I don’t think it is possible for you to tell someone that they are disingenuous
I do that all the time. There seems to be nothing in the meaning of the word that means it cannot be applied to another.
It is not rational to make a claim without providing supporting evidence.
That isn’t true. It is simply a different form of communication. Description is different from argumentative persuasion. It is not (necessarily) irrational to do the former.
You cannot just say that I am making blatant contradictions or performing “semantic gymnastics”
In the context the statement serves as an explanation for the downvotes. It is assumed that you or any readers familiar with the context will be able to remember the details. In fact this is one of those circumstances where “disingenuous” applies. There are multiple pages of conversation discussing your contradictions already and so pretending that there is not supporting evidence available is not credible.
without undertaking the burden of proof.
NO! “Burden of proof” is for courts and social battles, not thinking.
You make an argument so that I can counter it
This isn’t debate club either!
you can’t just libel me because you have deemed that to be what is logical.
Yes, with respect to libel, the aforementioned ‘burden of proof’ becomes relevant. Of course this isn’t libel, or a court. Consider that I would not have explained to you why (I perceive) your comments were downvoted if you didn’t bring them up and make implications about the irrationality of the voters and community. If you go around saying “You downvoted me therefore you suck!” then it drastically increases the chances that you will receive a reply “No, the downvotes are right because your comments sucked!”
NO! “Burden of proof” is for courts and social battles, not thinking.
You make an argument so that I can counter it
This isn’t debate club either!
So many people don’t seem to get this! It’s infuriating.
I wonder if it’s just word association with Traditional Rationality. People think making persuasive arguments has anything to do with what we’re doing here.
Yes, making persuasive arguments is often instrumentally useful, and so in that sense is a ‘rationality skill’ - but cooking and rock climbing are also ‘rationality skills’ in that sense.
My usual working theory is that smart people often learn that winning the argument game is a way for smart people to gain status, especially within academia and within communities of soi-disant smart people (aka mensa), and thus come to expect any community of smart people will use the argument game as a primary way to earn and retain status. They identify LW as a community of smart people, so they begin playing the argument game in order to establish their status.
And when playing the argument game results in _losing_status instead, they feel betrayed and defensive.
I don’t usually italicize it, but I wouldn’t be too surprised to encounter it italicized, especially in print. I imagine it depends one whether one considers it an English word borrowed from a foreign language (which I do) or a foreign phrase (which one plausibly could).
How odd! When I went there through google it didn’t ask for a login, but when I follow the link it does.
Anyway, summarized, his point is that the benefits to the right audience of using the right word at the right time outweigh the costs to everyone else either looking it up and learning a new word, getting the general meaning from context, or not understanding and ignoring it. But like much of Buckley, the original text is worth reading if you enjoy language.
Googling “Buckley eristic lapidary November” should get you a link that works.
We should probably just use those phrases directly then, rather than excluding possible readers without adding any informational content.
Nonsense. More words is better. Nuance is good. Words are trivially easy to look up.
I didn’t ask what the word meant, because by the time I was done reading the comment I knew what the word meant and even had a rough sense of when I would want to use “soi-disant” as opposed to “so-called” or “self-proclaimed”.
Agreed that more words are better–more possible information can be conveyed. However, it sounds like you’re better than the average reader at grasping the meaning of words from context. (Knowing French, I can guess what ‘soi-disant’ means...having no idea, I don’t know if I would have deduced it from the context of just that one comment.)
It’s not unreasonable to infer from by the time I was done reading the comment I knew what the word meant and even had a rough sense of when I would want to use “soi-disant” as opposed to “so-called” or “self-proclaimed” that thomblake didn’t interrupt his reading of the comment to go perform some other task (e.g., looking the word up on google).
I mean, if someone said about an essay that by the time they were done reading it they had a deep understanding of quantum mechanics, I would probably infer that the essay explained quantum mechanics, even though they might mean they started reading it in 2009, put it down unfinished to go study QM for three years, then found the unfinished essay (which was in fact about gardenias) and finished reading it.
As I understand it, “counterfactual” originates from history, it means, originally, when historians analyze what would happen if some particular thing had gone differently.
Really? I always thought it came from logic/semantics: a “counterfactual conditional” is one of the form “If X had happened, Y would have”, and there is a minor industry in finding truth conditions for them.
No, the difference is between serious historical studies of what would likely have happened, vs people who make up new characters who had no significance OTL to tell a good story.
To expand on this—a counterfactual might predict “and then we would still have dirigibles today”, or not, if asking “what if the Hindenburg disaster had not occurred.” It would probably NOT predict who would be president in 2012, neither would it predict that in a question wholly unrelated to air travel or lighter-than-air technology. An alternate history fiction story might need the president for the plot, and it might go with the current president or it might go with Jack Ryan. An alternate history timeline is somewhere in the middle, but in general will ask “what change could have made [some radically different way the modern world looks like]” rather than “what can we predict would have happened if [some change happened]” and refrain from speculation on stuff that can’t be predicted to any reasonable probability.
The line is also to some extent definable as between historians and fiction authors, though these can certainly overlap particularly in the amateur side of things.
I do that all the time. There seems to be nothing in the meaning of the word that means it cannot be applied to another.
Let me rephrase, it is irrational to make a declarative statement about the inner workings of another person’s mind, seeing as there is no way for one person to fully understand the mental state of another.
That isn’t true. It is simply a different form of communication. Description is different from argumentative persuasion. It is not (necessarily) irrational to do the former.
You talk to me about semantic gymnastics?
No, it is not necessarily irrational to be descriptive without providing evidence. Author’s of fiction can be descriptive and do not need to provide evidence, as well as several other mediums of writing. But come on, do you really think that if you attack my writing and intentions you don’t need evidence and that is ok?
NO! “Burden of proof” is for courts and social battles, not thinking.
This isn’t debate club either!
Wedrifid, if you do not think that it is the obligation of a rational statement to provide some evidence or reason for justification of its claim, then I do not know what to say to you.
If you go around saying “You downvoted me therefore you suck!” then it drastically increases the chances that you will receive a reply “No, the downvotes are right because your comments sucked!”
Anyone who read my comments and interpreted them as me saying “you down voted me therefore you suck!” is vilifying me. I made a comment about a time I got up voted and how I did not understand why out of everything I wrote that sentence was deemed more rational. I never insulted anyone, or was demeaning in anyway.
