That’s a good idea, and my article about how to “Explain Yourself!” has been in development hell way too long now. (I recently thought of doing a “Summary Execution” article, about how to summarize an article or another’s ideas, which is also a sorely lacking skill I see in others, and equally frustrating to me.) So I guess there’s laziness on my part, but not in my explanations when I do give them.
If what you can do were common, do you think LW would need so much rationality 101 material?
That’s not teaching quite the same thing (except of course, articles that tackle it directly like “Expecting Short Inferential Distance”—which partly disagrees with me on this anyway—and “Double Illusion of Transparency”). They talk about how to think correctly in general and how to avoid bias, not specifically how to explain.
Also, do you think mtraven is abnormally bad at whatever skillset you claim I’m good at? (I call the skill “explaining”, and I think you’re calling the same thing “verbal logic”.) I mean, how hard did you have to look to find an articulable reason why prisons but not schools are locked? [1]
People don’t honestly get stumped on that one, do they?
Alternatively, the issue may be one of understanding: I have abnormally high standards for what counts as “understanding” and only purport to be an expert (and therefore offer to explain something) when I’ve reached Level 2 in my hierarchy. Perhaps people think they’re qualified to explain when their understanding is actually much more shallow.
[1] I avoid mentioning, of course, that some schools do lock their kids in, but we can confine the question to the canonical case.
That’s a good idea, and my article about how to “Explain Yourself!” has been in development hell way too long now. (I recently thought of doing a “Summary Execution” article, about how to summarize an article or another’s ideas, which is also a sorely lacking skill I see in others, and equally frustrating to me.) So I guess there’s laziness on my part, but not in my explanations when I do give them.
That’s not teaching quite the same thing (except of course, articles that tackle it directly like “Expecting Short Inferential Distance”—which partly disagrees with me on this anyway—and “Double Illusion of Transparency”). They talk about how to think correctly in general and how to avoid bias, not specifically how to explain.
Also, do you think mtraven is abnormally bad at whatever skillset you claim I’m good at? (I call the skill “explaining”, and I think you’re calling the same thing “verbal logic”.) I mean, how hard did you have to look to find an articulable reason why prisons but not schools are locked? [1]
People don’t honestly get stumped on that one, do they?
Alternatively, the issue may be one of understanding: I have abnormally high standards for what counts as “understanding” and only purport to be an expert (and therefore offer to explain something) when I’ve reached Level 2 in my hierarchy. Perhaps people think they’re qualified to explain when their understanding is actually much more shallow.
[1] I avoid mentioning, of course, that some schools do lock their kids in, but we can confine the question to the canonical case.