I think we’re talking about the same elephant—the thing that makes you eat one more cookie. But the room is dark and we disagree on what the elephant looks like. I subscribe to Robin’s view of the elephant, it seems simple and consistent.
You, on the other hand, seem to identify the elephant with System 1. That sounds weird to me. For example, you can have a wordless intuition (coming from religion, etc) that something is sinful, but do it anyway. So it’s not a System 1 vs System 2 conflict, but Robin’s account still holds up.
Then you talk about E2E communication, and my confusion grows. People on the kensho and circling threads aren’t objecting to System 1 communication like smiles or dance. They are objecting to mind tweaking and “how do you feel”. The two are different, so let’s not use one to argue for the other.
Then you mention poetry and my confusion grows more. Appealing to people’s existing feelings is a part of poetry, but beauty seems like the more important part, and beauty can argue for new ideas as well. That’s how Eliezer argued for rationality. So saying that LWers are allergic to poetry seems to miss the mark. LWers are happy with beauty, but allergic to woo, and that’s a good thing.
I’m trying to pinpoint where you think asking leading questions like “how do you feel” is different from smiles, dance, and poetry. They do seem different, but I’m not sure why.
Smiles and poetry appeal to the PR department. Asking “how do you feel” is a request to bypass the PR department.
Many of my comments in these threads (like the fish comment, or the one about hippie dreams) are trying to argue that no one is entitled to bypass anyone else’s PR department. You’ve got to go through proper channels. If you’re charming, then charm me.
You aren’t in fact charmed (or overawed) by people who use feelings-heavy, mystical, or salesy talk — you instead hear it as an explicit/denotative request for you to be charmed, which you think is unjustified. Is that right?
Okay, I think that’s a difference between us. I hear that kind of language not as saying something denotatively, but as more like “casting a spell” on the audience. It doesn’t throw up the “error: that doesn’t make sense/seem fair” response because I’m not expecting it to be communication in the first place.
Someone who wants me to relax, say, and is putting verbal and nonverbal optimization pressure into getting me to relax, is going to cause me to relax, just because I want to be compliant in general. For me, only a totally expressionless and artificially dry request would be free of the ”hypnotic” social pressure and would be interpreted as a mere request without the “hoodoo.” I think you probably have a less sensitive “hoodoo-detector” and so you read more things as communication rather than influence.
I think we’re talking about the same elephant—the thing that makes you eat one more cookie. But the room is dark and we disagree on what the elephant looks like. I subscribe to Robin’s view of the elephant, it seems simple and consistent.
You, on the other hand, seem to identify the elephant with System 1. That sounds weird to me. For example, you can have a wordless intuition (coming from religion, etc) that something is sinful, but do it anyway. So it’s not a System 1 vs System 2 conflict, but Robin’s account still holds up.
Then you talk about E2E communication, and my confusion grows. People on the kensho and circling threads aren’t objecting to System 1 communication like smiles or dance. They are objecting to mind tweaking and “how do you feel”. The two are different, so let’s not use one to argue for the other.
Then you mention poetry and my confusion grows more. Appealing to people’s existing feelings is a part of poetry, but beauty seems like the more important part, and beauty can argue for new ideas as well. That’s how Eliezer argued for rationality. So saying that LWers are allergic to poetry seems to miss the mark. LWers are happy with beauty, but allergic to woo, and that’s a good thing.
I like this comment; I agree that I’m not using quite the right words and my concepts are slipping around a bit.
I’m trying to pinpoint where you think asking leading questions like “how do you feel” is different from smiles, dance, and poetry. They do seem different, but I’m not sure why.
Smiles and poetry appeal to the PR department. Asking “how do you feel” is a request to bypass the PR department.
Many of my comments in these threads (like the fish comment, or the one about hippie dreams) are trying to argue that no one is entitled to bypass anyone else’s PR department. You’ve got to go through proper channels. If you’re charming, then charm me.
Ah!
You aren’t in fact charmed (or overawed) by people who use feelings-heavy, mystical, or salesy talk — you instead hear it as an explicit/denotative request for you to be charmed, which you think is unjustified. Is that right?
Yes!
Okay, I think that’s a difference between us. I hear that kind of language not as saying something denotatively, but as more like “casting a spell” on the audience. It doesn’t throw up the “error: that doesn’t make sense/seem fair” response because I’m not expecting it to be communication in the first place.
Someone who wants me to relax, say, and is putting verbal and nonverbal optimization pressure into getting me to relax, is going to cause me to relax, just because I want to be compliant in general. For me, only a totally expressionless and artificially dry request would be free of the ”hypnotic” social pressure and would be interpreted as a mere request without the “hoodoo.” I think you probably have a less sensitive “hoodoo-detector” and so you read more things as communication rather than influence.