You talk to me about semantic gymnastics? No, it is not necessarily irrational to be descriptive without providing evidence. Author’s of fiction can be descriptive and do not need to provide evidence, as well as several other mediums of writing. But come on, do you really think that if you attack my writing and intentions you don’t need evidence and that is ok?
You are blatantly ignoring the direct reference to the relevant evidence that I provided in the grandparent. I repeat that reference now—read your inbox, scroll back until you find the dozen or so messages saying ‘this is just a contradiction!’ or equivalent. I repeat with extra emphasis that your denial of any evidence is completely incredible.
Any benefit of a doubt that you are communicating in good faith is rapidly eroding.
Let me rephrase, it is irrational to make a declarative statement about the inner workings of another person’s mind, seeing as there is no way for one person to fully understand the mental state of another.
No.
(Leaving aside the problems with declaring a course of action “irrational” without reference to a goal...)
There is no fact that I am 100% certain of. Any knowledge about the world is held at some probability between 0 and 1, exclusive. We make declarative statements of facts despite the necessary uncertainty. Statements about the inner workings of another person’s mind are in no way special with that respect; I can make declarative statements about your mind, and I can make declarative statements about my mind, and in neither case am I going to be completely certain. I can be wrong about your motivations, and you can be wrong about your motivations.
If you make a claim about the character of another person or the state of reality do you or do you not need some evidence to support it?
I can make claims about anything without supporting it, whether or not it’s about someone’s character. The moon is made of green cheese. George Washington was more akratic than my mother. See, there, I did it twice.
It can often be rational to do so. For example, if someone trustworthy offers me a million dollars for making the claim “two plus two equals five”, I will assert “two plus two equals five” and accept my million dollars.
If it helps resolve the confusion at all, my working theory is that HT believes unjustified and negative claims have been made about his/her character, and is trying to construct a formal structure that allows such claims to be rejected on formal grounds, rather than by evaluation of available evidence.
FWIW, I tend to respond to comments ignoring the context, as my main goal here is to improve the quality of the site by correcting minor mistakes (aside from cracking jokes and discussing Harry Potter).
Pretty sure he means epistemically irrational, not instrumentally.
Probably. But I’m finding myself more and more in the “epistemic rationality is a case of instrumental rationality” camp, though not to any particular effect personally since I rate epistemic rationality very highly for its own sake.
I understand what you are saying; you are saying that for the speaker of the statement it is not irrational, because the false statement might meet their motives. Or in other words, that rationality is completely dependent on the motives of the actor. Is this the rationality that your group idealizes? That as long as what I say or do works towards my personal motives it is rational? So if I want to convince the world that God is real, it is rational to make up whatever lies I see fit to delegitimize other belief systems?
So religious zealots are rational because they have a goal that their lies and craziness is helping them achieve? That is what you are arguing.
If someone told you that the moon was made of cheese, being a rational person, without providing any evidence of the fact, if they had no reason to believe that, they just believed it, you would think they were being irrational. And you know it. You just want to pick a fight.
Or in other words, that rationality is completely dependent on the motives of the actor.
In the sense I think you mean it, yes. Two equally rational actors with different motives will perform different acts.
That as long as what I say or do works towards my personal motives it is rational?
Yes.
So if I want to convince the world that God is real, it is rational to make up whatever lies I see fit to delegitimize other belief systems?
If that’s the most effective way to convince the world that God is real, and you value the world being convinced that God is real, yes.
So religious zealots are rational because they have a goal that their lies and craziness is helping them achieve?
Not necessarily, in that religious zealots don’t necessarily have such goals. But yes, if a religious zealot who in fact values things that are in fact best achieved through lies and craziness chooses to engage in those lies and craziness, that’s a rational act in the sense we mean it here.
If someone told you that the moon was made of cheese, being a rational person, without providing any evidence of the fact, if they had no reason to believe that, they just believed it, you would think they were being irrational.
Sure, that’s most likely true.
You just want to pick a fight.
You may be right about thomblake’s motives, though I find it unlikely. That said, deciding how likely I consider it is my responsibility. You are not obligated to provide evidence for it.
(nods) I was taking the “if they had no reason to believe that, they just believed it” part of the problem specification literally. (e.g., it’s not a joke, etc.)
Aha—I glossed over that bit as irrelevant since the scenario is someone saying some words, which is clearly a case for instrumental rather than epistemic rationality. I should probably have read the “someone told you” as the irrelevant bit and answered as though we were talking about epistemic rationality.
(nods) Of course in the real world you’re entirely correct. That said, I find a lot of thought experiments depend on positing a situation I can’t imagine any way of getting into and asking what follows from there.
I understand what you are saying; you are saying that for the speaker of the statement it is not irrational, because the false statement might meet their motives. Or in other words, that rationality is completely dependent on the motives of the actor.
Yes.
Is this the rationality that your group idealizes?
Do not ask whether it is “the Way” to do this or that. Ask whether the sky is blue or green. If you speak overmuch of the Way you will not attain it.
You may try to name the highest principle with names such as “the map that reflects the territory” or “experience of success and failure” or “Bayesian decision theory”. But perhaps you describe incorrectly the nameless virtue. How will you discover your mistake? Not by comparing your description to itself, but by comparing it to that which you did not name.
.
If someone told you that the moon was made of cheese, being a rational person, without providing any evidence of the fact, if they had no reason to believe that, they just believed it, you would think they were being irrational. And you know it.
No, I would generally not think someone was “being irrational” without specific reference to their motivations. If I must concern myself with the fulfillment of someone else’s utility function, it would usually take the form of “You should not X in order to Z because Y will more efficiently Z.” ETA: I would more likely think that their statement was a joke, and failing that think that it’s false and try to correct it. In case anyone’s curious, “the moon is made of green cheese” was a paradigm of a ridiculous, unproveable statement before humans went to the moon; and “green cheese” in this context means “new cheese”, not the color green.
You just want to pick a fight.
No, I’d rather be working on my dissertation, but I have a moral obligation to correct mistakes and falsehoods posted on this site.
I understand what you are saying; you are saying that for the speaker of the statement it is not irrational, because the false statement might meet their motives. Or in other words, that rationality is completely dependent on the motives of the actor.
