(without reading other comments) Academia does have its share of failed-to-ignites and should-have-stopped-alreadies. Maybe we can zoom in on the successful cases instead of looking at the whole.
That makes sense. I don’t really have any experience in this area so take this with a grain of salt, but here are some things that come to my mind.
Cruxes. The participants continue to identify cruxes and work towards addressing them. On the other hand, I guess you can refer to the opposite of that as “talking past each other”. That is a red flag.
Expected value and sunk costs. If the conversation is no longer the most productive one to be having, it probably makes sense to move on. (Caveat is that impulsiveness might make people want to move on too early.)
Not updating fast enough. Ie. what Eliezer talks about in Science and Rationality. Scientists update too slowly, and this could lead to a should-have-stopped-already situation.
I’m not sure what this would mean in terms of designing LessWrong to encourage more long running conversations. Perhaps it could automatically prompt the participants with these sorts of questions. “You two have been going at this for a while. Have you been successfully identifying cruxes?” This reminds me of linters that automatically do code review comments in the world of software.
To the extend that “You two have been going at this for a while. Have you been successfully identifying cruxes?” is a good question, it doesn’t have to be asked by software. If you see a discussion where you think that question would be helpful, just ask it.
(without reading other comments) Academia does have its share of failed-to-ignites and should-have-stopped-alreadies. Maybe we can zoom in on the successful cases instead of looking at the whole.
That makes sense. I don’t really have any experience in this area so take this with a grain of salt, but here are some things that come to my mind.
Cruxes. The participants continue to identify cruxes and work towards addressing them. On the other hand, I guess you can refer to the opposite of that as “talking past each other”. That is a red flag.
Expected value and sunk costs. If the conversation is no longer the most productive one to be having, it probably makes sense to move on. (Caveat is that impulsiveness might make people want to move on too early.)
Not updating fast enough. Ie. what Eliezer talks about in Science and Rationality. Scientists update too slowly, and this could lead to a should-have-stopped-already situation.
I’m not sure what this would mean in terms of designing LessWrong to encourage more long running conversations. Perhaps it could automatically prompt the participants with these sorts of questions. “You two have been going at this for a while. Have you been successfully identifying cruxes?” This reminds me of linters that automatically do code review comments in the world of software.
To the extend that “You two have been going at this for a while. Have you been successfully identifying cruxes?” is a good question, it doesn’t have to be asked by software. If you see a discussion where you think that question would be helpful, just ask it.
For sure!