Look, I was trying to take Silas’ belligerent meta level attack, and extract from it a object level argument for his position. It was not unreasonable for me to expect him to back up the supporting claim I identified before accepting it though. Then you claimed that this claim can be justified as common knowledge, and that was what I was arguing against in my previous comment.
I really am open to evidence on this. But I am frustrated by the unreasonable meta level attacks on motivations.
And I’m frustrated by your refusal to assimilate the lessons of You are entitled to evidence, but not that particular proof. Of course there won’t be perfect, side-by-side examples we can compare, but we have to update on what we see, imperfect, or not. Before we get into a game of “why I get to ignore that evidence”, I need to establish what kinds of things would count as evidence, even if they aren’t ideal comparisons.
I asked to you to extrapolate out from the example I did give and ask what the reaction would be if EY’s story extended to discussion of equally “useful”, thorough techniques the male and female did to enhance attraction. As best I can tell, you dodged having to consider the logical implications of the hypothetical and instead preferred a test stacked in your favor, which assumes what you’re trying to prove.
If you’re frustrated, perhaps you can understand why I’m frustrated, and why I start positing theories for “what’s really going on here”, which you take offense at, but which are then vindicated when you bring up irrelevant comparisons as if they were part and parcel of the issue I was arguing about.
ETA: I have not been belligerent; I want to know if there’s a broader issue we need to be discussing. Right or wrong, I have good reason to believe so. If I were trying to “explain” your arguments by reference to your mental health, that would be belligerent and offensive. But I would never dream of offering such an explanation. There’s nothing offensive about suggesting there’s a broader underlying issue; rather, it’s often the key insight to resolving a dispute.
And I’m frustrated by your refusal to assimilate the lessons of You are entitled to evidence, but not that particular proof.
That is a really weird response to my attempt to extract from your post a different sort of evidence than what I had been asking for.
I am willing to to consider arguments that the comparisons are reasonable. I have explained that I am willing to consider such evidence.
I do note, however, that the side by side examples of both sorts of discussion in the same tone and style, both provoked no offense.
I asked to you to extrapolate out from the example I did give
I don’t update on hypothetical evidence. This is essentially asking me to assume the thing you are trying to support. My extrapolation is that they both become offensive at the same point. I don’t think that point is even including useful information. It is advocating the use of that information to manipulate people to do things they would not endorse if they understood what was going on. I don’t like making these predictions though because I don’t have much evidence to go on.
I have not been belligerent; I want to know if there’s a broader issue we need to be discussing.
Bringing it up the first time is an understandable mistake. You continued to push it after I informed you that your theory of me was wrong.
Though the thing I called belligerent was you accusing me of not updating on a point that you had not brought up. Don’t you think it would be better to just present that point as one of the reasons for your suspicion? Would you like to put the meta level argument behind us and discuss it on the object level? I am willing to treat the larger world as reference class that has implications for Less Wrong. I don’t accept the claim as common knowledge though, so you will have substantiate it by, for example, pointing to people’s actual observed behavior.
The evidence PJEby provides here seems to support symmetry in reactions to the two sorts of discussion.
I asked to you to extrapolate out from the example I did give
I don’t update on hypothetical evidence. …
Great! Because I wasn’t asking you to do such a thing. I was looking for a point of common agreement from which I could ground further arguments. (That’s a normal way to resolve disagreements.)
Bringing it up the first time is an understandable mistake. You continued to push it after I informed you that your theory of me was wrong.
You’re kidding—you’re upset that I wouldn’t take your self-serving statements at face value? All evidence shows I was exactly right. Like I explained to you once already, you presented this argument as contradicting my position, when in fact it contradicts a different one that I wasn’t arguing for (and don’t hold a contrary position on). This establishes that you see the issues as being related by a common factor … exactly what I expected the whole time, and exactly the factor we should have been directing our attention toward early on.
The evidence PJEby provides here seems to support symmetry in reactions to the two sorts of discussion.
Well, just like you can’t update on hypothetical evidence, you can’t claim your position is based on arguments you weren’t even aware of until later. If you actually had such evidence in mind, you had numerous opportunities to present it, but you decided that you were “just curious why you should even be considering my position”. It’s a little late to claim that pjeby’s points were motivating your objections, don’t you think?
Silas, you’re spending too much time talking about JGWeissman here. In his last post he offered to drop all meta points in this discussion and focus on object-level reality. If you think you’re right about the issues accept his offer and move the discussion there.
This particular post is moving into sarcastic flamewar territory.
