“I speak while you listen and cannot comment or ask questions without consent” is completely doomed as a widespread mode of communication, not because people find it restrictive (though they do, of course), but because of how it interacts with the way that human speech reveals power dynamics. Speaking while others listen to you without being able to comment is an instinctively high-status behavior, it’s a complete power move on the other person if this is just a 2-person conversation. It’s like maintaining too strong eye contact with your friend, it creates social tension because there is disagreeming about the relative status of the participants. This means that during every part of the algorithm that the other person is talking, you need to squash down an instinct that says “this dude is trying to say he’s higher status than me”. This might well be possible for very weird people like lesswrong readers, but I don’t think it will ever be possible at any large scale.
I don’t think that’s even always true in this world?
And people take turns, it’s not really different status-wise then taking turns giving backrubs or massaging each other feet or something?
Just being present and listening to someone without comment means I have lower status that person… what? If anything it is an honor to be able to help a person in that way, people in my world understand that.
If I though that someone was exploiting the Algorithm to deliberately say things for the purpose of making me uncomfortable instead of just saying uncomfortable things as a side effect of desire to be understood I would notice because we are good at noticing patterns and we have training in dealing with unreasonable people just to prevent an occasional sociapath (yes we do get those) from exploiting us. And I would bring how I feel about that person’s behavior up when it was my turn and if it didn’t help I would note my level-of-confidence of that person being a bad-agent and stop talking to them. (and if enough people agreed that that person was a bad-agent most people would stop interacting with them and those who did interact with them would treat them as untrustworthy).
Just being present and listening to someone without comment means I have lower status that person… what? If anything it is an honor to be able to help a person in that way, people in my world understand that.
I am extremely supportive of a move to more turn-taking and higher variance in contribution to a conversation, and allowing larger quantums of thought in general. However in a world where people already believe talking is higher status than listening (which is definitely true in most if not all cultures I’m familiar with, with exceptions that don’t apply here), saying it’s an honor to be the listener doesn’t counter the point, it reinforces it. The same way saying “It’s an honor to kiss the king’s feet” wouldn’t make you feel higher status relative to the king.
Sure. I’m trying demonstrate why it’s not considered low-status in my world, not claiming that anyone should feel this way in this world (though some people might already do?) The communication norms are the way they are for a reason, and I’m not arguing with that.
Also therapists aren’t considered low-status and listening is their job? Though I wish they were better at listening in this world.
I think the behaviors around speaking order, tone, dominance hierarchies, laughing, eye contact and that sort of thing are built into us by evolution at deep psychological levels, and any conversational norms for everyday speech that try to go against the grain of that programming will fail and bring misery to people.
But I’m on Lesswrong, so I obviously sympathize with the general goal here, and if a friend requested to speak with them in this way I’d try it out to see how it feels.
You’re right that naively or dismissively trying to go against the grain ain’t gonna work and that it’s an important thing to check, but it’s not actually necessary to go against the grain to adopt this conversational style.
Compare
“My brain is tuned for deeper cognitive processing than yours, so you, the listener are not allowed to express opinions or ask questions (without asking for consent for that first). Understand?”
with
“I have a hard time handling conflicting mental models, which is why I haven’t been able to keep up productively with these kinds of conversations. Would it be okay with you if we took bigger turns listening and put off objections and conflicting input until a bit later so that I can make space for them in my mind?”
The former no doubt gives you the kind of bristles you worry about, but I doubt the latter does. The proposal of “you listen to me” on its own is a status bid, but the symmetric proposal of “we listen to each other” isn’t, and justifying it as enabling your desire to process their input is actually a status boost for them.
I can contribute a data point to this. A long time ago, a friend of mine studied and lived with a Yup’ik tribe in Alaska. She told me that in their meetings, it was a strong cultural norm to be absolutely silent while the speaker speaks, no matter who they are, until they say the word for “done”, even if the person pauses for several minutes. The only exception to this norm was when an elder tells someone younger that they are done, using the exact same word. So I guess the better translation would be “I am/you are done”. She told me that this was normally used for guidance/instruction.
People are able to cope when there is a explicit chair of speech such as in some parlamentary systems. “Completely doomed” seems to me to be a bit of a hyberbole.
Balancing whether the discussion is painful for the HSP or “annoying instinct squash down” for the low sensitivity person, if the discussion wants to include all it is unlikely to let the HSP carry most of the inconvenience of the discussion. Off course what tends to happen is that the way that majority feels high comfort in dealing with is selected even if it means sidelining a couple of oddballs. But at some point peoples dislike for chilling effects might overcome convenience.