Correct. As noted on another branch of this comment tree, this interpretation characterizes “instrumental rationality”, though a similar case could be made for “epistemic rationality”.
So religious zealots are rational because they have a goal that their lies and craziness is helping them achieve? That is what you are arguing.
That is not what I was arguing. If I understand you correctly however, you mean to say that what I’m arguing applies equally well to that case.
The important part of that statement is “X is rational”, where X is a human. Inasmuch as that predicate indicates that the subject behaves rationally most of the time, I would deny that it should be applied to any human. Humans are exceptionally bad at rationality.
That said, if a person X decided that course of action Y was the most efficient way to fulfill their utility function, then Y is rational by definition. (Of course, this applies equally well to non-persons with utility functions). Even if Y = “lies and craziness” or “religious belief” or “pin an aubergine to your lapel”.
So if I want to convince the world that God is real, it is rational to make up whatever lies I see fit to delegitimize other belief systems?
That’s a difficult empirical question, and outside my domain of expertise. You might want to consult an expert on lying, though I’d first question whether the subgoal of convincing the world that God is real, really advances your overall goals.
Let me rephrase, it is irrational to make a declarative statement about the inner workings of another person’s mind, seeing as there is no way for one person to fully understand the mental state of another.
Is it irrational to call a statement a lie? As I had understood the word, “disingenuous” is a fancy way to say “lying”.
(I don’t suppose you’d be enlightened if I said “Yes, that’s incorrect”)
Tell me honestly, do you really think that it is rational to make a declarative statement about something you know nothing about?
Do you consider it irrational to say the sky is blue when you are in a room with no window?
No, because there is reason and evidence to support the statement that the sky is blue. The most obvious of which is that it has been blue your entire life.
No offense, but your example is a gross misrepresentation of the situation. I am not saying that no statement can be made without evidence (this is Wedrifid’s semantic twist). My statement is that it is impossible for a person to directly know the subjective experience of another person’s consciousness, and that it is irrational to say that you know when someone is being insincere or not.
I think at this point I have to ask when you consider it to be rational to make a declarative statement, and what is “nothing” vs “enough”. And in particular, why you must have direct knowledge of the subjective experience to say they are being insincere.
If someone is here, on a site filled with reasonablly intelligent people who understand logic, and demonstrates elsewhere that they are reasonably intelligent and understand logic, and in one particular argument make obviously logically inconsistent statements, I don’t need their state of mind to say they’re being disingenuous. I don’t know how well that maps to this situation or what has been claimed about it.
Well, maybe it’s a bit too fancy to be stretched into “lying”. But the point is one of dishonesty, of a difference between actual intent and visible signs, and, what’s relevant here, it does imply a model of someone’s actual intentions (for “disingenuous”), or actual beliefs (for “lie”).
I don’t agree with HT that it’s irrational (his basis for this seems to imply that any declarative statement about anything ever is irrational), which is why I drew a comparison between it and something I assumed he would be unlikely to consider irrational in the sense he meant when saying it of calling someone disingenuous.
If someone were to make a statement about what another person was sincere about, without even knowing that person, without ever having met that person, or without having spent more than a week interacting with that person, would you say their statement was irrational?
By the way, you do not need to indicate who a comment is to in a reply—it is clearly listed at the top of any comment you post as a reply, and is automatically sent to the user’s inbox.
Agreed. Really just a prominent indication that they exist might be enough, since they’re pretty much in the obvious place to check once you know they’re there.
Though PMs don’t let me argue with you in public, which eliminates most of the status-management function of argument. (I’m not claiming here that this is a bad thing, mind you.)
It does have the effect of signaling that third parties are not welcome to respond, though, which might be desirable.
This approximately describes my reason for downvoting the comment in question. I deny the right of anyone to choose who may reply to their public comments. That is, I deny the right of anyone to claim a soapbox from which they can speak without reply from those that their rhetoric may impact.
As thomblake mentioned, there is a private messaging feature for direct personal communication. For public communication everyone may reply.
Does it really signal that, any more than using the word “you”? Will wedrifid downvote comments that do that, as well? (Who other than wedrifid is qualified to answer that last question, I wonder? I won’t tell anyone they can’t, but I do reserve the right to assign a low probability to them being correct if wedrifid makes a statement on the issue that contradicts someone else’s, and such an answer will have lower value to me and I suspect anyone else reading it.)
Does it really signal that, any more than using the word “you”?
Assuming you’re asking the question genuinely, rather than rhetorically: it certainly signals that to me more than using the word “you” does, yes. Of course, my reaction might be idiosyncratic.
In my own opinion, I think it’s more grandstanding than anything… of the same sort as “are you actually claiming”* - it’s an attempt to put the other person on the spot, and make them feel as if they need to defend their opinions.
*No offense… I don’t like the karma system either, but the comparison to soviet era repression was a bit much. But, then, maybe I don’t feel a loss of karma as acutely since I don’t write articles.
I suspect you’re right. Still, I try to treat questions as though they were sincere even if I’m pretty sure they’re rhetorical; it seems the more charitable route.
But, then, maybe I don’t feel a loss of karma as acutely since I don’t write articles.
That is a real concern, though it was mostly solved via the discussion section. Article-writing has karma thresholds for posting, so someone who posts a bad article to main could lose enough karma to not be able to post anymore; furthermore, one would expect a first post to be bad and so it seems this might happen to every new user who tries to post an article. But the discussion section has lower penalties for article downvotes, and lower quality standards, so it’s not so bad.
I’d express my agreement as though it was evidence against the idiosyncraticity of the reaction, but it’s very weak evidence since we’ve agreed on a few of these now.
I now want a linguistic convention for expressing agreement while explicitly not proposing that agreement as independent evidence. Kind of like “I agree, but what do I know?” except I want it to be a single word and not read as passive-aggressive.
Does it really signal that, any more than using the word “you”?
Somewhat more, yes.
Will wedrifid downvote comments that do that, as well?
Given that wedrifid seems to use ‘you’ rather frequently in comments I infer that he doesn’t have any particular problem with it. It should be noted that surrounding context and content of the comment makes a big difference on how wedrifid interprets such comments, more so than the specific nature of the address.
Who other than wedrifid is qualified to answer that last question, I wonder?
