Normic questions just aren’t the same as factual questions. There is no particular reason to expect eventual agreement on the former, even in principle, so ending conversations is just fine and to be expected.
*Edit: Second point was based on a misunderstanding of the objection.
You comment suggested that your goals in any further conversation would be very different from my own (that you were chiefly concerned with status and persuasion and not say, facts about what discursive norms would be most beneficial)
I am actually quite offended at the accusation and do not believe you have due cause to make it.
The presumption that individuals must accept any challenge and ‘defend’ their beliefs is a tactic that is commonly exploited. It can be used to imply “you have to convince me, and if I can resist believing you then I am high status”. It is something that I object to vocally and is just not part of rationality as I understand it. ‘Defensible’, just like ‘burden of proof’ just isn’t a bayesian concept, for all the part it plays in traditional rationality.
I actually didn’t think you would find my correction of a minor point objectionable. I had assumed you used the phrase ‘obligated to defend’ offhandedly and my reply was a mere tangent. I expected you to just revise it to something like “But if you do then don’t expect to be taken seriously unless you can defend your belief”.
Edit: Also, I just managed to lose like 9 karma in the span of two minutes. I presume it isn’t you, I’m just airing grievances to the downvoter, should they realize this.
I claim two. I don’t think that warranted an upvote because the point it made was not a good one and it also sub-communicated the attitude that you made explicit here. I also downvoted your original comment once it became clear that you present the normative assertion as a true part of your point rather than an accident of language. Come to think of it I originally upvoted the comment so that would count twice.
I left the immediate parent untouched because although it is offensive and somewhat of a reputational attack in that sense it at least is forthright and not underhanded. Outside of this context the last comment of yours I recall voting on is this one, which I considered quite insightful.
Please refrain from making such accusations again in the future without consideration. That I disagree with a single phrase doesn’t warrant going personal. I didn’t even take note of which author had said ‘are obligated to defend’ when I replied, much less seek to steal their status.
Whoa! On reflection this looks like an extended misunderstanding. This isn’t especially surprising as we’ve had trouble communicating before.
I am actually quite offended at the accusation and do not believe you have due cause to make it.
I apologize for offending you. In making the comment I truly didn’t mean it as a personal insult- though I can see how it came off that way. There is a not insignificant tendency around here to A) place truth-seeking as secondary to winning and B) reduce things to status games. So in your comment I pattern matched this
That is sometimes a useful thing to do and sometimes it is necessary for the purpose of persuasion. Of course, it’s usually more practical to attack their beliefs instead. That tends to give far more status.
with that tendency. And so in saying that persuasion and status seemed to be what you were concerned with I thought I was basically just recognizing the position you had taken.
There isn’t an explicit transition to this second part. I can see in retrospect that this was a comment about defending beliefs. You’re saying, no it is not an obligation, just sometimes a good idea, here is when it is (pragmatically) a good idea. What I saw the first time was “No, there isn’t any obligation like this. Here are the concerns that should instead enter into the decision to defend beliefs: Status and persuasion.” Even if the expectation that someone defends their beliefs doesn’t rise to the level of an obligation it still seems like the pro-social reasons for doing it have to do with truth-seeking and sharing information. So when all I see is persuasion and status I inferred that you weren’t concerned with these other things. Does that make it clear where I was getting it from, even if I got it wrong?
I actually didn’t think you would find my correction of a minor point objectionable. I had assumed you used the phrase ‘obligated to defend’ offhandedly and my reply was a mere tangent. I expected you to just revise it to something like “But if you do then don’t expect to be taken seriously unless you can defend your belief”.
It wasn’t a particularly deliberate phrasing. That said, I think it is a defensible, even obvious, rule of discourse. Of course, one way of describing what happens to someone when they don’t obey such rules is just that they are no longer taken seriously. Your tone in the first comment, didn’t suggest to me that you were only making a minor point and is part of the reason I interpreted it as differing from my own view more radically than it apparently does. And, I mean, an obligation that people be prepared to give reasons for their views seems like a totally reasonable thing to have in an attempt at cooperative rationalist discourse. Indeed, if people refuse to defend beliefs I have no idea how this kind of cooperation is suppose to proceed. From this perspective your objection looks like it has to be coming from a pretty different set of assumptions.
I’m going to edit the offending comment and remove the material. Would you consider making this last comment somewhat less scolding and accusatory as it was an honest misunderstanding?
Hi Jack, thanks for that. I deleted my reply. I can see why you would object to that first interpretation. I too like to keep my ‘winning’ quite separate from my truth seeking and would join you in objecting to exhortations that people should explain reasons for their beliefs only for pragmatic purposes. It may be that my firm disapproval of mixing epistemic rationality with pragmatics was directed at you, not the mutual enemy so pardon me if that is the case.
