To put it in practice: If everyone made sure their arguments looked visually pleasing, would that be sustainable? Yes, in fact the world would look more beautiful so it’s totally allowed.
Why do you say that? Not only does it not self-contradict, it also fills the world with more visually pleasing stuff, making it more beautiful? Does your comment say I shouldn’t point these things out? Or would you like me to edit it to say that it’s ‘doubly allowed’ since it does two things? I’m not sure what you’re trying to say :(
So things are allowed if they’re sustainable. Visually pleasing things are beautiful. I already said earlier that beautiful things make people happy. I said that the answer resolved positively because it is sustainable. I honestly still don’t understand your criticism. If you were my editor before I posted this, what would you have liked to add or subtract from this sentence?
Your piece argues that the good outweighs the bad. This seems reasonable (particularly in this case).
The “Dark Arts”* argument (applied to this context) is that beautiful means have distortionary effects. Can it be argued that everyone investing time into beauty and truth isn’t sustainable? Yes. Selecting for a) produces good material, and b) makes it beautiful, seems individually easier than c) selecting for both.
Are there solutions? Perhaps:
The argument itself is “beware goodharting”.
Collaboration can help ideas develop, reach a larger audience, be more beautiful..**
Effort can be invested in beauty for it’s own sake. (Embrace the Dark Arts!)
At times both may be ‘aligned’ - if simple ideas are more likely to be true, then a simple illustration that summarizes effectively may be useful for both ‘truth-seeking’ and ‘aesthetic appreciation’, etc.
In sum, I felt your piece didn’t address what it might look like if things ‘went bad with Dark Arts’. I agree that ‘beauty is bad’ seems wrong. I thought ‘Dark Arts’ was more about stuff like rhetoric. ‘Art as a Dark Art’*** wasn’t taken seriously, but seems resolvable if it is.
Your early post you referenced—I don’t think it’s not bad that it’s beautiful because of an abstract argument. It’s more intuitive/a judgement. It looks good, and by conveying the idea effectively and simply, if anything it seems more open to use, testing, and even criticism—all of which seem to improve truth-seeking rather than harm it. If ‘Bright Arts’ end up being a problem, it probably won’t be addressed by dismissing the issue, but by responding to a tangible instance of it that has arisen, and recognizing there is a tangible negative impact in play. Your earlier post is a bad example of that because it doesn’t seem harmful (it seems beneficial).
*Bright arts might be more accurate in this context.
**A good grounding for being worried about something might be empirical. This is more difficult to produce though.
***Or ‘Beauty as a Dark Art’.
In sum, I felt your piece didn’t address what it might look like if things ‘went bad with Dark Arts’.
Yeah I’ve always wondered if I should write about this. A sequence on ‘defense against the dark arts’ might sound like a good idea in theory but in practice you have write out a lot of dark arts techniques to point out how you can defend yourself against them and I’m afraid people will just start using those techniques. If you look at the karma-vote discrepancy of the posts with the ‘dark arts’ tag you will see how controversial this topic is. I don’t blame people for downvoting me and the others because even talking about it brings risk, but I think that’s sometimes worth it. But even if a ‘defense against the dark arts’ sequence ever gets written, I don’t think it should be me but rather someone with more expertise in this field.
These are two different things.
Why do you say that? Not only does it not self-contradict, it also fills the world with more visually pleasing stuff, making it more beautiful? Does your comment say I shouldn’t point these things out? Or would you like me to edit it to say that it’s ‘doubly allowed’ since it does two things? I’m not sure what you’re trying to say :(
‘Are visually pleasing arguments sustainable?’
is different from
‘Are beautiful things allowed?’
So things are allowed if they’re sustainable. Visually pleasing things are beautiful. I already said earlier that beautiful things make people happy. I said that the answer resolved positively because it is sustainable. I honestly still don’t understand your criticism. If you were my editor before I posted this, what would you have liked to add or subtract from this sentence?
Your piece argues that the good outweighs the bad. This seems reasonable (particularly in this case).
The “Dark Arts”* argument (applied to this context) is that beautiful means have distortionary effects. Can it be argued that everyone investing time into beauty and truth isn’t sustainable? Yes. Selecting for a) produces good material, and b) makes it beautiful, seems individually easier than c) selecting for both.
Are there solutions? Perhaps:
The argument itself is “beware goodharting”.
Collaboration can help ideas develop, reach a larger audience, be more beautiful..**
Effort can be invested in beauty for it’s own sake. (Embrace the Dark Arts!)
At times both may be ‘aligned’ - if simple ideas are more likely to be true, then a simple illustration that summarizes effectively may be useful for both ‘truth-seeking’ and ‘aesthetic appreciation’, etc.
In sum, I felt your piece didn’t address what it might look like if things ‘went bad with Dark Arts’. I agree that ‘beauty is bad’ seems wrong. I thought ‘Dark Arts’ was more about stuff like rhetoric. ‘Art as a Dark Art’*** wasn’t taken seriously, but seems resolvable if it is.
Your early post you referenced—I don’t think it’s not bad that it’s beautiful because of an abstract argument. It’s more intuitive/a judgement. It looks good, and by conveying the idea effectively and simply, if anything it seems more open to use, testing, and even criticism—all of which seem to improve truth-seeking rather than harm it. If ‘Bright Arts’ end up being a problem, it probably won’t be addressed by dismissing the issue, but by responding to a tangible instance of it that has arisen, and recognizing there is a tangible negative impact in play. Your earlier post is a bad example of that because it doesn’t seem harmful (it seems beneficial).
*Bright arts might be more accurate in this context. **A good grounding for being worried about something might be empirical. This is more difficult to produce though. ***Or ‘Beauty as a Dark Art’.
Yeah I’ve always wondered if I should write about this. A sequence on ‘defense against the dark arts’ might sound like a good idea in theory but in practice you have write out a lot of dark arts techniques to point out how you can defend yourself against them and I’m afraid people will just start using those techniques. If you look at the karma-vote discrepancy of the posts with the ‘dark arts’ tag you will see how controversial this topic is. I don’t blame people for downvoting me and the others because even talking about it brings risk, but I think that’s sometimes worth it. But even if a ‘defense against the dark arts’ sequence ever gets written, I don’t think it should be me but rather someone with more expertise in this field.
This is out of context, perhaps even nitpicking. It’s clear they’re talking about universality. In that context, sustainable implies allowable.
Sure, sustainability implies allowable—but allowability was established*, not sustainability.
*asserted
I immediately answered that question with ‘yes’, didn’t I? Meaning I asserted that it was sustainable.