I don’t want to use the word “steelman” since Aella might not agree that this is a better version of her post.
But here’s a post that I would have strongly agreed with, if Aella had written it.
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When presented with criticism, we can think of a range of possible responses.
At one end of the range is acceptance: “Oh wow, the fact that you think I’m doing bad things is strong evidence that I’m actually doing bad things, so I’ll think hard about this and try to change.”
At the other end is denial: “No, I’m not doing bad things and you’re wrong to suggest that I am. You should think about what mental errors you are making that is causing you to think that I am wrong.”
Most reasonable people will respond differently to criticism depending on the evidence. Some people are especially receptive to criticism, and will tend toward the “acceptance” end of the range if the criticism is delivered with confidence, even if the evidence provided is weak.
But some people have discovered that they can win any argument by responding to all criticism with confident denial. We can call these people “frame controllers”.
It’s difficult to communicate negative feedback to frame controllers, because they’ll just reflexively deny it. People who are very receptive to criticism may find it unpleasant to communicate with frame controllers at all, because frame controllers spend a lot of time saying “no, it is you who are wrong and bad” which leads to a lot of stressful self-examination. If a person is very receptive to criticism, it may take some time for them to realize that the problem is actually the frame controller, and not some sort of pervasive pattern of wrongness in their own mind.
(Aella is an example of a person who is very receptive to criticism, and therefore she has to take extraordinary measures to avoid interacting with frame controllers.)
We should recognize the reflexive “no, it is you who are wrong and bad” message as an epistemic antipattern, and we should be vigilant against it. If we notice someone persistently sending this message with high confidence and no evidence, we should document this antipattern publicly.
In the meantime, everyone should try to be vigilant about which criticisms they accept. Strong criticisms should require strong evidence and not just strong confidence.
Yeah, in retrospect I should have said more about the importance of evidence. “We should recognize the evidence-free “no, it is you who are wrong and bad” as an antipattern.”
And even then, I think some of what Aella is talking about isn’t so much a response to criticism as a general attitude that everyone else is wrong and bad.
I dunno.