Vladimir_Nesov could probably give a decent guess. He’s been around to see the wedrifid lesswrong persona for as long as lesswrong has been around and of those that have expressed their voting style probably has the most similar voting habits to wedrifid.
I won’t tell anyone they can’t, but I do reserve the right to assign a low probability to them being correct if wedrifid makes a statement on the issue that contradicts someone else’s, and such an answer will have lower value to me and I suspect anyone else reading it.
For some people it would be tempting to say that a third party is more likely to correctly predict the other’s voting pattern, simply because people have plausible incentive to lie. I thank you for your implied expression of confidence in my honesty! :)
I concede the win to you, even though I still think the objection is silly, and that you should have simply asked him not to do it instead of the high-handed passive-aggressive “I will downvote any future comments that do that”.
For some people it would be tempting to say that a third party is more likely to correctly predict the other’s voting pattern, simply because people have plausible incentive to lie. I thank you for your implied expression of confidence in my honesty! :)
Well, no-one else can see your votes, anyway, can they? ;)
Win? I’m confused. I didn’t think I was competing with you about anything! Were we arguing about something? I thought I was expressing my preferences in the form of a tangent from your description.
passive-aggressive
Aggressive perhaps and I can understand why you may say “high-handed”, but passive? There is no way that is remotely passive. It’s a clear and direct expression of active policy! Approximately the opposite to passive. Some would even take it as a threat (even though it technically doesn’t qualify as such since it is just what would be done anyway even without any desire to control the other.)
and that you should have simply asked him not to do it
I acknowledge your preference that I ask people not to do a behavior rather than declare that I downvote a behavior. In this case I will not comply but can at least explain. I don’t like asking things of those with whom I have no rapport and no reason to expect them to wish to assist me. To me that just feels unnatural. In fact, the only reason I would ask in such a case is because to do so influences the audience and thereby manipulates the target. Instead I like to acknowledge where the real boundaries of influence are. I influence my votes. He influences his comments. Others influence their votes.
In the end it could be that you upvote most instances of a thing while I downvote most instances of a thing. We cancel out, with the only change being that between the two of us we lose one person’s worth of voting nuance in such cases.
The “passive-aggressive” bit, in my opinion, was where he solicited people’s opinion on whether it offends them, and you skipped past actually saying it offends you and went to threats.
For what it is worth, I will (continue to) downvote comments that take the form and role that the great-grandparent takes. Take that into consideration to whatever extent karma considerations bother you.
FWIW, it did not read that way to me—it seemed like an efficient statement of consequences. Asking someone not to do X does not imply X will be downvoted in the future. And folks like myself sometimes make comments with negative expected karma.
If someone has stated they won’t do it if someone asks them not to, and his goal was for there to be fewer such comments in the future (which is the general goal of downvoting things), then it would be more efficient in terms of achieving that goal to lead by simply asking politely not to, and maybe add the “and I’ll downvote anyone who does” as a postscript.
Leading with the downvote threat seemed needlessly belligerent.
I find it impolite—it increases the length of your comment and number of characters on the screen and does not provide any information. That said, I am not terribly bothered by it, so ‘whatever floats your gerbil’.
I think it is polite, and if it does not offend you or anyone else I will keep doing it.
For what it is worth, I will (continue to) downvote comments that take the form and role that the great-grandparent takes. Take that into consideration to whatever extent karma considerations bother you.
So if it bothers you why not just say so. I said if it offends you or anyone else please tell me. At this point wedrifid all you are doing is hazing me due to personal insecurities.
Didn’t I just do that? I phrased it in terms of what I can control (my own votes) and what influence that has on you (karma). That gives no presumption or expectation that you must heed my wishes.
At this point wedrifid all you are doing is hazing me due to personal insecurities.
That is a big leap! I don’t think I’m doing that. Mind you, given the power that hazing has in making significant and lasting change in people I would make use of it as a tool of influence if I could work out how!
Hm. I was going to say that it’s certainly possible. But then, thinking about it some more, I realized that my working definition of “hazing” is almost entirely congruent with “harassment.” It’s certainly possible to harass people on LW, but the social costs to the harasser can be significant (depending on how well it’s finessed, of course). I guess that to get the social-influence-with-impunity effects of hazing I’d need to first establish a social norm sufficiently ubiquitous that harassing someone in the name of enforcing that social norm is reliably categorized as “enforcing the norm” (and thus praised) rather than “harassing people” (and thus condemned).
Hm. It seems to follow that the first step would be to recruit local celebrities (Eliezer, Luke, Alicorn, Yvain, etc.) to your cause. Which means, really, that the first step would be to make a compelling case for the significant changes you want to use hazing to make.
It also seems likely that you should do that in private, rather than be seen to do so. In fact, perhaps your first step ought to be to convince me to delete this comment.
In fact, perhaps your first step ought to be to convince me to delete this comment.
This reminds me of a time a friend suggested, out loud in public, burning down someone’s house in retribution, and I was like “Shut up, we can’t use that plan now!” It’s annoying when possible paths get pruned for no good reason.
Sounds like more trouble than it is worth… unless.… Do I get to dress up in a cloak and spank people with paddles? Ooh, and beer pong and sending chicks on ‘walks of shame’. I really missed out—we don’t have frats here in Aus.
Hey, you’re the one who said you’d use it if you knew how. I was just responding to the implied need.
That said, I hereby grant you dispensation to dress up in a cloak. I’m probably OK with you playing beer pong, though I’m not really sure what that is. The spanking and the sending people on walks you’ll have to negotiate with the spankees and the walkers.
That said, I hereby grant you dispensation to dress up in a cloak. I’m probably OK with you playing beer pong, though I’m not really sure what that is.
I’m not either to be honest.
The spanking and the sending people on walks you’ll have to negotiate with the spankees and the walkers.
Come to think of it I think I might dismiss the ‘spankees’ class entirely, abandon the ‘walk’ notion and proceed to negotiate mutual spanking options with those formerly in the ‘walker’ class. I don’t think I have the proper frat-boy spirit.
So you didn’t just go through and down vote a ton of my posts all at once?
No, I couldn’t have done that. I had already downvoted the overwhelming majority of your comments at the time when I encountered them. We’ve already had a conversation about whether or not the downvotes you had received were justified—if you recall I said ‘yes’. I’m not allowed to vote down twice so no karma-assassination for me!
