Alicorn, before you try to collect 30 karma by complaining that women get an unfair shake in my comment, why don’t you just accept that I haven’t dated any men?
Indeed I do accept that you haven’t dated any men. I do not expect you to date men, and failing to date men is not unfair. So there’s nothing wrong with beginning your paraphrased sample conversation with:
You’ve independently discovered the the sole “logical” technique that all my ex-girlfriends have ever used to “win” arguments. Let me demonstrate:
But then you stop talking about who you’ve dated:
So if you’re talking to a typical man about a social situation, or you’re talking to a typical woman about anything else
If you mostly hang out with men
And for these sentences, it is not important that you have had only platonic interactions with men or that all of your romantic interactions have been with women.
If you’re going to anticipate my behavior, consider spending an extra 60 seconds to do so correctly.
When I use this technique I’m usually using it on someone who is perfectly capable of coming up with an example, and whose mind has just taken the path of least resistance; I do it to help them think and they usually think successfully, and I make suggestions if they don’t. Using this to call bluffs, when I think the other person’s got nothin’, is a rarer practice.
Using this to call bluffs, when I think the other person’s got nothin’, is a rarer practice.
When you do this in person, hopefully you give them as long as they’d like to respond? It is not uncommon for people to take 30 seconds or more to come up with their best example. (Oftentimes they’re afraid of giving less than best, since they assume whatever examples they give will be unfairly assumed to be their best, especially if they’re already modelling you as socially adversarial.) Calling bluffs is fine I guess, even if I don’t like the precedent or aesthetics of “why do you believe what you believe?” being used in Status Attack Mode, but such a social maneuver should probably only be done when the bluffer gets a legitimate chance to show their hand. That basically limits it to heads-up games.
ETA: I should clarify that though Louie’s point is perhaps underappreciated (most people asking for examples really are just using an annoyingly hard-to-diffuse piece of rhetoric, and to many your question will thus pattern match), I don’t agree with his (admittedly obviously hyperbolic but still pretty bizarre) larger point that Eliezer/rationalists shouldn’t be asking Eliezer/rationalists for concrete examples.
When you do this in person, hopefully you give them as long as they’d like to respond?
30 seconds is actually a pretty long time in conversation, so if they don’t say anything like “I’m thinking” I will have probably made a suggestion myself, or asked other questions intended to narrow things down.
30 seconds is actually a pretty long time in conversation, so if they don’t say anything like “I’m thinking” I will have probably made a suggestion myself, or asked other questions intended to narrow things down.
Oh ah, even better. I’m glad you’re willing to do that even when you think they’re bluffing. I think the fact that you’re Eliezer effing Yudkowsky omgz and that you’re known to judge folk quickly makes people automatically assume you’re challenging them, at least in the conversations I’ve been around, which generally doesn’t do much for their ability to think clearly. Perhaps you haven’t noticed this phenomenon much in yourself, but many people drop 15 IQ points in that kind of social context. This should definitely be part of your model when meeting/interviewing nerds if it wasn’t already.
I’m surprised (assuming it is the case) that you don’t have much problem recalling reasons for beliefs. I don’t think that’s the case with many people, including Michael Vassar (though maybe my impressions are off), which makes me think it might be a quirk of your neurology. Uhm, have you gotten an fMRI or DNA sequencing etc done yet? If you did/will, would you share any interesting results? :)
Knowing that someone admits to judging folk quickly (and to others, no less!) hardly makes them intimidating to talk to for me than an average person would. I probably feel this way because I assume everyone else is judging just as quickly.
Of course, this might make the conversations in question less intimidating than most merely by increasing intimidation in the others rather than decreasing the intimidation in this set.
This post comes off as weirdly aggressive, almost hectoring, and I’m not sure that you meant that. I’m not talking about the part that refers to Alicorn, either.
PS—Alicorn, before you try to collect 30 karma by complaining that women get an unfair shake in my comment, why don’t you just accept that I haven’t dated any men?
When I saw this I expected to find a comment by Alicorn in a parent or sibling in which Alicorn got 30 karma by a dubious criticism of some kind. But I don’t see anything in the immediate context.
When you have an issue with something it is critical that you avoid looking petty if you hope to achieve anything.
Depends. If you’re talking about normal social functioning, sure, this is wildly sub-optimal unless you hang out mostly with debate heads or others who put a high value on quick wit, and superior argumentation skills. In any problem solving or intellectual arena it is an awesome technique, but yeah, outside of a pretty narrow group if you act like that normally it’ll go down like a lead balloon. But presumably as one familiar with the Art of Charm guys you know that most social interaction is grooming/bullshitting/vibing where the noises you make with your mouth are important more for the way they’re said than for their informational content.
On the ex-gf thing, tell them if they have a problem, say it immediately or you’ll assume it doesn’t matter. Repeat this policy whenever such stuff comes up. Works for me.
I’ve had similar discussions and I have found it useful to mentally (or actually on paper) tally the number of times I did the dishes and the number of times she did the dishes for a week or two.
