I’m limited in my scope, I’m not going to follow links and criticize every single post. I happened to be reading yours, and thought that I might be able to help you with tone… others are probably better at dealing with actual content. If you would prefer me to not try to help you, let me know and I’ll focus my efforts elsewhere.
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Oh, ok. I see the difference you mean..
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It could be. It seems not just difficult but actually against most culture on the planet. Consider that crimes of passion, like killing someone when you find them sleeping around on you, often get a lower sentence than a murder ‘in cold blood’. If someone says ‘he made me angry’ we know exactly what that person means. Responding to a word with a bullet is a very common tactic, even in a joking situation; I’ve had things thrown at me for puns!
It does seem like a learn-able skill even so. I did not have this skill when I was child, but I do have it now. The point I learned it in my life seems to roughly correspond to when I was first trained and working as technical support. I don’t know if there’s a correlation there.
In any case, merely being aware that this is a skill may help a few people on this forum to learn it, and I can see only benefit in trying. It is possible to not control anger but instead never even feel it in the first place, without effort or willpower.
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Yak Shaving? http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2005/03/dont_shave_that.html
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This is it exactly!
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Don’t cherish being right, instead cherish finding out that you’re wrong. You learn when you’re wrong.
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I know that I’ll probably be downvoted again, but nevertheless.
This is precisely the wrong way to start off a post like this, a very passive-aggressive tone.
Sorry, but I don’t feel that I have this freedom on LW. And I feel people moralize here especially using the downvote function.
Are you certain that it isn’t simply the tone of your posts?
So when just asking the most basic rationality question (why do you believe what you believe) and presenting evidence that contradicts a point is downvoted I don’t feel that LW is about rationality as much as others like to believe. And I also feel that basic elements of politeness are missing and yes, I feel like I have to walk on eggs.
Also bitterness. I think that you would benefit a lot by rephrasing your questions in a less confrontational manner.
Eliezer, could you explain how you arrived at the conclusion that this particular believe is visibly insane?
could have become
Eliezer, I don’t understand how you arrived at this conclusion, could you explain the reasoning behind it?
Soften up your posts.
I never downvote, as I think it’s counterproductive. Others don’t agree, but that is their right. Taking it personally is not the right approach.
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It might be useful to form a habit of reflexively trying to think about a problem in the mode you’re not currently in, trying to switch to near mode if in far, or vice-versa. Even just a few seconds of imagining a hypothetical situation as if it were imminent and personal could provoke insight, and trying to ‘step back’ from problems is already a common technique.
I’ve used this to convince myself that a very long or unbounded life wouldn’t get boring. When I try to put myself in near-mode, I simply can’t imagine a day 2000 years from now when I wouldn’t want to go talk to a friend one last time, or go and reread a favorite book, or cook a favorite meal, or any one of a thousand other small things. I might get bored off and on, but not permanently.
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Very true.
I didn’t mean to suggest that the truth/falsehood line was as usefully socially as I believe it is internally. The social reaction you may decide on is mostly independent from truth.
Internally, it’s important to recognize that truth, since it is vital feedback that can tell you when you may need to change.
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Well, I view opinions as inherently meaningless to attempt to test. A fact can be looked up or tested, but an opinion either can’t be tested yet or is worthless to test.
‘The sky is blue’ is testable unless you’ve been stuck for generations underground. ‘I like pink’ is worthless to test, and really worthless to argue against. ‘When we can do X it will then proceed to Y’ is hard to do anything about until we can actually X, but if we pin the specifics down enough then it isn’t totally useless to argue about it.
Some opinions can also just be completely infeasible to test as well, due to the steps the test would need to take. (Hayek vs. Keynes, I’m looking at you.)
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How about ‘flinch away from drama’?
Never argue opinions, only facts.
If you must argue an opinion, then pin it down so that it can’t wriggle around. Example: if you have the opinion ‘AI can/will paperclip’, then try to pin down how and why it can as strictly as you can, and then take the argument from ‘it can happen’ to ‘perhaps we can test this’. Bring it out of the clouds and into reality as quickly as possibly.
