It’s perhaps not a coincidence that you pick up on tangential points. This would be predicted by “Zack is looking for words that he can then respond to by talking about his hobby horse”.
It’s definitely not a coincidence; it’s just that I think of it as, “Zack is looking for common errors that he is unusually sensitive to and therefore in a good position to correct.”
I try to keep my contributions relevant, and I think I’m applying a significantly higher standard than mere “words that [I] can then respond to.” There have been occasions when a “hobbyhorse-like” reply comes to mind, and then I notice that it’s not sufficiently relevant in context, and I don’t post those ones.
you are (or claim) to be only responding to text
Sorry, I should refine this. It’s not that belief-states are irrelevant. It’s that I don’t think I’m “liable” for making reasonable inferences about belief-states from the text that sometimes turn out to be wrong. See below.
then you can just take a sentence to check what they think. It’s good practice anyway to state the position you’re critiquing. So then you can just ask the author “is this roughly what you think?”. Then they could say yes or no or a more nuanced answer or “IDK but I don’t feel like talking about that”.
I think “Explicitly confirm authorial intent before criticizing” is not a good practice for an async public forum, because it adds way too much friction to the publication of valuable criticisms. (Confirming intent seems good in syncronous conversations, where it’s not as costly for the discussion process to block waiting for the author’s Yes/No/IDK.)
In the example under consideration, when someone says, verbatim, “Acknowledge that all of our categories are weird and a little arbitrary”, and describes ”… Not Man for the Categories” as “timeless”, I think it’s pretty reasonable for me to infer on the basis of the text that the author is probably confused about the cognitive function of categorization in the way that Scott Alexander is confused, and for me to explain the problem. I don’t think it would be an improvement for me to say “Just checking, are you saying you endorse Scott Alexander’s views on the cognitive function of categorization?”, then wait hours or days for them to say Yes/No/IDK, then explain the problem if and only if they say Yes.
Maybe you’re not suggesting I should wait for the response, but merely that I should rephrase my comment to start with a question—to say, “Is X your view? If so, that’s wrong because Y. If not, disregard” rather than “X is wrong because Y”? I think I do something similar to that pretty often. (For example, by including this paragraph starting with “Maybe you’re not suggesting [...]” rather than ending the present comment with the previous paragraph.) I think I would have to take some time to introspect and look over my comment history to try to reverse-engineer what criteria my brain is using to choose which approach.
I try to keep my contributions relevant, and I think I’m applying a significantly higher standard than mere “words that [I] can then respond to.”
AFAIK, that’s accurate.
I would say the off-topicness of the hobby horse is not actually the central problem with a charging hobby horse. The central problem would be simply persistently misunderstanding the author.
This is made worse by being framed as a correction, because it’s a kind of challenge—a high-salience push for engagement. Which is perfectly fine to make, but IMO you should then be trying to correct the author’s actual opinions. In the Tree thread, you respond to written words, which makes sense; but then you are pretty slow to question the background philosophical stance that you’ve imagined the author to have, which to me seems rude. Like, you can imagine a hostile TV interviewer having a guest on and being like “So why do you think it’s ok to kill babies?” and the guest is like “Of course I don’t think that, what I’m saying is that 3-week fetus has no neurons, so it’s not sentient, so it’s not a moral cost to abort” and the interviewer is like “I see. So why don’t you value human life?”. I mean your behavior is not very bad IMO, not like the TV interview, but it’s structurally similar. Does this make any sense?
The off-topicness is relevant for two reasons. First of all, it’s an additional annoyance, in that the author “is being dragged in” (whatever this should mean in context) to a topic that’s less of interest to them. Second of all, it’s relevant because hobby horses are a thing, and they tend to produce [persistent misunderstanding, perhaps framed as corrections], which then tend to also be off-topic since hobby horses tend to be off-topic.
I think “Explicitly confirm authorial intent before criticizing” is not a good practice for an async public forum, because it adds way too much friction to the publication of valuable criticisms. (Confirming intent seems good in syncronous conversations, where it’s not as costly for the discussion process to block waiting for the author’s Yes/No/IDK.)
That’s fair. Let me clarify: I’m not especially saying “ask and then wait”. Rather I’m suggesting for example that you state the position you’re arguing against; ask “Is that roughly what you think?”; and then continue with your response, maybe saying “If so:” or “Anyway, I’ll respond to that position I stated:”. You could add “I think so, because you wrote X” if you want. (I think this argues in favor of synchronous convos generally. Personally, I am much nicer in synchronous convos.) I’d also recommend
Keeping in mind that you might have misunderstood the author’s intent/positions, e.g. by imagining a position they don’t hold;
Updating quickly about their positions (of course I don’t mean be overcredulous, but.).
