It’s very hard to predict how a previously untried activity will go, since humans adapt to situations they’re in, and then adapt to the adaptations of others around them. I’d experiment on this soon with a small group. One possible failure mode would be if people told to talk about “anything they want” jump to topics that don’t offer the opportunity to practice either Crocker or reverse-Crocker.
Bruce Lewis
Karma: 76
I agree that audience score seems to be a better signal than critics score, but neither works consistently.
I made this video HowTruthful and the COVID-19 vaccine that illustrates my line of reasoning from a few years ago.
I’ll be really interested to hear what the 4-year-old says about the stories, especially the 2nd one.
I think Bob should be even more direct about what’s happening. “I know most of the people who disagree with you on this are thinking of X, Y, and Z. My reasons are different. My opinions on X, Y and Z are largely similar to yours. But I’m concerned about ☈, ♄, and ⚗.” I think this approach would do even more than the idea in your last paragraph to make the surprise less jarring for Alice.
OK so the immune system comment simply meant that since vaccines rely on a system that isn’t 100% effective, they can’t themselves be 100% effective. It definitely wasn’t intended to compare a vaccine-trained immune system to a non-vaccine-trained immune system.
To make a statement more specific, just make the more specific wording a “pro” argument. Because it’s something someone might say when arguing for the main statement. I just made a new introductory video today that illustrates this.
There’s truth in what you’re saying. At the same time, I feel like people have an instinctive desire for clarity over riddlespeak. I think it’s the same instinct that makes people favor 4k televisions over standard definition. I think it’s possible to make a twitter-like medium that discourages hardcoded blind spots.
I got a paying customer on https://en.howtruthful.com/ yesterday. Hopefully more to come.
I had not heard of Community Notes. Interesting anti-bias technique “notes require agreement between contributors who have sometimes disagreed in their past ratings”. https://communitynotes.twitter.com/guide/en/about/introduction
I liked the xkcd on empiricism: https://xkcd.com/2855/
Agreed there’s a lot of work ahead in making it engaging.
I define “pro” as anything one might say in defense of a statement, and that includes decomposing it. It can also include disambiguating it. Or citing a source.
Thanks for the well-wishes. Only two paid users so far, but I’m getting very useful feedback and will have a second iteration with key improvements.
Are you really insulating from reality, or from recency bias?
Good points are made in other comments about the significance of weakest bonds, but mostly I want to say that I like this post because it’s making a clear point with clear reasoning, and was very readable.
I strongly upvoted this post because I believe epistemic empathy is important.
The word “irrational” has too many meanings, and I try to avoid it. And I try to direct criticism at arguments rather than people. But I do want to answer your final question as best I can. I’ll just phrase it as problems with arguments rather than people’s irrationality.
In my experience, the problem with arguments against COVID-19 vaccines is that they mainly consist of evidence that there’s risk involved in getting vaccinated. To usefully argue against getting vaccinated, one needs evidence not only that vaccine risks exist, but that they’re worse risks than those of remaining unvaccinated.
Similarly, arguments against masks are usually arguing against the wrong statement. They argue against “Masks always prevent transmission”, when to be useful, they should be arguing against “Masks reduce transmission”.
Sympathize with them, but also with those affected by them.
I don’t think 11 needs to be a community value. If someone comes in believing in the supernatural, in cryptozoology, UFOs, P = NP, or other ideas that haven’t been scientifically verified, who cares as long as they’re interested in changing their way of modeling the world to be more evidence-based?
This comment is a level 1 lie! (I’m replying to it now with a level 5 lie.)
The best path forward might be for @DPiepgrass to make a prototype or mockup, borrowing ideas from HowTruthful and then discussing from there.
This is my first comment on LW. I was laid off from my full-time employment on October 27. I am working full-time in November and December on a web site I created for arriving at truth. My employer was kind enough to lay off a lot of my friends together with me, and a few of us have a daily meeting where we talk about our respective projects. One of my friends pointed me here, since she saw a lot of overlap. She was right. What I’m doing is very different from the posts/comments/replies structure you see here on LW and on most online forums, but my goals are very similar to LW’s goals. I look forward to bouncing ideas off of this community. I’ll have a lengthy post out soon, probably tomorrow.