In his last post he offered to drop all meta points in this discussion and focus on object-level reality. If you think you’re right about the issues accept his offer and move the discussion there.
Wow, there is some serious miscommunication going on here. Maybe because I’m not using the keywords? Let’s give that a try:
I agree that we should switch to the object level. But which object level? This discussion started on the object level issue of:
1) What is Silas’s basis for suspecting (i.e. having a slightly tilted prior) that, between beauty-to-men and PUA-to-female biases, the latter will be more often unjustifiably hindered?
JGW showed a strange obsession with getting a lot of evidence from me to justify this suspicion. I inferred therefore that it’s just one facet of a broader, important issue on which the larger community should be having a discussion. Despite his firm (but self-serving) denial, he eventually revealed what issue he had in mind:
2) Which gender, if any, is more manipulated/ manipulating/ repressed, and in what way?
During the course of all of this, another object-level discussion arose, similar to 1):
3) Can men get the same quality of advice for making themselves attractive to women that women do for men?
So which object-level discussion do you want?
1) is a minor, unimportant issue (one person’s slightly tilted prior, in whch he wants to be proven wrong by future discussions? come on!) 2) is an issue I have no particular interest in at the moment. 3) is already having a robust discussion, in which I’m engaged.
So, what specifically should I be doing differently?
ETA: Okay, you folks will need to be a little more specific than a downmod; such an answer is somewhat vague here.
The evidence PJEby provides here seems to support symmetry in reactions to the two sorts of discussion.
Well, just like you can’t update on hypothetical evidence, you can’t claim your position is based on arguments you weren’t even aware of until later.
I have updated my position, from suspecting symmetry as the default case, to having moderate strength belief that the symmetry holds, mostly as a result of Eby’s description of the symmetry which is much better than I could have done at the start of this discussion. I am more interested in figuring out if there is a symmetry, and what its nature is, than in arguing whether I was right from the beginning. If I always find that I am right from the beginning, I am probably not correctly evaluating whether I was right.
I brought that up as object level evidence of my position, not as evidence that my initial position was justified by my subjective state at the time. Because I really am serious about my offer to put behind us all the meta level issues, and focus on the object level. The offer still stands. Or, if you like, you can say you don’t care if such an asymmetry exists, and we can drop the whole thing.
I am more interested in figuring out if there is a symmetry, and what its nature is, … Because I really am serious about my offer to put behind us all the meta level issues, and focus on the object level.
Sounds good. Please refer to the arguments I’ve presented in my exchange with pjeby, which are here and in the surrounding discussion.
(Note how I’m not hounding you to give me 100:1-likelihood-ratio evidence to justify your initial suspicion of symmetry. Cause that would just be wrong, you know?)
That wasn’t the goal post that Silas was aiming for.
Look, I was trying to take Silas’ belligerent meta level attack, and extract from it a object level argument for his position. It was not unreasonable for me to expect him to back up the supporting claim I identified before accepting it though. Then you claimed that this claim can be justified as common knowledge, and that was what I was arguing against in my previous comment.
I really am open to evidence on this. But I am frustrated by the unreasonable meta level attacks on motivations.
And I’m frustrated by your refusal to assimilate the lessons of You are entitled to evidence, but not that particular proof. Of course there won’t be perfect, side-by-side examples we can compare, but we have to update on what we see, imperfect, or not. Before we get into a game of “why I get to ignore that evidence”, I need to establish what kinds of things would count as evidence, even if they aren’t ideal comparisons.
I asked to you to extrapolate out from the example I did give and ask what the reaction would be if EY’s story extended to discussion of equally “useful”, thorough techniques the male and female did to enhance attraction. As best I can tell, you dodged having to consider the logical implications of the hypothetical and instead preferred a test stacked in your favor, which assumes what you’re trying to prove.
If you’re frustrated, perhaps you can understand why I’m frustrated, and why I start positing theories for “what’s really going on here”, which you take offense at, but which are then vindicated when you bring up irrelevant comparisons as if they were part and parcel of the issue I was arguing about.
ETA: I have not been belligerent; I want to know if there’s a broader issue we need to be discussing. Right or wrong, I have good reason to believe so. If I were trying to “explain” your arguments by reference to your mental health, that would be belligerent and offensive. But I would never dream of offering such an explanation. There’s nothing offensive about suggesting there’s a broader underlying issue; rather, it’s often the key insight to resolving a dispute.
That is a really weird response to my attempt to extract from your post a different sort of evidence than what I had been asking for.