At this point wedrifid all you are doing is hazing me due to personal insecurities.
I’m confused. Aren’t personal insecurities the sort of thing you claimed was ‘irrational’ to comment on? Have you reversed your position, or do you not care about being rational, or is this a special case?
It appears that someone has been downvoting every comment in this tree. Which is arguably appropriate, since responding to trolls is nearly as bad as trolling, and by Lucius’s standard (roughly, ‘Cui bono?’) this thread has undeniably been trolling.
It does not seem to be at all relevant. Which surprised me. I followed your link because I saw it was to the “not insane unsane” post which has a certain similarity to the rational/not-rational subject. Instead I can only assume you are trying to make some sort of petty personal insinuation—try as I might I can’t see any other point you could be making that isn’t a plain non-sequitur.
(I am left with the frustrating temptation to delete the referent despite considering it a useful or at least interesting contribution. The potential for any given comment to be used out of context can be limiting!)
I do that all the time. There seems to be nothing in the meaning of the word that means it cannot be applied to another.
That isn’t true. It is simply a different form of communication. Description is different from argumentative persuasion. It is not (necessarily) irrational to do the former.
In the context the statement serves as an explanation for the downvotes. It is assumed that you or any readers familiar with the context will be able to remember the details. In fact this is one of those circumstances where “disingenuous” applies. There are multiple pages of conversation discussing your contradictions already and so pretending that there is not supporting evidence available is not credible.
NO! “Burden of proof” is for courts and social battles, not thinking.
This isn’t debate club either!
Yes, with respect to libel, the aforementioned ‘burden of proof’ becomes relevant. Of course this isn’t libel, or a court. Consider that I would not have explained to you why (I perceive) your comments were downvoted if you didn’t bring them up and make implications about the irrationality of the voters and community. If you go around saying “You downvoted me therefore you suck!” then it drastically increases the chances that you will receive a reply “No, the downvotes are right because your comments sucked!”
So many people don’t seem to get this! It’s infuriating.
I wonder if it’s just word association with Traditional Rationality. People think making persuasive arguments has anything to do with what we’re doing here.
Yes, making persuasive arguments is often instrumentally useful, and so in that sense is a ‘rationality skill’ - but cooking and rock climbing are also ‘rationality skills’ in that sense.
Yeah, it comes up a lot.
My usual working theory is that smart people often learn that winning the argument game is a way for smart people to gain status, especially within academia and within communities of soi-disant smart people (aka mensa), and thus come to expect any community of smart people will use the argument game as a primary way to earn and retain status. They identify LW as a community of smart people, so they begin playing the argument game in order to establish their status.
And when playing the argument game results in _losing_status instead, they feel betrayed and defensive.
Never encountered this before. Is it usually italicized?
I don’t usually italicize it, but I wouldn’t be too surprised to encounter it italicized, especially in print. I imagine it depends one whether one considers it an English word borrowed from a foreign language (which I do) or a foreign phrase (which one plausibly could).
It means “so-called” or “self-proclaimed”.
We should probably just use those phrases directly then, rather than excluding possible readers without adding any informational content.
(On that note, someone at an LW meetup I went to recently made a good point: why do we say “counterfactual” instead of just “made-up”?)
Buckley’s response to this sentiment is apposite.
Login required. Summarize?
How odd! When I went there through google it didn’t ask for a login, but when I follow the link it does.
Anyway, summarized, his point is that the benefits to the right audience of using the right word at the right time outweigh the costs to everyone else either looking it up and learning a new word, getting the general meaning from context, or not understanding and ignoring it. But like much of Buckley, the original text is worth reading if you enjoy language.
Googling “Buckley eristic lapidary November” should get you a link that works.
Nonsense. More words is better. Nuance is good. Words are trivially easy to look up.
I didn’t ask what the word meant, because by the time I was done reading the comment I knew what the word meant and even had a rough sense of when I would want to use “soi-disant” as opposed to “so-called” or “self-proclaimed”.
What is the additional nuance in “soi-disant” that’s not in “self-described”?
Agreed that more words are better–more possible information can be conveyed. However, it sounds like you’re better than the average reader at grasping the meaning of words from context. (Knowing French, I can guess what ‘soi-disant’ means...having no idea, I don’t know if I would have deduced it from the context of just that one comment.)
I did not deduce it from context—I looked it up. Using the Internet.
It’s the obvious thing to do if it’s after 1998.
Somehow in your comment it seemed like you meant you’d figured it our yourself...rereading it, I don’t know why I thought that.
It’s not unreasonable to infer from by the time I was done reading the comment I knew what the word meant and even had a rough sense of when I would want to use “soi-disant” as opposed to “so-called” or “self-proclaimed” that thomblake didn’t interrupt his reading of the comment to go perform some other task (e.g., looking the word up on google).
I mean, if someone said about an essay that by the time they were done reading it they had a deep understanding of quantum mechanics, I would probably infer that the essay explained quantum mechanics, even though they might mean they started reading it in 2009, put it down unfinished to go study QM for three years, then found the unfinished essay (which was in fact about gardenias) and finished reading it.
I sympathize with this suggestion. But at the same time, I do enjoy learning new words.
As I understand it, “counterfactual” originates from history, it means, originally, when historians analyze what would happen if some particular thing had gone differently.
Really? I always thought it came from logic/semantics: a “counterfactual conditional” is one of the form “If X had happened, Y would have”, and there is a minor industry in finding truth conditions for them.
Well, I heard it first relating to history.
Hm, so I guess the modern term would be “alternate history fic”? :-)
No, the difference is between serious historical studies of what would likely have happened, vs people who make up new characters who had no significance OTL to tell a good story.
To expand on this—a counterfactual might predict “and then we would still have dirigibles today”, or not, if asking “what if the Hindenburg disaster had not occurred.” It would probably NOT predict who would be president in 2012, neither would it predict that in a question wholly unrelated to air travel or lighter-than-air technology. An alternate history fiction story might need the president for the plot, and it might go with the current president or it might go with Jack Ryan. An alternate history timeline is somewhere in the middle, but in general will ask “what change could have made [some radically different way the modern world looks like]” rather than “what can we predict would have happened if [some change happened]” and refrain from speculation on stuff that can’t be predicted to any reasonable probability.
