I think it’s true there can be useful things about listening to bad faith internet trolls, but, I do kinda think you can save the world mostly without interact with bad faith internet trolls (unless you have some additional reason to take them seriously).
(the “at least as annoying as John” and “NOT at least as annoying as openly sneering internet trolls” is an empirical belief based on the contingent state of the rationalsphere and professional world and broader world. I don’t think the internet trolls are actually a good use of your time, en net)
People who work on politics often have to deal with adversaries who are openly sneering internet trolls (or similar), and sometimes run across valuable opportunities that require cooperating with them.
Yeah, it’s not a good use of your time to seek that out. But if you do happen to stumble upon them (e. g., if they intruded into your garden, or if Zvi’s newsletter covered an incident involving them, with quotes), and a statement from them causes a twinge of “hm, there may be something to it...”, investigating that twinge may be useful. You shouldn’t necessarily crush it in a burst of cognitive dissonance/self-protectivenss.
Giving attention to sneering comments that happen to bubble to your attention isn’t Pareto optional on any front. If you want to learn where you are wrong, seek out the most insightful people who disagree with you (and not just the ones that use long essays to lay out their case logically).
I think it’s true there can be useful things about listening to bad faith internet trolls, but, I do kinda think you can save the world mostly without interact with bad faith internet trolls (unless you have some additional reason to take them seriously).
(the “at least as annoying as John” and “NOT at least as annoying as openly sneering internet trolls” is an empirical belief based on the contingent state of the rationalsphere and professional world and broader world. I don’t think the internet trolls are actually a good use of your time, en net)
People who work on politics often have to deal with adversaries who are openly sneering internet trolls (or similar), and sometimes run across valuable opportunities that require cooperating with them.
Yeah, it’s not a good use of your time to seek that out. But if you do happen to stumble upon them (e. g., if they intruded into your garden, or if Zvi’s newsletter covered an incident involving them, with quotes), and a statement from them causes a twinge of “hm, there may be something to it...”, investigating that twinge may be useful. You shouldn’t necessarily crush it in a burst of cognitive dissonance/self-protectivenss.
Giving attention to sneering comments that happen to bubble to your attention isn’t Pareto optional on any front. If you want to learn where you are wrong, seek out the most insightful people who disagree with you (and not just the ones that use long essays to lay out their case logically).