I am disappointed that such a well-established member of our community would behave in the way you did
Wedrifid pointed out flaws in a flawed post, and pointed out flaws in a series of flawed arguments. You could debate the degree of politeness required but pointing out flaws is in some fundamental ways an impolite act. It is also a foundation of improving rationality. To the extent that these comment sections are about improving rationality, wedrifid behaved exactly as they should have.
Karma on LessWrong isn’t about politeness, as far as I have seen. For what it’s worth, in my kibitzer’d neutral observations, the unanimous downvoting is because readers spotted flaws; unanimous upvoting is for posts that point out flaws in posts.
I’m starting to think we may need to bring up Eliezer’s ‘tending to the garden before it becomes overgrown’ and ‘raising the sanity waterline’ posts from early on. There has been a recent trend of new users picking an agenda to support then employing the same kinds of fallacies and debating tactics in their advocacy. Then, when they are inevitably downvoted there is the same sense of outrage that mere LW participants dare evaluate their comments negatively.
It must be that all the lesswrong objectors are true believers in an echo chamber. Or maybe those that make the effort to reply are personally flawed. It couldn’t be that people here are able to evaluate the reasoning and consider the reasoning used to b more important than which side the author is on.
This isn’t a problem if it happens now and again. Either the new user has too much arrogance to learn to adapt to lesswrong standards and leave or they learn what is expected here and integrate into the culture. The real problem comes when arational debators are able to lend support to each other, preventing natural social pressures from having the full effect. That’s when the sanity waterline can really start to fall.
It must be that all the lesswrong objectors are true believers in an echo chamber. Or maybe those that make the effort to reply are personally flawed. It couldn’t be that people here are able to evaluate the reasoning and consider the reasoning used to be more important than which side the author is on.
When we see this, we should point them to the correspondence bias and the evil enemies posts and caution them not to assume that a critical reply is an attack from someone who is subverting the community—or worse, defending the community from the truth.
As an aside, top level posts are scary. Twice I have written up something, and both times I deleted it because I thought I wouldn’t be able to accept criticism. There is this weird feeling you get when you look at your pet theories and novel ideas you have come up with: they feel like truth, and you know how good LessWrong is with the truth. They are going to love this idea, know that it is true immediately and with the same conviction that you have, and celebrate you as a good poster and community member. After deleting the posts (and maybe this is rationalization) it occurred to me that had anyone disagreed, that would have been evidence not that I was wrong, but that they hated truth.
I didn’t mean just that he was impolite, or just that pointing out flaws in a flawed argument is bad or impolite. Of course when a post is flawed it should be criticized.
I am disappointed that the criticism was destructive, claiming that the post was a pure appeal to authority, rather than constructive, discussing how we might best update on this evidence, even if our update is very small or even in the opposite direction.
I guess what I’m saying is that we should hold our upvotes to a higher standard than just “pointing out flaws in an argument.”
I guess what I’m saying is that we should hold our upvotes to a higher standard than just “pointing out flaws in an argument.”
It’s called less wrong for a reason. Encouraging the use of fallacious reasoning and dark arts rhetoric even by leaving it with a neutral reception would be fundamentally opposed to the purpose of this site. Most of the sequences, in fact, have been about how not to think stupid thoughts. One of the ways to do that is to prevent your habitat from overwhelming you with them and limiting your discussions to those that are up to at least a crudely acceptable level.
If you want a debate about AI subjects where the environment isn’t primarily focussed on rewarding sound reasoning then I am almost certain that there are other places that are more welcoming.
This particular thread has been about attacking poor reasoning via insult. I do not believe that this is necessarily the best way to promote sound reasoning. The argument could be made, and if you had started or if you continue by making that argument I would be satisfied with that.
I am happy to see that elsewhere there are responses which acknowledge that interesting information has been presented before completely demolishing the original article.
This makes me think that pursuing this argument between the two of us is not worthwhile, as it draws attention to both of us making posts that are not satisfying to each other and away from other posts which may seem productive to both of us.
This particular thread has been about attacking poor reasoning via insult. I do not believe that this is necessarily the best way to promote sound reasoning.
Agreed. It takes an effort of willpower not to get defensive when you are criticised, so an attack (especially with insults) is likely to cause the target to become defensive and try to fight back rather than learn where they went wrong. As we know from the politics sequence, an attack might even make their conviction stronger!
However,
I do not believe that this is necessarily the best way to promote sound reasoning.
I actually can’t find a post on LessWrong specifically about this, but it has been said many times that the best is the enemy of the good. Be very wary of shooting down an idea because it is not the best idea. In the overwhelming majority of cases, the idea is better than doing nothing, and (again I don’t have the cite, but it has been discussed here before) if you spend too much time looking for the best, you don’t have any time left to do any of the ideas, so you end up doing nothing—which is worse than the mediocre idea you argued against.
If I was to order the ways of dealing with poor reasoning, it would look like this: Point out poor reasoning > Attack poor reasoning with insult > Leave poor reasoning alone.
I guess what I’m saying is that we should hold our upvotes to a higher standard than just “pointing out flaws in an argument.”
I tend to agree, but what are those higher standards? One I would suggest is that the act of pointing out a flaw ought to be considered unsuccessful if the author of the flaw is not enlightened by the criticism. Sometimes communicating the existence of a flaw requires some handholding.
To those who object “It is not my job to educate a bias-laden idiot”, I respond, “And it is not my job to upvote your comment, either.”
