If LW had a list of capital crimes or deadly sins, inferring causation from correlation based on one friggin’ sample would definitely belong there. I’m thin and I live in Russia, therefore, everybody come to Russia to get thin!
That it works for me is not why I think it’s good advice. That it works for the people whose profiles I’m attracted to is closer, with a bit of “it follows logically from my stated goals” mixed in.
I’m happy to remove the post back to the discussion section if it’s deemed valueless to the LW community at large. But I’m curious why advice for profile-writing calls for statistical evidence, whereas advice for mood improvement and advice to get out more apparently do not. What’s the rule which defines topics to which we must apply rigor?
What’s the rule which defines topics to which we must apply rigor?
Rigor is not the issue. If you state something that readers already accept, then you don’t need to argue, and statements that further describe the situation are not arguments, but further elements of the picture that readers already accept as well (but maybe didn’t know to pay attention to themselves, or to arrange in the whole quite the same way).
On the other hand, if you present a statement which isn’t evidently correct, then you have to argue its correctness. Statements that were properly part of further description in the first case are now expected to be arguments, something readers can agree with, and not further doubtful assertions. Thus, expected reasonable agreement, not rigor, is what’s required.
That’s a very sensible answer, and I’ll accept it. The discrepancy, then, is that the contents of this post seem about as self-evident to me as the emotional nihilism advice does; I’m quite surprised to find that it’s more controversial. Is there some common knowledge I’m contradicting?
I dislike presentation of emotional nihilism post for the same reason. No contradictions, just prior expectation that mere sensible advice often doesn’t work in complicated social context, and empirical evidence is necessary to distinguish things that actually work from things that seem reasonable but don’t.
if you present a statement which isn’t evidently correct, then you have to argue its correctness.
I’m not sure that is the case. Sometimes people brainstorm; sometimes they suggest hypotheses; sometimes they share ideas. Any of these can look grammatically like a declarative statement, but they are not assertions. They are more like conjectures. They justify their presence in a conversation by being interesting and provocative, not by being supported by evidence and argument.
Very little of human communication transfers information about the external world. The bulk of it either transfers information about the speaker’s mental state or is intended to focus the listener’s attention on some thing, event, or idea.
When you argue correctness of a statement with which the interlocutor doesn’t originally agree, and use a proof-like strategy for doing so, you don’t transfer information about environment either, instead you focus their attention on a sequence of statements already accepted, that surprisingly leads to the originally unexpected conclusion.
When you brainstorm, then the observations you seek are exactly the ideas produced by intuition, so you are not asserting anything about something else, instead you are producing the basic observations. When you voice your opinion, assuming you are trustworthy, you communicate your state of knowledge, and your interlocutor believes that your state of knowledge is indeed as you state it.
What’s the rule which defines topics to which we must apply rigor?
Rigor? In this case, it’s not about rigor, but about failing elementary sanity checks. The idea that something that works for you in this area should apply to people of other sexes and preferences is simply out of touch with reality. It’s as if a cook made a checklist useful for his daily work, and then got the idea that this exact same checklist should be useful to policemen, mathematicians, or welders.
Please pardon my harsh-sounding tone, but that is simply what the facts are, and I don’t see how to put them differently.
The idea that something that works for you in this area should apply to people of other sexes and preferences is simply out of touch with reality.
I, for one, do not find this obvious.
It’s as if a cook made a checklist useful for his daily work, and then got the idea that this exact same checklist should be useful to policemen, mathematicians, or welders.
It seems to me rather more analogous to a cook who made a checklist for making pancakes, which he expected would apply to other cooks making pancakes whilst wearing differently-colored hats. But there’s no point in playing analogy-tennis.
that is simply what the facts are
You’ve managed to shift the burden of proof back to yourself with this comment. Where’s your evidence, now?
It seems to me rather more analogous to a cook who made a checklist for making pancakes, which he expected would apply to other cooks making pancakes whilst wearing differently-colored hats.
Your analogy assumes that between people of different sexes and sexual preferences, there are no relevant differences that would have any significant bearing on their dating strategies. Frankly, I find this assumption so remote from reality, including all my experience with human life and all that is known about it both informally and scientifically, that if you really hold this opinion, it would be extremely hard for us to establish a common reference point from which to even begin a constructive discussion. So, it would probably be better if we could just agree to disagree at this point.
Your analogy assumes that between people of different sexes and sexual preferences, there are no relevant differences that would have any significant bearing on their dating strategies.
I think the relevance of the difference depends on the specificity of the advice. If I were telling people to show off their brains and their sense of humor, or to make a point of talking or not talking about sex, or to be sure to mention their pets, then yes, it would be ridiculous of me to claim that these are generally applicable. But the post is mostly discussing how to ensure that your profile depicts you accurately. Do you think that there is a group for which that’s not a concern?
