It’s up to you, but to be frank I’m also frustrated with how you’ve approached this discussion. You’ve only provided a vague and extensional explanation of what you mean by regret, whereas I’ve provided more detailed models of what I’m thinking that you’ve objected to by roughly saying “idk doesn’t match my intuitions”, which is not something we can build an actual productive discussion on unless you dig into your intuitions more and provide of model for why they are useful.
I disagree that you’ve provided detailed models. I don’t think I have, either; I think it’s mostly been us butting heads over “these two things are different” / “these two things are the same”.
It’s probably the case that I haven’t been very helpful. If I’m honest, I think a lot of this is because I remember multiple conversations with you where: in the beginning you seemed to me to be saying something confused; and by the end neither of us seemed to have changed our minds. (At least one of these was also a case of you saying that two obviously-to-me different things are actually the same.) I remember zero conversations with you where: in the beginning you seemed to be saying something confused; and by the end either you’d convinced me or I’d convinced you. Which doesn’t mean it’s never happened, but like. The track record of our past conversations does not bode well for our future conversations.
So when you say something that seems to me confused, I’m not sure how to react. I can just downvote/disagree/react and let it go—there’s another LW user who I do that fairly often with—but I think your confusion is often subtle enough to be worth pointing out. (Recall that this thread started when I thought you might be saying one of two things. I thought one was wrong and the other was silly but mostly harmless. It took a few messages to even reach the actual thing we’ve been disagreeing about.) I can try to approach with an open mind and consider that you might have something to teach me just as I think I have something to teach you; but that’s not what I’m actually feeling.
I think my most-common approach in situations like this, and what I went for this time, was roughly “avoid being openly antagonistic, but don’t put lots of effort in; don’t particularly expect to deconfuse you; do try to make it clear to the audience what the disagreement is about, so they can make up their own minds”. (One theoretically good thing about this is that if it does turn out to be me who’s confused, then hopefully it becomes easier for an audience member to step in and explain it to me differently. But so far this hasn’t happened, to my recollection.[1] Nor do I recall someone stepping in to agree with me and try a different approach of explaining my perspective to you.)
(On “avoid being openly antagonistic”, I’m not currently sure whether “I can’t take it seriously” was toeing the line or over it.)
My current sense is that where the thread really went wrong is when I said “if you want to continue it”. I think I was a bit surprised that you did. And you put in what seemed to me to be some effort, even though history said that you were unlikely to change my mind (it said this to me, dunno if it said it to you); and I would have felt bad if I didn’t put in a bit of effort myself, even though history said I was unlikely to change your mind. My current guess is that I should have just dropped things there.
Also, you say I haven’t been clear about what I mean by regret, but I have not been talking about regret. The only time I’ve used that word so far has been to say that it’s not what I’m talking about. I dunno if this is a particularly important detail, but it sure seems like a metaphor.
Part of me anticipates you-or-someone-else thinking that my thread with Matt Goldenberg was this. But it seems to me that Matt agrees with me, on the thing that you and I have mostly been disagreeing about.
(This seems obviously wrong to me but I don’t have any hope that continuing will be productive.)
It’s up to you, but to be frank I’m also frustrated with how you’ve approached this discussion. You’ve only provided a vague and extensional explanation of what you mean by regret, whereas I’ve provided more detailed models of what I’m thinking that you’ve objected to by roughly saying “idk doesn’t match my intuitions”, which is not something we can build an actual productive discussion on unless you dig into your intuitions more and provide of model for why they are useful.
Alright, to go meta:
I disagree that you’ve provided detailed models. I don’t think I have, either; I think it’s mostly been us butting heads over “these two things are different” / “these two things are the same”.
It’s probably the case that I haven’t been very helpful. If I’m honest, I think a lot of this is because I remember multiple conversations with you where: in the beginning you seemed to me to be saying something confused; and by the end neither of us seemed to have changed our minds. (At least one of these was also a case of you saying that two obviously-to-me different things are actually the same.) I remember zero conversations with you where: in the beginning you seemed to be saying something confused; and by the end either you’d convinced me or I’d convinced you. Which doesn’t mean it’s never happened, but like. The track record of our past conversations does not bode well for our future conversations.
So when you say something that seems to me confused, I’m not sure how to react. I can just downvote/disagree/react and let it go—there’s another LW user who I do that fairly often with—but I think your confusion is often subtle enough to be worth pointing out. (Recall that this thread started when I thought you might be saying one of two things. I thought one was wrong and the other was silly but mostly harmless. It took a few messages to even reach the actual thing we’ve been disagreeing about.) I can try to approach with an open mind and consider that you might have something to teach me just as I think I have something to teach you; but that’s not what I’m actually feeling.
I think my most-common approach in situations like this, and what I went for this time, was roughly “avoid being openly antagonistic, but don’t put lots of effort in; don’t particularly expect to deconfuse you; do try to make it clear to the audience what the disagreement is about, so they can make up their own minds”. (One theoretically good thing about this is that if it does turn out to be me who’s confused, then hopefully it becomes easier for an audience member to step in and explain it to me differently. But so far this hasn’t happened, to my recollection.[1] Nor do I recall someone stepping in to agree with me and try a different approach of explaining my perspective to you.)
(On “avoid being openly antagonistic”, I’m not currently sure whether “I can’t take it seriously” was toeing the line or over it.)
My current sense is that where the thread really went wrong is when I said “if you want to continue it”. I think I was a bit surprised that you did. And you put in what seemed to me to be some effort, even though history said that you were unlikely to change my mind (it said this to me, dunno if it said it to you); and I would have felt bad if I didn’t put in a bit of effort myself, even though history said I was unlikely to change your mind. My current guess is that I should have just dropped things there.
Also, you say I haven’t been clear about what I mean by regret, but I have not been talking about regret. The only time I’ve used that word so far has been to say that it’s not what I’m talking about. I dunno if this is a particularly important detail, but it sure seems like a metaphor.
Part of me anticipates you-or-someone-else thinking that my thread with Matt Goldenberg was this. But it seems to me that Matt agrees with me, on the thing that you and I have mostly been disagreeing about.