I am willing to to consider arguments that the comparisons are reasonable. I have explained that I am willing to consider such evidence.
I do note, however, that the side by side examples of both sorts of discussion in the same tone and style, both provoked no offense.
I don’t update on hypothetical evidence. This is essentially asking me to assume the thing you are trying to support. My extrapolation is that they both become offensive at the same point. I don’t think that point is even including useful information. It is advocating the use of that information to manipulate people to do things they would not endorse if they understood what was going on. I don’t like making these predictions though because I don’t have much evidence to go on.
Bringing it up the first time is an understandable mistake. You continued to push it after I informed you that your theory of me was wrong.
Though the thing I called belligerent was you accusing me of not updating on a point that you had not brought up. Don’t you think it would be better to just present that point as one of the reasons for your suspicion? Would you like to put the meta level argument behind us and discuss it on the object level? I am willing to treat the larger world as reference class that has implications for Less Wrong. I don’t accept the claim as common knowledge though, so you will have substantiate it by, for example, pointing to people’s actual observed behavior.
The evidence PJEby provides here seems to support symmetry in reactions to the two sorts of discussion.
Great! Because I wasn’t asking you to do such a thing. I was looking for a point of common agreement from which I could ground further arguments. (That’s a normal way to resolve disagreements.)
You’re kidding—you’re upset that I wouldn’t take your self-serving statements at face value? All evidence shows I was exactly right. Like I explained to you once already, you presented this argument as contradicting my position, when in fact it contradicts a different one that I wasn’t arguing for (and don’t hold a contrary position on). This establishes that you see the issues as being related by a common factor … exactly what I expected the whole time, and exactly the factor we should have been directing our attention toward early on.
Well, just like you can’t update on hypothetical evidence, you can’t claim your position is based on arguments you weren’t even aware of until later. If you actually had such evidence in mind, you had numerous opportunities to present it, but you decided that you were “just curious why you should even be considering my position”. It’s a little late to claim that pjeby’s points were motivating your objections, don’t you think?
Silas, you’re spending too much time talking about JGWeissman here. In his last post he offered to drop all meta points in this discussion and focus on object-level reality. If you think you’re right about the issues accept his offer and move the discussion there.
This particular post is moving into sarcastic flamewar territory.
Wow, there is some serious miscommunication going on here. Maybe because I’m not using the keywords? Let’s give that a try:
I agree that we should switch to the object level. But which object level? This discussion started on the object level issue of:
1) What is Silas’s basis for suspecting (i.e. having a slightly tilted prior) that, between beauty-to-men and PUA-to-female biases, the latter will be more often unjustifiably hindered?
JGW showed a strange obsession with getting a lot of evidence from me to justify this suspicion. I inferred therefore that it’s just one facet of a broader, important issue on which the larger community should be having a discussion. Despite his firm (but self-serving) denial, he eventually revealed what issue he had in mind:
2) Which gender, if any, is more manipulated/ manipulating/ repressed, and in what way?
During the course of all of this, another object-level discussion arose, similar to 1):
3) Can men get the same quality of advice for making themselves attractive to women that women do for men?
So which object-level discussion do you want?
1) is a minor, unimportant issue (one person’s slightly tilted prior, in whch he wants to be proven wrong by future discussions? come on!)
2) is an issue I have no particular interest in at the moment.
3) is already having a robust discussion, in which I’m engaged.
So, what specifically should I be doing differently?
ETA: Okay, you folks will need to be a little more specific than a downmod; such an answer is somewhat vague here.
I have updated my position, from suspecting symmetry as the default case, to having moderate strength belief that the symmetry holds, mostly as a result of Eby’s description of the symmetry which is much better than I could have done at the start of this discussion. I am more interested in figuring out if there is a symmetry, and what its nature is, than in arguing whether I was right from the beginning. If I always find that I am right from the beginning, I am probably not correctly evaluating whether I was right.
I brought that up as object level evidence of my position, not as evidence that my initial position was justified by my subjective state at the time. Because I really am serious about my offer to put behind us all the meta level issues, and focus on the object level. The offer still stands. Or, if you like, you can say you don’t care if such an asymmetry exists, and we can drop the whole thing.
Sounds good. Please refer to the arguments I’ve presented in my exchange with pjeby, which are here and in the surrounding discussion.
(Note how I’m not hounding you to give me 100:1-likelihood-ratio evidence to justify your initial suspicion of symmetry. Cause that would just be wrong, you know?)