It’s particularly ironic because in that very post, he mentions:
I can’t find the link for this, but negatively phrased information can sometimes reinforce the positive version of that information.
Which seems to be what I am falling for. He outright says:
I think some of the arguments below will be completely correct, others correct only in certain senses and situations, and still others intriguing but wrong. I think that modern pop social psychology probably contains the same three categories in about the same breakdown, so I don’t feel too bad about this.
So to sum up, here is my experience:
1: Yvain: “Here are some arguments. I don’t fully believe most of them.”
2: I start reading.
3: Michaelos: “Huh. All of these seem to be somewhat well reasoned arguments, there are links, and I can follow the logic on most of them.”
4: At some point, I forget the “Yvain doesn’t believe this.” Tag.
5: I then read his summary which points out that these also have entirely opposite summaries which are also justified.
6: I find myself flabbergasted that I’ve made the same mistake about Yvain’s writing again.
Based on this, I get the feeling I should be doing something differently when I read Yvain’s articles, but I’m not even sure what that something is.
you should probably update towards “being convincing to me is not sufficient evidence of truth.” Everything got easier once I stopped believing I was competent to judge claims about X by people who investigate X professionally. I find it better to investigate their epistemic hygiene rather than their claims. If their epistemic hygiene seems good (can be domain specific) I update towards their conclusions on X.
I was reading http://slatestarcodex.com/ and I found myself surprised again, by Yvain persuasively steelmanning an argument that he doesn’t himself believe in at http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/06/22/social-psychology-is-a-flamethrower/
It’s particularly ironic because in that very post, he mentions:
Which seems to be what I am falling for. He outright says:
So to sum up, here is my experience:
1: Yvain: “Here are some arguments. I don’t fully believe most of them.”
2: I start reading.
3: Michaelos: “Huh. All of these seem to be somewhat well reasoned arguments, there are links, and I can follow the logic on most of them.”
4: At some point, I forget the “Yvain doesn’t believe this.” Tag.
5: I then read his summary which points out that these also have entirely opposite summaries which are also justified.
6: I find myself flabbergasted that I’ve made the same mistake about Yvain’s writing again.
Based on this, I get the feeling I should be doing something differently when I read Yvain’s articles, but I’m not even sure what that something is.
you should probably update towards “being convincing to me is not sufficient evidence of truth.” Everything got easier once I stopped believing I was competent to judge claims about X by people who investigate X professionally. I find it better to investigate their epistemic hygiene rather than their claims. If their epistemic hygiene seems good (can be domain specific) I update towards their conclusions on X.