reason to prefer object-level questions to questions about intent, logical argument and empirical data to intuition, and private discussion to public discussion
I think Nate is absolutely correct to note that if we just retreat to the object level and give up on implied trust, we lose something very valuable. We can’t each evaluate everything from scratch. If we’re going to make intellectual progress together, we need to be able to justifiably trust that people aren’t just trying to get us to do things that make sense to them, aren’t even just telling us things that happen to be literally true, but are making an honest good-faith attempt to give us the most decision-relevant information.
Discussions about what’s in good faith also seem hard to avoid when discussing things like standards of evidence, and how to evaluate summaries from outsiders.
I think Nate is absolutely correct to note that if we just retreat to the object level and give up on implied trust, we lose something very valuable. We can’t each evaluate everything from scratch. If we’re going to make intellectual progress together, we need to be able to justifiably trust that people aren’t just trying to get us to do things that make sense to them, aren’t even just telling us things that happen to be literally true, but are making an honest good-faith attempt to give us the most decision-relevant information.
Discussions about what’s in good faith also seem hard to avoid when discussing things like standards of evidence, and how to evaluate summaries from outsiders.