I certainly support giving explanations and justifications for beliefs. The main reason I wouldn’t support it as an obligation is for the kind of thing that you thought I was doing to you. Games can be played with norms and I don’t want people who are less comfortable with filtering out those sort of games to feel obligated to change their beliefs if they cannot defend them according to the criteria of a persuader.
Normic questions just aren’t the same as factual questions. There is no particular reason to expect eventual agreement on the former, even in principle, so ending conversations is just fine and to be expected.
*Edit: Second point was based on a misunderstanding of the objection.
I am actually quite offended at the accusation and do not believe you have due cause to make it.
The presumption that individuals must accept any challenge and ‘defend’ their beliefs is a tactic that is commonly exploited. It can be used to imply “you have to convince me, and if I can resist believing you then I am high status”. It is something that I object to vocally and is just not part of rationality as I understand it. ‘Defensible’, just like ‘burden of proof’ just isn’t a bayesian concept, for all the part it plays in traditional rationality.
I actually didn’t think you would find my correction of a minor point objectionable. I had assumed you used the phrase ‘obligated to defend’ offhandedly and my reply was a mere tangent. I expected you to just revise it to something like “But if you do then don’t expect to be taken seriously unless you can defend your belief”.
I claim two. I don’t think that warranted an upvote because the point it made was not a good one and it also sub-communicated the attitude that you made explicit here. I also downvoted your original comment once it became clear that you present the normative assertion as a true part of your point rather than an accident of language. Come to think of it I originally upvoted the comment so that would count twice.
I left the immediate parent untouched because although it is offensive and somewhat of a reputational attack in that sense it at least is forthright and not underhanded. Outside of this context the last comment of yours I recall voting on is this one, which I considered quite insightful.
Please refrain from making such accusations again in the future without consideration. That I disagree with a single phrase doesn’t warrant going personal. I didn’t even take note of which author had said ‘are obligated to defend’ when I replied, much less seek to steal their status.
Whoa! On reflection this looks like an extended misunderstanding. This isn’t especially surprising as we’ve had trouble communicating before.
I apologize for offending you. In making the comment I truly didn’t mean it as a personal insult- though I can see how it came off that way. There is a not insignificant tendency around here to A) place truth-seeking as secondary to winning and B) reduce things to status games. So in your comment I pattern matched this
with that tendency. And so in saying that persuasion and status seemed to be what you were concerned with I thought I was basically just recognizing the position you had taken.
There isn’t an explicit transition to this second part. I can see in retrospect that this was a comment about defending beliefs. You’re saying, no it is not an obligation, just sometimes a good idea, here is when it is (pragmatically) a good idea. What I saw the first time was “No, there isn’t any obligation like this. Here are the concerns that should instead enter into the decision to defend beliefs: Status and persuasion.” Even if the expectation that someone defends their beliefs doesn’t rise to the level of an obligation it still seems like the pro-social reasons for doing it have to do with truth-seeking and sharing information. So when all I see is persuasion and status I inferred that you weren’t concerned with these other things. Does that make it clear where I was getting it from, even if I got it wrong?
It wasn’t a particularly deliberate phrasing. That said, I think it is a defensible, even obvious, rule of discourse. Of course, one way of describing what happens to someone when they don’t obey such rules is just that they are no longer taken seriously. Your tone in the first comment, didn’t suggest to me that you were only making a minor point and is part of the reason I interpreted it as differing from my own view more radically than it apparently does. And, I mean, an obligation that people be prepared to give reasons for their views seems like a totally reasonable thing to have in an attempt at cooperative rationalist discourse. Indeed, if people refuse to defend beliefs I have no idea how this kind of cooperation is suppose to proceed. From this perspective your objection looks like it has to be coming from a pretty different set of assumptions.
I’m going to edit the offending comment and remove the material. Would you consider making this last comment somewhat less scolding and accusatory as it was an honest misunderstanding?
Hi Jack, thanks for that. I deleted my reply. I can see why you would object to that first interpretation. I too like to keep my ‘winning’ quite separate from my truth seeking and would join you in objecting to exhortations that people should explain reasons for their beliefs only for pragmatic purposes. It may be that my firm disapproval of mixing epistemic rationality with pragmatics was directed at you, not the mutual enemy so pardon me if that is the case.
I certainly support giving explanations and justifications for beliefs. The main reason I wouldn’t support it as an obligation is for the kind of thing that you thought I was doing to you. Games can be played with norms and I don’t want people who are less comfortable with filtering out those sort of games to feel obligated to change their beliefs if they cannot defend them according to the criteria of a persuader.