Even though I thought I did them more and she thought she did them more, it turned out even. I was biased to remember the times I did the dishes and she was biased to remember the times she did them, and neither of us remember the times the other person did them.
I have taken this as a lesson that examples are useful.
And as a lesson that without examples I should be less upset than I am.
I’m skeptical that this is something that really tends to divide along gender lines. As you say, you haven’t dated any men, so are you extrapolating from a sample of men larger than yourself?
When asked for specific examples of something that has genuinely happened many times, I can usually think of at least two.
Indeed I do accept that you haven’t dated any men. I do not expect you to date men, and failing to date men is not unfair. So there’s nothing wrong with beginning your paraphrased sample conversation with:
But then you stop talking about who you’ve dated:
And for these sentences, it is not important that you have had only platonic interactions with men or that all of your romantic interactions have been with women.
If you’re going to anticipate my behavior, consider spending an extra 60 seconds to do so correctly.
When I use this technique I’m usually using it on someone who is perfectly capable of coming up with an example, and whose mind has just taken the path of least resistance; I do it to help them think and they usually think successfully, and I make suggestions if they don’t. Using this to call bluffs, when I think the other person’s got nothin’, is a rarer practice.
When you do this in person, hopefully you give them as long as they’d like to respond? It is not uncommon for people to take 30 seconds or more to come up with their best example. (Oftentimes they’re afraid of giving less than best, since they assume whatever examples they give will be unfairly assumed to be their best, especially if they’re already modelling you as socially adversarial.) Calling bluffs is fine I guess, even if I don’t like the precedent or aesthetics of “why do you believe what you believe?” being used in Status Attack Mode, but such a social maneuver should probably only be done when the bluffer gets a legitimate chance to show their hand. That basically limits it to heads-up games.
ETA: I should clarify that though Louie’s point is perhaps underappreciated (most people asking for examples really are just using an annoyingly hard-to-diffuse piece of rhetoric, and to many your question will thus pattern match), I don’t agree with his (admittedly obviously hyperbolic but still pretty bizarre) larger point that Eliezer/rationalists shouldn’t be asking Eliezer/rationalists for concrete examples.
30 seconds is actually a pretty long time in conversation, so if they don’t say anything like “I’m thinking” I will have probably made a suggestion myself, or asked other questions intended to narrow things down.
Oh ah, even better. I’m glad you’re willing to do that even when you think they’re bluffing. I think the fact that you’re Eliezer effing Yudkowsky omgz and that you’re known to judge folk quickly makes people automatically assume you’re challenging them, at least in the conversations I’ve been around, which generally doesn’t do much for their ability to think clearly. Perhaps you haven’t noticed this phenomenon much in yourself, but many people drop 15 IQ points in that kind of social context. This should definitely be part of your model when meeting/interviewing nerds if it wasn’t already.
I’m surprised (assuming it is the case) that you don’t have much problem recalling reasons for beliefs. I don’t think that’s the case with many people, including Michael Vassar (though maybe my impressions are off), which makes me think it might be a quirk of your neurology. Uhm, have you gotten an fMRI or DNA sequencing etc done yet? If you did/will, would you share any interesting results? :)
Knowing that someone admits to judging folk quickly (and to others, no less!) hardly makes them intimidating to talk to for me than an average person would. I probably feel this way because I assume everyone else is judging just as quickly.
Of course, this might make the conversations in question less intimidating than most merely by increasing intimidation in the others rather than decreasing the intimidation in this set.
This post comes off as weirdly aggressive, almost hectoring, and I’m not sure that you meant that. I’m not talking about the part that refers to Alicorn, either.
When I saw this I expected to find a comment by Alicorn in a parent or sibling in which Alicorn got 30 karma by a dubious criticism of some kind. But I don’t see anything in the immediate context.
When you have an issue with something it is critical that you avoid looking petty if you hope to achieve anything.
Depends. If you’re talking about normal social functioning, sure, this is wildly sub-optimal unless you hang out mostly with debate heads or others who put a high value on quick wit, and superior argumentation skills. In any problem solving or intellectual arena it is an awesome technique, but yeah, outside of a pretty narrow group if you act like that normally it’ll go down like a lead balloon. But presumably as one familiar with the Art of Charm guys you know that most social interaction is grooming/bullshitting/vibing where the noises you make with your mouth are important more for the way they’re said than for their informational content.
On the ex-gf thing, tell them if they have a problem, say it immediately or you’ll assume it doesn’t matter. Repeat this policy whenever such stuff comes up. Works for me.
I’ve had similar discussions and I have found it useful to mentally (or actually on paper) tally the number of times I did the dishes and the number of times she did the dishes for a week or two.
Even though I thought I did them more and she thought she did them more, it turned out even. I was biased to remember the times I did the dishes and she was biased to remember the times she did them, and neither of us remember the times the other person did them.
I have taken this as a lesson that examples are useful.
And as a lesson that without examples I should be less upset than I am.
I’m skeptical that this is something that really tends to divide along gender lines. As you say, you haven’t dated any men, so are you extrapolating from a sample of men larger than yourself?
When asked for specific examples of something that has genuinely happened many times, I can usually think of at least two.