To be clear, there are two fundamental problems with your post.
First, even when it comes to just you personally, you don’t seem to present any coherent method for differentiating between things that you simply like as a matter of personal taste, and things that have practical relevance (to whatever effect). In your post, you appear to have a completely cavalier attitude towards this immensely difficult problem.
Second, in this area, the relevant guidelines for self-presentation are indeed so strongly sex-and-preference-specific that anything not completely trivial or irrelevant is almost certain to be impossible to express in a manner applicable to all groups. In other words, everything that can be expressed in such manner will be either obvious, or irrelevant, or false and misleading for at least some of these groups.
These simple observations, to which I referred as “sanity checks” in my above not very well received comment, are in my opinion sufficient to invalidate your approach altogether, and to conclude that by any practical criteria, your advice is likely to be just noise.
As for your specific question:
But the post is mostly discussing how to ensure that your profile depicts you accurately. Do you think that there is a group for which that’s not a concern?
In order for your advice to make sense, you have to be able to point out the expected practical consequences of the concrete pieces of advice you give, and to explain why you believe that they will result from following your advice. Your approach completely fails to satisfy these criteria, both when it comes to “depicting oneself accurately” (which I’m not even sure is a coherently defined objective) and everything else.
(Not to mention that your post does contain specific advice about improving the attractiveness of one’s profile, which I’ve already criticized.)
I see. Just to make sure I’ve understood correctly, my impression from this:
sufficient to invalidate your approach altogether, and to conclude that by any practical criteria, your advice is likely to be just noise
is that you do not believe the post is salvageable, because it’s built on a foundation which is flawed for the reasons you give. These are useful flaws to be aware of when composing future posts, and I will try to remember them.
If it is indeed unsalvageable, though, I don’t see what productive action I can take about it now, short of performing a rigorous study and rewriting the post from scratch based on the results (which is farther than my interest and resources extend). I could delete it, but that seems a bit dishonest (in that it dodges the karma hit for a bad post) and also robs me of productive feedback. So my intent is to let it stand.
I see. Just to make sure I’ve understood correctly, my impression from this:
sufficient to invalidate your approach altogether, and to conclude that by any practical criteria, your advice is likely to be just noise
is that you do not believe the post is salvageable, because it’s built on a foundation which is flawed for the reasons you give. These are useful flaws to be aware of when composing future posts, and I will try to remember them.
If it is indeed unsalvageable, though, I don’t see what productive action I can take about it now, short of performing a rigorous study and rewriting the post from scratch based on the results (which is farther than my interest and resources extend). I could delete it, but that seems a bit dishonest (in that it dodges the karma hit for a bad post) and also robs me of productive feedback. So my intent is to let it stand.
If LW had a list of capital crimes or deadly sins, inferring causation from correlation based on one friggin’ sample would definitely belong there. I’m thin and I live in Russia, therefore, everybody come to Russia to get thin!
That it works for me is not why I think it’s good advice. That it works for the people whose profiles I’m attracted to is closer, with a bit of “it follows logically from my stated goals” mixed in.
I’m happy to remove the post back to the discussion section if it’s deemed valueless to the LW community at large. But I’m curious why advice for profile-writing calls for statistical evidence, whereas advice for mood improvement and advice to get out more apparently do not. What’s the rule which defines topics to which we must apply rigor?
Rigor is not the issue. If you state something that readers already accept, then you don’t need to argue, and statements that further describe the situation are not arguments, but further elements of the picture that readers already accept as well (but maybe didn’t know to pay attention to themselves, or to arrange in the whole quite the same way).
On the other hand, if you present a statement which isn’t evidently correct, then you have to argue its correctness. Statements that were properly part of further description in the first case are now expected to be arguments, something readers can agree with, and not further doubtful assertions. Thus, expected reasonable agreement, not rigor, is what’s required.
That’s a very sensible answer, and I’ll accept it. The discrepancy, then, is that the contents of this post seem about as self-evident to me as the emotional nihilism advice does; I’m quite surprised to find that it’s more controversial. Is there some common knowledge I’m contradicting?
I dislike presentation of emotional nihilism post for the same reason. No contradictions, just prior expectation that mere sensible advice often doesn’t work in complicated social context, and empirical evidence is necessary to distinguish things that actually work from things that seem reasonable but don’t.
I’m not sure that is the case. Sometimes people brainstorm; sometimes they suggest hypotheses; sometimes they share ideas. Any of these can look grammatically like a declarative statement, but they are not assertions. They are more like conjectures. They justify their presence in a conversation by being interesting and provocative, not by being supported by evidence and argument.
