I agree with everything you said in your talk, and I think you’re brilliant.
I’ve noticed that I am often hesitant to publicly agree with comments and posts here on LessWrong because often agreement will be seen as spam. While upvotes do count as something, it is far easier to post a disagreement than to invent an excuse to post something that mostly agrees. This can be habit forming.
Comparing say Less Wrong with a Mensa online discussion group I’ve noticed that my probaility of disagreement is far lower with the self identified rationalists than with the self and test identified generic smart people. The levels of Dark Side Argument are almost incomparable. I have begun disengaging from Dark debates wherever convenient purely to form better habits at agreement.
In fact, agreement is a sort of spam—it consumes space and usually doesn’t bring new thoughts. When I imagine a typical conference where the participants are constantly running out of time, visualising the 5-minute question interval consumed by praise to the speaker helps me a lot in rationalising why the disagreement culture is necessary. Not that it would be the real reason why I would flee screaming out of the room, I would probably do even if the time wasn’t a problem.
When I read the debates at e.g. daylightatheism.org I am often disgusted by how much agreement there is (and it is definitely not a Dark Side blog). So I think I am strongly immersed in the disagreement culture. But, all cultural prejudices aside, I will probably always find a discussion consisting of “you are brilliant” type statements extraordinarily boring.
Not only that, it becomes a glue that binds people together, the more agreement the stronger the binding (and the more that get bound). At least that is the analogy that I use when I look at this; we (rationalists) have no glue, they (religions) have too much.
Agreement does not need to be contentless and therefore spam. It can fill in holes in the argument, take a different perspective(helping a different segment of the reading population), add specific details to the argument that were glossed over and much more.
I will probably always find a discussion consisting of “you are brilliant” type statements extraordinarily boring.
It sounds like you have a problem with lack of content more then you do with agreement. I am sure you would find contentless disagreement just a boring.
Agreements are a lot more often contentless, as a rule. When disagreeing, people feel motivated to include some reasons, and even if they don’t, the one who was disagreed with feels motivated to ask for the reasons. But in principle you are right that my objections don’t primarily aim at agreement.
There are other activities where success can depend heavily on not acting alone, and it is in those types of activities (such as fundraising, seizing political power, reforming institutions, etc) that rationalist-types are disadvantaged by their lack of coordination.
You didn’t read Eliezer’s post very carefully, did you? You need more practice in agreement and conformity. There are a limited number of “right” answers out there. It’s alright to agree on them, when they are found.
I agree with everything you said in your talk, and I think you’re brilliant.
I’ve noticed that I am often hesitant to publicly agree with comments and posts here on LessWrong because often agreement will be seen as spam. While upvotes do count as something, it is far easier to post a disagreement than to invent an excuse to post something that mostly agrees. This can be habit forming.
Comparing say Less Wrong with a Mensa online discussion group I’ve noticed that my probaility of disagreement is far lower with the self identified rationalists than with the self and test identified generic smart people. The levels of Dark Side Argument are almost incomparable. I have begun disengaging from Dark debates wherever convenient purely to form better habits at agreement.
In fact, agreement is a sort of spam—it consumes space and usually doesn’t bring new thoughts. When I imagine a typical conference where the participants are constantly running out of time, visualising the 5-minute question interval consumed by praise to the speaker helps me a lot in rationalising why the disagreement culture is necessary. Not that it would be the real reason why I would flee screaming out of the room, I would probably do even if the time wasn’t a problem.
When I read the debates at e.g. daylightatheism.org I am often disgusted by how much agreement there is (and it is definitely not a Dark Side blog). So I think I am strongly immersed in the disagreement culture. But, all cultural prejudices aside, I will probably always find a discussion consisting of “you are brilliant” type statements extraordinarily boring.
It doesn’t have to bring new thoughts to serve a purpose. A chorus of agreement is an emotional amplifier.
Not only that, it becomes a glue that binds people together, the more agreement the stronger the binding (and the more that get bound). At least that is the analogy that I use when I look at this; we (rationalists) have no glue, they (religions) have too much.
Agreement does not need to be contentless and therefore spam. It can fill in holes in the argument, take a different perspective(helping a different segment of the reading population), add specific details to the argument that were glossed over and much more.
It sounds like you have a problem with lack of content more then you do with agreement. I am sure you would find contentless disagreement just a boring.
Agreements are a lot more often contentless, as a rule. When disagreeing, people feel motivated to include some reasons, and even if they don’t, the one who was disagreed with feels motivated to ask for the reasons. But in principle you are right that my objections don’t primarily aim at agreement.
I think you are focusing too much on discussions.
There are other activities where success can depend heavily on not acting alone, and it is in those types of activities (such as fundraising, seizing political power, reforming institutions, etc) that rationalist-types are disadvantaged by their lack of coordination.
I agree!
You didn’t read Eliezer’s post very carefully, did you? You need more practice in agreement and conformity. There are a limited number of “right” answers out there. It’s alright to agree on them, when they are found.