The line is also to some extent definable as between historians and fiction authors, though these can certainly overlap particularly in the amateur side of things.
Right, I should have mentioned that in grandparent. Thanks!
Let me rephrase, it is irrational to make a declarative statement about the inner workings of another person’s mind, seeing as there is no way for one person to fully understand the mental state of another.
You talk to me about semantic gymnastics? No, it is not necessarily irrational to be descriptive without providing evidence. Author’s of fiction can be descriptive and do not need to provide evidence, as well as several other mediums of writing. But come on, do you really think that if you attack my writing and intentions you don’t need evidence and that is ok?
Wedrifid, if you do not think that it is the obligation of a rational statement to provide some evidence or reason for justification of its claim, then I do not know what to say to you.
Anyone who read my comments and interpreted them as me saying “you down voted me therefore you suck!” is vilifying me. I made a comment about a time I got up voted and how I did not understand why out of everything I wrote that sentence was deemed more rational. I never insulted anyone, or was demeaning in anyway.
You are blatantly ignoring the direct reference to the relevant evidence that I provided in the grandparent. I repeat that reference now—read your inbox, scroll back until you find the dozen or so messages saying ‘this is just a contradiction!’ or equivalent. I repeat with extra emphasis that your denial of any evidence is completely incredible.
Any benefit of a doubt that you are communicating in good faith is rapidly eroding.
No.
(Leaving aside the problems with declaring a course of action “irrational” without reference to a goal...)
There is no fact that I am 100% certain of. Any knowledge about the world is held at some probability between 0 and 1, exclusive. We make declarative statements of facts despite the necessary uncertainty. Statements about the inner workings of another person’s mind are in no way special with that respect; I can make declarative statements about your mind, and I can make declarative statements about my mind, and in neither case am I going to be completely certain. I can be wrong about your motivations, and you can be wrong about your motivations.
If you make a claim about the character of another person or the state of reality do you or do you not need some evidence to support it?
Isn’t being rational about being less wrong, so if some declarative statements can be wrong wouldn’t it be rational to avoid making them?
I can make claims about anything without supporting it, whether or not it’s about someone’s character. The moon is made of green cheese. George Washington was more akratic than my mother. See, there, I did it twice.
It can often be rational to do so. For example, if someone trustworthy offers me a million dollars for making the claim “two plus two equals five”, I will assert “two plus two equals five” and accept my million dollars.
I’m confused that you do not understand this.
If it helps resolve the confusion at all, my working theory is that HT believes unjustified and negative claims have been made about his/her character, and is trying to construct a formal structure that allows such claims to be rejected on formal grounds, rather than by evaluation of available evidence.
Thanks. That helps if true.
FWIW, I tend to respond to comments ignoring the context, as my main goal here is to improve the quality of the site by correcting minor mistakes (aside from cracking jokes and discussing Harry Potter).
Pretty sure he means epistemically irrational, not instrumentally.
That he’s wrong about it, for the reasons you’ve listed, is another matter.
Probably. But I’m finding myself more and more in the “epistemic rationality is a case of instrumental rationality” camp, though not to any particular effect personally since I rate epistemic rationality very highly for its own sake.
I understand what you are saying; you are saying that for the speaker of the statement it is not irrational, because the false statement might meet their motives. Or in other words, that rationality is completely dependent on the motives of the actor. Is this the rationality that your group idealizes? That as long as what I say or do works towards my personal motives it is rational? So if I want to convince the world that God is real, it is rational to make up whatever lies I see fit to delegitimize other belief systems?
So religious zealots are rational because they have a goal that their lies and craziness is helping them achieve? That is what you are arguing.
If someone told you that the moon was made of cheese, being a rational person, without providing any evidence of the fact, if they had no reason to believe that, they just believed it, you would think they were being irrational. And you know it. You just want to pick a fight.
In the sense I think you mean it, yes. Two equally rational actors with different motives will perform different acts.
Yes.
If that’s the most effective way to convince the world that God is real, and you value the world being convinced that God is real, yes.
Not necessarily, in that religious zealots don’t necessarily have such goals. But yes, if a religious zealot who in fact values things that are in fact best achieved through lies and craziness chooses to engage in those lies and craziness, that’s a rational act in the sense we mean it here.
Sure, that’s most likely true.
You may be right about thomblake’s motives, though I find it unlikely. That said, deciding how likely I consider it is my responsibility. You are not obligated to provide evidence for it.
Thanks—much more concise than my reply. Though I disagree about this bit:
for reasons I’ve stated in a sibling.
(nods) I was taking the “if they had no reason to believe that, they just believed it” part of the problem specification literally. (e.g., it’s not a joke, etc.)
Aha—I glossed over that bit as irrelevant since the scenario is someone saying some words, which is clearly a case for instrumental rather than epistemic rationality. I should probably have read the “someone told you” as the irrelevant bit and answered as though we were talking about epistemic rationality.
(nods) Of course in the real world you’re entirely correct. That said, I find a lot of thought experiments depend on positing a situation I can’t imagine any way of getting into and asking what follows from there.
Yes.
See the twelfth virtue:
.
No, I would generally not think someone was “being irrational” without specific reference to their motivations. If I must concern myself with the fulfillment of someone else’s utility function, it would usually take the form of “You should not X in order to Z because Y will more efficiently Z.” ETA: I would more likely think that their statement was a joke, and failing that think that it’s false and try to correct it. In case anyone’s curious, “the moon is made of green cheese” was a paradigm of a ridiculous, unproveable statement before humans went to the moon; and “green cheese” in this context means “new cheese”, not the color green.
No, I’d rather be working on my dissertation, but I have a moral obligation to correct mistakes and falsehoods posted on this site.
Correct. As noted on another branch of this comment tree, this interpretation characterizes “instrumental rationality”, though a similar case could be made for “epistemic rationality”.
That is not what I was arguing. If I understand you correctly however, you mean to say that what I’m arguing applies equally well to that case.
The important part of that statement is “X is rational”, where X is a human. Inasmuch as that predicate indicates that the subject behaves rationally most of the time, I would deny that it should be applied to any human. Humans are exceptionally bad at rationality.
