(1) Glad you asked! Appreciate the effort to create clarity.
Let’s start off with therecursive explanation, as it were, and then I’ll give the straightforward ones.
I say that because I actually do appreciate the effort, and I actually do want to avoid lowering your status for asking, or making you feel punished for asking. It’s a great question to be asking if you don’t understand, or are unsure if you understand or not, and you want to know. If you’re confused about this, and especially if others are as well, it’s important to clear it up.
Thus, I choose to expend effort to line these things up the way I want them lined up, in a way that I believe reflects reality and creates good incentives. Because the information that you asked should raise your status, not lower your status. It should cause people, including you, to do a Bayesian update that you are praiseworthy, not blameworthy. Whereas I worry, in context, that you or others would do the opposite if I answered in a way that implied I thought it was a stupid question, or was exasperated by having to answer, and so on.
On the other hand, if I believed that you damn well knew the answer, even unconsciously, and were asking in order to place upon me the burden of proof via creation of a robust ethical framework justifying not caring primarily about people’s social reactions rather than creation of clarity, lest I cede that I and others the moral burden of maintaining the status relations others desire as their primary motivation when sharing information. Or if I thought the point was to point out that I was using “should” which many claim is a word that indicates entitlement or sloppy thinking and an attempt to bully, and thus one should ignore the information content in favor of this error. Or if in general I did not think this question was asked in good faith?
Then I might or might not want to answer the question and give the information, and I might or might not think it worthwhile to point out the mechanisms I was observing behind the question, but I certainly would not want to prevent others from observing your question and its context, and performing a proper Bayesian update on you and what your status and level of blame/praise should be, according to their observations.
(And no, really, I am glad you asked and appreciate the effort, in this case. But: I desire to be glad you asked if knowing the true mechanisms behind the question combined with its effects would cause me to be glad you asked, and I desire to not be glad you asked if knowing the true mechanisms behind the question combined with its effects would cause me to not be glad you asked. Let me not become attached to beliefs I may not want. And I desire to tell you true things. Etc. Amen.)
(1) Glad you asked! Appreciate the effort to create clarity.
Let’s start off with the recursive explanation, as it were, and then I’ll give the straightforward ones.
I say that because I actually do appreciate the effort, and I actually do want to avoid lowering your status for asking, or making you feel punished for asking. It’s a great question to be asking if you don’t understand, or are unsure if you understand or not, and you want to know. If you’re confused about this, and especially if others are as well, it’s important to clear it up.
Thus, I choose to expend effort to line these things up the way I want them lined up, in a way that I believe reflects reality and creates good incentives. Because the information that you asked should raise your status, not lower your status. It should cause people, including you, to do a Bayesian update that you are praiseworthy, not blameworthy. Whereas I worry, in context, that you or others would do the opposite if I answered in a way that implied I thought it was a stupid question, or was exasperated by having to answer, and so on.
On the other hand, if I believed that you damn well knew the answer, even unconsciously, and were asking in order to place upon me the burden of proof via creation of a robust ethical framework justifying not caring primarily about people’s social reactions rather than creation of clarity, lest I cede that I and others the moral burden of maintaining the status relations others desire as their primary motivation when sharing information. Or if I thought the point was to point out that I was using “should” which many claim is a word that indicates entitlement or sloppy thinking and an attempt to bully, and thus one should ignore the information content in favor of this error. Or if in general I did not think this question was asked in good faith?
Then I might or might not want to answer the question and give the information, and I might or might not think it worthwhile to point out the mechanisms I was observing behind the question, but I certainly would not want to prevent others from observing your question and its context, and performing a proper Bayesian update on you and what your status and level of blame/praise should be, according to their observations.
(And no, really, I am glad you asked and appreciate the effort, in this case. But: I desire to be glad you asked if knowing the true mechanisms behind the question combined with its effects would cause me to be glad you asked, and I desire to not be glad you asked if knowing the true mechanisms behind the question combined with its effects would cause me to not be glad you asked. Let me not become attached to beliefs I may not want. And I desire to tell you true things. Etc. Amen.)