“I speak while you listen and cannot comment or ask questions without consent” is completely doomed as a widespread mode of communication, not because people find it restrictive (though they do, of course), but because of how it interacts with the way that human speech reveals power dynamics. Speaking while others listen to you without being able to comment is an instinctively high-status behavior, it’s a complete power move on the other person if this is just a 2-person conversation. It’s like maintaining too strong eye contact with your friend, it creates social tension because there is disagreeming about the relative status of the participants. This means that during every part of the algorithm that the other person is talking, you need to squash down an instinct that says “this dude is trying to say he’s higher status than me”. This might well be possible for very weird people like lesswrong readers, but I don’t think it will ever be possible at any large scale.
I don’t think that’s even always true in this world?
And people take turns, it’s not really different status-wise then taking turns giving backrubs or massaging each other feet or something?
Just being present and listening to someone without comment means I have lower status that person… what? If anything it is an honor to be able to help a person in that way, people in my world understand that.
If I though that someone was exploiting the Algorithm to deliberately say things for the purpose of making me uncomfortable instead of just saying uncomfortable things as a side effect of desire to be understood I would notice because we are good at noticing patterns and we have training in dealing with unreasonable people just to prevent an occasional sociapath (yes we do get those) from exploiting us. And I would bring how I feel about that person’s behavior up when it was my turn and if it didn’t help I would note my level-of-confidence of that person being a bad-agent and stop talking to them. (and if enough people agreed that that person was a bad-agent most people would stop interacting with them and those who did interact with them would treat them as untrustworthy).
I am extremely supportive of a move to more turn-taking and higher variance in contribution to a conversation, and allowing larger quantums of thought in general. However in a world where people already believe talking is higher status than listening (which is definitely true in most if not all cultures I’m familiar with, with exceptions that don’t apply here), saying it’s an honor to be the listener doesn’t counter the point, it reinforces it. The same way saying “It’s an honor to kiss the king’s feet” wouldn’t make you feel higher status relative to the king.
Sure. I’m trying demonstrate why it’s not considered low-status in my world, not claiming that anyone should feel this way in this world (though some people might already do?) The communication norms are the way they are for a reason, and I’m not arguing with that.
Also therapists aren’t considered low-status and listening is their job? Though I wish they were better at listening in this world.
Maybe a better way to phrase my point is this:
I think the behaviors around speaking order, tone, dominance hierarchies, laughing, eye contact and that sort of thing are built into us by evolution at deep psychological levels, and any conversational norms for everyday speech that try to go against the grain of that programming will fail and bring misery to people.
But I’m on Lesswrong, so I obviously sympathize with the general goal here, and if a friend requested to speak with them in this way I’d try it out to see how it feels.
You’re right that naively or dismissively trying to go against the grain ain’t gonna work and that it’s an important thing to check, but it’s not actually necessary to go against the grain to adopt this conversational style.
Compare
“My brain is tuned for deeper cognitive processing than yours, so you, the listener are not allowed to express opinions or ask questions (without asking for consent for that first). Understand?”
with
“I have a hard time handling conflicting mental models, which is why I haven’t been able to keep up productively with these kinds of conversations. Would it be okay with you if we took bigger turns listening and put off objections and conflicting input until a bit later so that I can make space for them in my mind?”
The former no doubt gives you the kind of bristles you worry about, but I doubt the latter does. The proposal of “you listen to me” on its own is a status bid, but the symmetric proposal of “we listen to each other” isn’t, and justifying it as enabling your desire to process their input is actually a status boost for them.
I can contribute a data point to this. A long time ago, a friend of mine studied and lived with a Yup’ik tribe in Alaska. She told me that in their meetings, it was a strong cultural norm to be absolutely silent while the speaker speaks, no matter who they are, until they say the word for “done”, even if the person pauses for several minutes. The only exception to this norm was when an elder tells someone younger that they are done, using the exact same word. So I guess the better translation would be “I am/you are done”. She told me that this was normally used for guidance/instruction.
People are able to cope when there is a explicit chair of speech such as in some parlamentary systems. “Completely doomed” seems to me to be a bit of a hyberbole.
Balancing whether the discussion is painful for the HSP or “annoying instinct squash down” for the low sensitivity person, if the discussion wants to include all it is unlikely to let the HSP carry most of the inconvenience of the discussion. Off course what tends to happen is that the way that majority feels high comfort in dealing with is selected even if it means sidelining a couple of oddballs. But at some point peoples dislike for chilling effects might overcome convenience.