That said, if a person X decided that course of action Y was the most efficient way to fulfill their utility function, then Y is rational by definition. (Of course, this applies equally well to non-persons with utility functions). Even if Y = “lies and craziness” or “religious belief” or “pin an aubergine to your lapel”.
That’s a difficult empirical question, and outside my domain of expertise. You might want to consult an expert on lying, though I’d first question whether the subgoal of convincing the world that God is real, really advances your overall goals.
I think the idea that you are grasping for (and which I don’t necessarily agree with) is that calling someone disingenuous is a dark side tool.
Is it irrational to call a statement a lie? As I had understood the word, “disingenuous” is a fancy way to say “lying”.
Yes it is irrational to say something is a lie if you have no way of knowing it is a lie or not. Is this incorrect?
(I don’t suppose you’d be enlightened if I said “Yes, that’s incorrect”)
Do you consider it irrational to say the sky is blue when you are in a room with no window?
Tell me honestly, do you really think that it is rational to make a declarative statement about something you know nothing about?
No, because there is reason and evidence to support the statement that the sky is blue. The most obvious of which is that it has been blue your entire life.
No offense, but your example is a gross misrepresentation of the situation. I am not saying that no statement can be made without evidence (this is Wedrifid’s semantic twist). My statement is that it is impossible for a person to directly know the subjective experience of another person’s consciousness, and that it is irrational to say that you know when someone is being insincere or not.
I think at this point I have to ask when you consider it to be rational to make a declarative statement, and what is “nothing” vs “enough”. And in particular, why you must have direct knowledge of the subjective experience to say they are being insincere.
If someone is here, on a site filled with reasonablly intelligent people who understand logic, and demonstrates elsewhere that they are reasonably intelligent and understand logic, and in one particular argument make obviously logically inconsistent statements, I don’t need their state of mind to say they’re being disingenuous. I don’t know how well that maps to this situation or what has been claimed about it.
This does not apply to this situation.
It’s fairly meaningless to call something “irrational” without reference to a particular goal.
No, it means lacking in sincerity, frankness, or candor—it usually refers more to attitude or style than content.
For example, strictly speaking a smile can’t be a lie, but it can be disingenuous.
Pretending to be truth-seeking when one is actually trolling is also disingenuous, but might not involve any explicit lies.
Well, maybe it’s a bit too fancy to be stretched into “lying”. But the point is one of dishonesty, of a difference between actual intent and visible signs, and, what’s relevant here, it does imply a model of someone’s actual intentions (for “disingenuous”), or actual beliefs (for “lie”).
I don’t agree with HT that it’s irrational (his basis for this seems to imply that any declarative statement about anything ever is irrational), which is why I drew a comparison between it and something I assumed he would be unlikely to consider irrational in the sense he meant when saying it of calling someone disingenuous.
So Mr. Thomblake,
If someone were to make a statement about what another person was sincere about, without even knowing that person, without ever having met that person, or without having spent more than a week interacting with that person, would you say their statement was irrational?
By the way, you do not need to indicate who a comment is to in a reply—it is clearly listed at the top of any comment you post as a reply, and is automatically sent to the user’s inbox.
It does have the effect of signaling that third parties are not welcome to respond, though, which might be desirable.
There is a mechanism for that too—private messages.
There is? Oh, there it is. It could stand to be a little more visible.
Agreed. Really just a prominent indication that they exist might be enough, since they’re pretty much in the obvious place to check once you know they’re there.
True.
Though PMs don’t let me argue with you in public, which eliminates most of the status-management function of argument. (I’m not claiming here that this is a bad thing, mind you.)
Indeed
This approximately describes my reason for downvoting the comment in question. I deny the right of anyone to choose who may reply to their public comments. That is, I deny the right of anyone to claim a soapbox from which they can speak without reply from those that their rhetoric may impact.
As thomblake mentioned, there is a private messaging feature for direct personal communication. For public communication everyone may reply.
Does it really signal that, any more than using the word “you”? Will wedrifid downvote comments that do that, as well? (Who other than wedrifid is qualified to answer that last question, I wonder? I won’t tell anyone they can’t, but I do reserve the right to assign a low probability to them being correct if wedrifid makes a statement on the issue that contradicts someone else’s, and such an answer will have lower value to me and I suspect anyone else reading it.)
Assuming you’re asking the question genuinely, rather than rhetorically: it certainly signals that to me more than using the word “you” does, yes. Of course, my reaction might be idiosyncratic.
In my own opinion, I think it’s more grandstanding than anything… of the same sort as “are you actually claiming”* - it’s an attempt to put the other person on the spot, and make them feel as if they need to defend their opinions.
*No offense… I don’t like the karma system either, but the comparison to soviet era repression was a bit much. But, then, maybe I don’t feel a loss of karma as acutely since I don’t write articles.
I suspect you’re right. Still, I try to treat questions as though they were sincere even if I’m pretty sure they’re rhetorical; it seems the more charitable route.
That is a real concern, though it was mostly solved via the discussion section. Article-writing has karma thresholds for posting, so someone who posts a bad article to main could lose enough karma to not be able to post anymore; furthermore, one would expect a first post to be bad and so it seems this might happen to every new user who tries to post an article. But the discussion section has lower penalties for article downvotes, and lower quality standards, so it’s not so bad.
I’d express my agreement as though it was evidence against the idiosyncraticity of the reaction, but it’s very weak evidence since we’ve agreed on a few of these now.
I now want a linguistic convention for expressing agreement while explicitly not proposing that agreement as independent evidence. Kind of like “I agree, but what do I know?” except I want it to be a single word and not read as passive-aggressive.
Perhaps “seconded”?
I think it’s too uncommon a case to warrant a short linguistic representation.
Probably.
Somewhat more, yes.
Given that wedrifid seems to use ‘you’ rather frequently in comments I infer that he doesn’t have any particular problem with it. It should be noted that surrounding context and content of the comment makes a big difference on how wedrifid interprets such comments, more so than the specific nature of the address.
Vladimir_Nesov could probably give a decent guess. He’s been around to see the wedrifid lesswrong persona for as long as lesswrong has been around and of those that have expressed their voting style probably has the most similar voting habits to wedrifid.