If you manage to kill someone’s opinion, showing that it is just wrong, then pause and mourn its passing instead of gloating. It can’t hurt to apologize for winning, since feelings are so easily hurt.
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Always play devil’s advocate, and really try to destroy your position?
Whenever you argue, make a point to look up information regarding your argument and if you find that you were mistaken about it immediately let the other person know that you were wrong about it. The more certain you are about the information, the easier it should be to look up.
Think about who you know that would argue against your position, and how they would do it, and make sure that their (hypothetical) argument doesn’t apply.
Make sure the null hypothesis 1) makes sense, and 2) isn’t right.
Don’t view an argument as a chance to be right. View it as an attempt to find facts or a useful model, or as John Maxwell IV says in another comment:
remembering that a purpose of engaging in argument is to update your map
I’m not sure how many of these things you can do reflexively, but I do look up facts as I argue, and I find that I am frequently wrong. I try not to care about being right as much as finding out something useful.
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I tend to think of ‘the things I have to do to be me’ as moral, and ‘the things I have to do to fit into society’ to be ethics. In a lot of cases when someone is calling someone else immoral, it seems to me that they’re saying that that person has done something that they couldn’t do and remain who they are.
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The true/false isn’t the only line, but I feel that it’s the most important. If something someone says to or about you is true, then no matter what you should own it in some way. Acknowledge that they’re right, try to internalize it, try to change it, but never never just ignore it! (edit: If you’re getting mad when someone says something truthful about you, then this should raise other warning flags as well! Examine the issue carefully to figure out what’s really happening here.)
If the thing they say is false, then don’t get mad first! Think it through carefully, and then do the minimum you can to deal with it. The most important thing is to not obsess over it afterward, because if you’re doing that you’re handing a piece of your life away for a very low or even negative return. Laugh about it, ignore it, get over it, but don’t let it sit and fester in your mind.
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I think that the big skill here is not being offended. If someone can say something and control your emotions, literally make you feel something you had no intention to feel beforehand, then perhaps it’s time to start figuring out why you’re allowing people to do this to you.
At a basic level anything someone can say to you is either true or false. If it’s true then it’s something you should probably consider and accept. If it’s false then it’s false and you can safely ignore/gently correct/mock the person saying it to you. In any case there really isn’t any reason to be offended and especially there is no reason to allow the other person to provoke you to anger or acting without thought.
This isn’t the same as never being angry! This is simply about keeping control for yourself over when and why you get angry or offended, rather than allowing the world to determine that for you.
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How do we know that it’s you writing, and not the music?
(Just kidding, really.)
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Pompomtime! Go, Humans! Hehe.
We’ll need to know both to decide just which biases we want to keep, if any.
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Heuristics and biases
Human reasoning is subject to a long list of biases. Why did we evolve such faulty thinking processes? Aren’t false beliefs bad for survival and reproduction?
Many researchers suggest that while humans are poor at formal logic and Bayesian inference, humans display a kind of ‘ecological rationality’.
Other researchers think that our rationality is a direct result of our need to convince others that we’re right, and that many of our biases (e.g. confirmation bias) are a direct result of this. http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge342.html
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The only normal thing is change, perhaps?
Our cultures may be ‘normal’, but as you point out human culture is incredibly diverse. I wonder if we’re not seeing the beginnings of a major cultural shift in the US as well.
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I think you’re misunderstanding what I said. I’m not obscuring my feelings from myself. I’m just aware of the moment when I choose what to feel, and I actively choose.
I’m not advocating never getting angry, just not doing it when it’s likely to impair your ability to communicate or function. If you choose to be offended, that’s a valid choice… but it should also be an active choice, not just the default.
I find it fairly easy to be frustrated without being angry at someone. It is, after all, my fault for assuming that someone is able to understand what I’m trying to argue, so there’s no point in being angry at them for my assumption. They might have a particularly virulent meme that won’t let them understand… should I get mad at them for a parasite? It seems pointless.
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