy my cups of tea too much,” it would definitely be more polite, but they’ll also always wonder why people are willing to give up on eternal happiness for a little caffeine. You might think someone else will surely come along and be a little more rude and honest and help them overcome their confusion, but I think most Mormons below the age of sixteen have invited a friend or two to church and also have no idea most people consider their church a cult.