Pointing out a flaw and suggesting how it might be amended would be an excellent post. Asking politely if the author has a different amendment in mind would be terrific.
And I could be incorrect here, but isn’t this site about nurturing rationalists? As I understand it, all of us humans (and clippy) are bias-laden idiots and the point of LessWrong is for us to educate ourselves and each other.
Wedrifid pointed out flaws in a flawed post, and pointed out flaws in a series of flawed arguments. You could debate the degree of politeness required but pointing out flaws is in some fundamental ways an impolite act. It is also a foundation of improving rationality. To the extent that these comment sections are about improving rationality, wedrifid behaved exactly as they should have.
Karma on LessWrong isn’t about politeness, as far as I have seen. For what it’s worth, in my kibitzer’d neutral observations, the unanimous downvoting is because readers spotted flaws; unanimous upvoting is for posts that point out flaws in posts.
I’m starting to think we may need to bring up Eliezer’s ‘tending to the garden before it becomes overgrown’ and ‘raising the sanity waterline’ posts from early on. There has been a recent trend of new users picking an agenda to support then employing the same kinds of fallacies and debating tactics in their advocacy. Then, when they are inevitably downvoted there is the same sense of outrage that mere LW participants dare evaluate their comments negatively.
It must be that all the lesswrong objectors are true believers in an echo chamber. Or maybe those that make the effort to reply are personally flawed. It couldn’t be that people here are able to evaluate the reasoning and consider the reasoning used to b more important than which side the author is on.
This isn’t a problem if it happens now and again. Either the new user has too much arrogance to learn to adapt to lesswrong standards and leave or they learn what is expected here and integrate into the culture. The real problem comes when arational debators are able to lend support to each other, preventing natural social pressures from having the full effect. That’s when the sanity waterline can really start to fall.
When we see this, we should point them to the correspondence bias and the evil enemies posts and caution them not to assume that a critical reply is an attack from someone who is subverting the community—or worse, defending the community from the truth.
As an aside, top level posts are scary. Twice I have written up something, and both times I deleted it because I thought I wouldn’t be able to accept criticism. There is this weird feeling you get when you look at your pet theories and novel ideas you have come up with: they feel like truth, and you know how good LessWrong is with the truth. They are going to love this idea, know that it is true immediately and with the same conviction that you have, and celebrate you as a good poster and community member. After deleting the posts (and maybe this is rationalization) it occurred to me that had anyone disagreed, that would have been evidence not that I was wrong, but that they hated truth.
I didn’t mean just that he was impolite, or just that pointing out flaws in a flawed argument is bad or impolite. Of course when a post is flawed it should be criticized.
I am disappointed that the criticism was destructive, claiming that the post was a pure appeal to authority, rather than constructive, discussing how we might best update on this evidence, even if our update is very small or even in the opposite direction.
I guess what I’m saying is that we should hold our upvotes to a higher standard than just “pointing out flaws in an argument.”
It’s called less wrong for a reason. Encouraging the use of fallacious reasoning and dark arts rhetoric even by leaving it with a neutral reception would be fundamentally opposed to the purpose of this site. Most of the sequences, in fact, have been about how not to think stupid thoughts. One of the ways to do that is to prevent your habitat from overwhelming you with them and limiting your discussions to those that are up to at least a crudely acceptable level.
If you want a debate about AI subjects where the environment isn’t primarily focussed on rewarding sound reasoning then I am almost certain that there are other places that are more welcoming.
This particular thread has been about attacking poor reasoning via insult. I do not believe that this is necessarily the best way to promote sound reasoning. The argument could be made, and if you had started or if you continue by making that argument I would be satisfied with that.
I am happy to see that elsewhere there are responses which acknowledge that interesting information has been presented before completely demolishing the original article.
This makes me think that pursuing this argument between the two of us is not worthwhile, as it draws attention to both of us making posts that are not satisfying to each other and away from other posts which may seem productive to both of us.
Agreed. It takes an effort of willpower not to get defensive when you are criticised, so an attack (especially with insults) is likely to cause the target to become defensive and try to fight back rather than learn where they went wrong. As we know from the politics sequence, an attack might even make their conviction stronger!
However,
I actually can’t find a post on LessWrong specifically about this, but it has been said many times that the best is the enemy of the good. Be very wary of shooting down an idea because it is not the best idea. In the overwhelming majority of cases, the idea is better than doing nothing, and (again I don’t have the cite, but it has been discussed here before) if you spend too much time looking for the best, you don’t have any time left to do any of the ideas, so you end up doing nothing—which is worse than the mediocre idea you argued against.
If I was to order the ways of dealing with poor reasoning, it would look like this: Point out poor reasoning > Attack poor reasoning with insult > Leave poor reasoning alone.
Again, I disagree substantially with your observations on the critical premises.
I tend to agree, but what are those higher standards? One I would suggest is that the act of pointing out a flaw ought to be considered unsuccessful if the author of the flaw is not enlightened by the criticism. Sometimes communicating the existence of a flaw requires some handholding.
To those who object “It is not my job to educate a bias-laden idiot”, I respond, “And it is not my job to upvote your comment, either.”
Pointing out a flaw and suggesting how it might be amended would be an excellent post. Asking politely if the author has a different amendment in mind would be terrific.
And I could be incorrect here, but isn’t this site about nurturing rationalists? As I understand it, all of us humans (and clippy) are bias-laden idiots and the point of LessWrong is for us to educate ourselves and each other.