I would guess that you in particular put a lot of effort into this, so IDK if there’s an update you’re supposed to make. But I do think the specific example I used in the OP exhibits the pattern I describe.
Anyway:
Maybe I’d like to zoom out a bit. I’d probably leave this thread to rest, but it’s of course fair for you to want to hash out what if anything was objectionable about your comments in the Tree thread.
It’s definitely not a coincidence; it’s just that I think of it as, “Zack is looking for common errors that he is unusually sensitive to and therefore in a good position to correct.”
I try to keep my contributions relevant, and I think I’m applying a significantly higher standard than mere “words that [I] can then respond to.” There have been occasions when a “hobbyhorse-like” reply comes to mind, and then I notice that it’s not sufficiently relevant in context, and I don’t post those ones.
Sorry, I should refine this. It’s not that belief-states are irrelevant. It’s that I don’t think I’m “liable” for making reasonable inferences about belief-states from the text that sometimes turn out to be wrong. See below.
I think “Explicitly confirm authorial intent before criticizing” is not a good practice for an async public forum, because it adds way too much friction to the publication of valuable criticisms. (Confirming intent seems good in syncronous conversations, where it’s not as costly for the discussion process to block waiting for the author’s Yes/No/IDK.)
In the example under consideration, when someone says, verbatim, “Acknowledge that all of our categories are weird and a little arbitrary”, and describes ”… Not Man for the Categories” as “timeless”, I think it’s pretty reasonable for me to infer on the basis of the text that the author is probably confused about the cognitive function of categorization in the way that Scott Alexander is confused, and for me to explain the problem. I don’t think it would be an improvement for me to say “Just checking, are you saying you endorse Scott Alexander’s views on the cognitive function of categorization?”, then wait hours or days for them to say Yes/No/IDK, then explain the problem if and only if they say Yes.
Maybe you’re not suggesting I should wait for the response, but merely that I should rephrase my comment to start with a question—to say, “Is X your view? If so, that’s wrong because Y. If not, disregard” rather than “X is wrong because Y”? I think I do something similar to that pretty often. (For example, by including this paragraph starting with “Maybe you’re not suggesting [...]” rather than ending the present comment with the previous paragraph.) I think I would have to take some time to introspect and look over my comment history to try to reverse-engineer what criteria my brain is using to choose which approach.
AFAIK, that’s accurate.
I would say the off-topicness of the hobby horse is not actually the central problem with a charging hobby horse. The central problem would be simply persistently misunderstanding the author.
This is made worse by being framed as a correction, because it’s a kind of challenge—a high-salience push for engagement. Which is perfectly fine to make, but IMO you should then be trying to correct the author’s actual opinions. In the Tree thread, you respond to written words, which makes sense; but then you are pretty slow to question the background philosophical stance that you’ve imagined the author to have, which to me seems rude. Like, you can imagine a hostile TV interviewer having a guest on and being like “So why do you think it’s ok to kill babies?” and the guest is like “Of course I don’t think that, what I’m saying is that 3-week fetus has no neurons, so it’s not sentient, so it’s not a moral cost to abort” and the interviewer is like “I see. So why don’t you value human life?”. I mean your behavior is not very bad IMO, not like the TV interview, but it’s structurally similar. Does this make any sense?
The off-topicness is relevant for two reasons. First of all, it’s an additional annoyance, in that the author “is being dragged in” (whatever this should mean in context) to a topic that’s less of interest to them. Second of all, it’s relevant because hobby horses are a thing, and they tend to produce [persistent misunderstanding, perhaps framed as corrections], which then tend to also be off-topic since hobby horses tend to be off-topic.
That’s fair. Let me clarify: I’m not especially saying “ask and then wait”. Rather I’m suggesting for example that you state the position you’re arguing against; ask “Is that roughly what you think?”; and then continue with your response, maybe saying “If so:” or “Anyway, I’ll respond to that position I stated:”. You could add “I think so, because you wrote X” if you want. (I think this argues in favor of synchronous convos generally. Personally, I am much nicer in synchronous convos.) I’d also recommend
Keeping in mind that you might have misunderstood the author’s intent/positions, e.g. by imagining a position they don’t hold;
Updating quickly about their positions (of course I don’t mean be overcredulous, but.).
I would guess that you in particular put a lot of effort into this, so IDK if there’s an update you’re supposed to make. But I do think the specific example I used in the OP exhibits the pattern I describe.
Anyway:
Maybe I’d like to zoom out a bit. I’d probably leave this thread to rest, but it’s of course fair for you to want to hash out what if anything was objectionable about your comments in the Tree thread.