For some people it would be tempting to say that a third party is more likely to correctly predict the other’s voting pattern, simply because people have plausible incentive to lie. I thank you for your implied expression of confidence in my honesty! :)
I concede the win to you, even though I still think the objection is silly, and that you should have simply asked him not to do it instead of the high-handed passive-aggressive “I will downvote any future comments that do that”.
Well, no-one else can see your votes, anyway, can they? ;)
Win? I’m confused. I didn’t think I was competing with you about anything! Were we arguing about something? I thought I was expressing my preferences in the form of a tangent from your description.
Aggressive perhaps and I can understand why you may say “high-handed”, but passive? There is no way that is remotely passive. It’s a clear and direct expression of active policy! Approximately the opposite to passive. Some would even take it as a threat (even though it technically doesn’t qualify as such since it is just what would be done anyway even without any desire to control the other.)
I acknowledge your preference that I ask people not to do a behavior rather than declare that I downvote a behavior. In this case I will not comply but can at least explain. I don’t like asking things of those with whom I have no rapport and no reason to expect them to wish to assist me. To me that just feels unnatural. In fact, the only reason I would ask in such a case is because to do so influences the audience and thereby manipulates the target. Instead I like to acknowledge where the real boundaries of influence are. I influence my votes. He influences his comments. Others influence their votes.
In the end it could be that you upvote most instances of a thing while I downvote most instances of a thing. We cancel out, with the only change being that between the two of us we lose one person’s worth of voting nuance in such cases.
The “passive-aggressive” bit, in my opinion, was where he solicited people’s opinion on whether it offends them, and you skipped past actually saying it offends you and went to threats.
I assume you’re referring to this:
FWIW, it did not read that way to me—it seemed like an efficient statement of consequences. Asking someone not to do X does not imply X will be downvoted in the future. And folks like myself sometimes make comments with negative expected karma.
If someone has stated they won’t do it if someone asks them not to, and his goal was for there to be fewer such comments in the future (which is the general goal of downvoting things), then it would be more efficient in terms of achieving that goal to lead by simply asking politely not to, and maybe add the “and I’ll downvote anyone who does” as a postscript.
Leading with the downvote threat seemed needlessly belligerent.
Or it is just polite
I think it is polite, and if it does not offend you or anyone else I will keep doing it.
I find it impolite—it increases the length of your comment and number of characters on the screen and does not provide any information. That said, I am not terribly bothered by it, so ‘whatever floats your gerbil’.
For what it is worth, I will (continue to) downvote comments that take the form and role that the great-grandparent takes. Take that into consideration to whatever extent karma considerations bother you.
So if it bothers you why not just say so. I said if it offends you or anyone else please tell me. At this point wedrifid all you are doing is hazing me due to personal insecurities.
Didn’t I just do that? I phrased it in terms of what I can control (my own votes) and what influence that has on you (karma). That gives no presumption or expectation that you must heed my wishes.
That is a big leap! I don’t think I’m doing that. Mind you, given the power that hazing has in making significant and lasting change in people I would make use of it as a tool of influence if I could work out how!
Hm.
I was going to say that it’s certainly possible.
But then, thinking about it some more, I realized that my working definition of “hazing” is almost entirely congruent with “harassment.” It’s certainly possible to harass people on LW, but the social costs to the harasser can be significant (depending on how well it’s finessed, of course).
I guess that to get the social-influence-with-impunity effects of hazing I’d need to first establish a social norm sufficiently ubiquitous that harassing someone in the name of enforcing that social norm is reliably categorized as “enforcing the norm” (and thus praised) rather than “harassing people” (and thus condemned).
Hm.
It seems to follow that the first step would be to recruit local celebrities (Eliezer, Luke, Alicorn, Yvain, etc.) to your cause. Which means, really, that the first step would be to make a compelling case for the significant changes you want to use hazing to make.
It also seems likely that you should do that in private, rather than be seen to do so.
In fact, perhaps your first step ought to be to convince me to delete this comment.
This reminds me of a time a friend suggested, out loud in public, burning down someone’s house in retribution, and I was like “Shut up, we can’t use that plan now!” It’s annoying when possible paths get pruned for no good reason.
Sounds like more trouble than it is worth… unless.… Do I get to dress up in a cloak and spank people with paddles? Ooh, and beer pong and sending chicks on ‘walks of shame’. I really missed out—we don’t have frats here in Aus.
Hey, you’re the one who said you’d use it if you knew how. I was just responding to the implied need.
That said, I hereby grant you dispensation to dress up in a cloak. I’m probably OK with you playing beer pong, though I’m not really sure what that is. The spanking and the sending people on walks you’ll have to negotiate with the spankees and the walkers.
I’m not either to be honest.
Come to think of it I think I might dismiss the ‘spankees’ class entirely, abandon the ‘walk’ notion and proceed to negotiate mutual spanking options with those formerly in the ‘walker’ class. I don’t think I have the proper frat-boy spirit.
I think the people who play beer pong don’t even know what it is.
Oh no. It’s like Calvinball for jocks.
That is my new favorite thing.
So you didn’t just go through and down vote a ton of my posts all at once?
No, I couldn’t have done that. I had already downvoted the overwhelming majority of your comments at the time when I encountered them. We’ve already had a conversation about whether or not the downvotes you had received were justified—if you recall I said ‘yes’. I’m not allowed to vote down twice so no karma-assassination for me!
I’m confused. Aren’t personal insecurities the sort of thing you claimed was ‘irrational’ to comment on? Have you reversed your position, or do you not care about being rational, or is this a special case?
Before anyone complains...
It appears that someone has been downvoting every comment in this tree. Which is arguably appropriate, since responding to trolls is nearly as bad as trolling, and by Lucius’s standard (roughly, ‘Cui bono?’) this thread has undeniably been trolling.
No, I don’t characterize actions as flatly “irrational”, and statements are not a special case.
This may make things clearer.
It does not seem to be at all relevant. Which surprised me. I followed your link because I saw it was to the “not insane unsane” post which has a certain similarity to the rational/not-rational subject. Instead I can only assume you are trying to make some sort of petty personal insinuation—try as I might I can’t see any other point you could be making that isn’t a plain non-sequitur.
(I am left with the frustrating temptation to delete the referent despite considering it a useful or at least interesting contribution. The potential for any given comment to be used out of context can be limiting!)