Very little of human communication transfers information about the external world. The bulk of it either transfers information about the speaker’s mental state or is intended to focus the listener’s attention on some thing, event, or idea.
When you argue correctness of a statement with which the interlocutor doesn’t originally agree, and use a proof-like strategy for doing so, you don’t transfer information about environment either, instead you focus their attention on a sequence of statements already accepted, that surprisingly leads to the originally unexpected conclusion.
When you brainstorm, then the observations you seek are exactly the ideas produced by intuition, so you are not asserting anything about something else, instead you are producing the basic observations. When you voice your opinion, assuming you are trustworthy, you communicate your state of knowledge, and your interlocutor believes that your state of knowledge is indeed as you state it.
Relsqui:
Rigor? In this case, it’s not about rigor, but about failing elementary sanity checks. The idea that something that works for you in this area should apply to people of other sexes and preferences is simply out of touch with reality. It’s as if a cook made a checklist useful for his daily work, and then got the idea that this exact same checklist should be useful to policemen, mathematicians, or welders.
Please pardon my harsh-sounding tone, but that is simply what the facts are, and I don’t see how to put them differently.
I, for one, do not find this obvious.
It seems to me rather more analogous to a cook who made a checklist for making pancakes, which he expected would apply to other cooks making pancakes whilst wearing differently-colored hats. But there’s no point in playing analogy-tennis.
You’ve managed to shift the burden of proof back to yourself with this comment. Where’s your evidence, now?
thomblake:
Your analogy assumes that between people of different sexes and sexual preferences, there are no relevant differences that would have any significant bearing on their dating strategies. Frankly, I find this assumption so remote from reality, including all my experience with human life and all that is known about it both informally and scientifically, that if you really hold this opinion, it would be extremely hard for us to establish a common reference point from which to even begin a constructive discussion. So, it would probably be better if we could just agree to disagree at this point.
I think the relevance of the difference depends on the specificity of the advice. If I were telling people to show off their brains and their sense of humor, or to make a point of talking or not talking about sex, or to be sure to mention their pets, then yes, it would be ridiculous of me to claim that these are generally applicable. But the post is mostly discussing how to ensure that your profile depicts you accurately. Do you think that there is a group for which that’s not a concern?
To be clear, there are two fundamental problems with your post.
First, even when it comes to just you personally, you don’t seem to present any coherent method for differentiating between things that you simply like as a matter of personal taste, and things that have practical relevance (to whatever effect). In your post, you appear to have a completely cavalier attitude towards this immensely difficult problem.
Second, in this area, the relevant guidelines for self-presentation are indeed so strongly sex-and-preference-specific that anything not completely trivial or irrelevant is almost certain to be impossible to express in a manner applicable to all groups. In other words, everything that can be expressed in such manner will be either obvious, or irrelevant, or false and misleading for at least some of these groups.
These simple observations, to which I referred as “sanity checks” in my above not very well received comment, are in my opinion sufficient to invalidate your approach altogether, and to conclude that by any practical criteria, your advice is likely to be just noise.
As for your specific question:
In order for your advice to make sense, you have to be able to point out the expected practical consequences of the concrete pieces of advice you give, and to explain why you believe that they will result from following your advice. Your approach completely fails to satisfy these criteria, both when it comes to “depicting oneself accurately” (which I’m not even sure is a coherently defined objective) and everything else.
(Not to mention that your post does contain specific advice about improving the attractiveness of one’s profile, which I’ve already criticized.)
I see. Just to make sure I’ve understood correctly, my impression from this:
is that you do not believe the post is salvageable, because it’s built on a foundation which is flawed for the reasons you give. These are useful flaws to be aware of when composing future posts, and I will try to remember them.
If it is indeed unsalvageable, though, I don’t see what productive action I can take about it now, short of performing a rigorous study and rewriting the post from scratch based on the results (which is farther than my interest and resources extend). I could delete it, but that seems a bit dishonest (in that it dodges the karma hit for a bad post) and also robs me of productive feedback. So my intent is to let it stand.
I see. Just to make sure I’ve understood correctly, my impression from this:
is that you do not believe the post is salvageable, because it’s built on a foundation which is flawed for the reasons you give. These are useful flaws to be aware of when composing future posts, and I will try to remember them.
If it is indeed unsalvageable, though, I don’t see what productive action I can take about it now, short of performing a rigorous study and rewriting the post from scratch based on the results (which is farther than my interest and resources extend). I could delete it, but that seems a bit dishonest (in that it dodges the karma hit for a bad post) and also robs me of productive feedback. So my intent is to let it stand.