Hmm...something about that seems not quite right to me. I’m going to see if I can draw out why.
Carter is arguing that appeals to consequences should be disallowed at the level of discourse norms, including public discourse norms. That is, in public, “but saying that has bad consequences!” is considered invalid.
The thing at stake for Quinn_Eli is not whether or not this kind of argument is “invalid”. It’s whether or not she has the affordance to make a friendly, if sometimes forceful, bid to bring this conversation into a private space, to avoid collateral damage.
(Sometimes of course, the damage won’t be collateral. If in private discussion, Quinn concludes, to the best of her ability to reason, that, in fact, it would be good if fewer people donated to PADP, she might then give that argument in public. And if others make bids to say explore that privately, at that stage, she might respond, “No. I am specifically arguing that onlookers should donate less to PADP (or think that decreasing their donations is a reasonable outcome of this argument). That isn’t accidental collateral damage. It’s the thing that’s at stake for me right now.”)
I don’t know if you already agree with what I’m saying here.
. . .
It’s better to fight on a battlefield with good rules than one with bad rules.
I don’t think we get to pick the rules of the battlefield. The rules of the battlefield are defined only by what causes one to win. Nature alone chooses the rules.
Bidding to move to a private space isn’t necessarily bad but at the same time it’s not an argument. “I want to take this private” doesn’t argue for any object-level position.
It seems that the text of what you’re saying implies you think humans have no agency over discourse norms, regulations, rules of games, etc, but that seems absurd so I don’t think you actually believe that. Perhaps you’ve given up on affecting them, though.
(“What wins” is underdetermined given choice is involved in what wins; you can’t extrapolate from two player zero sum games (where there’s basically one best strategy) to multi player zero sum games (where there isn’t, at least due to coalitional dynamics implying a “weaker” player can win by getting more supporters))
It seems that the text of what you’re saying implies you think humans have no agency over discourse norms, regulations, rules of games, etc, but that seems absurd so I don’t think you actually believe that.
How much agency we have is proportional to how many other actors are in a space. I think it’s quite achievable (though requires a bit of coordination) to establish good norms for a space with 100 people. It’s still achievable, but… probably at least (10x?) as hard to establish good norms for 1000 people.
But “public searchable internet” is immediately putting things in in a context with at least millions if not billions of potentially relevant actors, many of whom don’t know anything about your norms. I’m still actually fairly optimistic about making important improvements to this space, but those improvements will have a lot of constraints for anyone with major goals that affect the world-stage.
It seems that the text of what you’re saying implies you think humans have no agency over discourse norms, regulations, rules of games, etc, but that seems absurd so I don’t think you actually believe that. Perhaps you’ve given up on affecting them, though.
I do think that is possible and often correct to push for some discourse norms over others. I will often reward moves that I think are good, and will sometimes challenge moves that I think are harmful to our collective epistemology.
But I don’t think that I have much ability to “choose” how other people will respond to my speech acts. The world is a lot bigger than me, and it would be imprudent to miss-model that fact that, for instance, many people will not or cannot follow some forms of argument, but will just round what you’re saying to the closest thing that they can understand. And that this can sometimes cause damage.
(I think that you must agree with this? Or maybe you think that you should refuse to engage in groups where the collective epistemology can’t track nuanced argument? I don’t think I’m getting you yet.)
Bidding to move to a private space isn’t necessarily bad but at the same time it’s not an argument. “I want to take this private” doesn’t argue for any object-level position
I absolutely agree.
I think the main thing I want to stand for here is both that obviously the consequences of believing or saying a statement have no bearing on its truth value (except in unusual self-fulfilling prophecy edge cases), and it is often reasonable to say “Hey man, I don’t think you should say that here in this context where bystanders will overhear you.”
I’m afraid that those two might being conflated, or that one is is being confused for the other (not in this dialogue, but in the world).
To be clear, I’m not sure that I’m disagreeing with you. I do have the feeling that we are missing each other somehow.
Yes, and Carter is arguing in a context where it’s easy to shift the discourse norms, since there are few people present in the conversation.
LW doesn’t have that many active users, it’s possible to write posts arguing for discourse norms, sometimes to convince moderators they are good, etc.
and it is often reasonable to say “Hey man, I don’t think you should say that here in this context where bystanders will overhear you.”
Sure, and also “that’s just your opinion, man, so I’ll keep talking” is often a valid response to that. It’s important not to bias towards saying exposing information is risky while hiding it is not.
Hmm...something about that seems not quite right to me. I’m going to see if I can draw out why.
The thing at stake for Quinn_Eli is not whether or not this kind of argument is “invalid”. It’s whether or not she has the affordance to make a friendly, if sometimes forceful, bid to bring this conversation into a private space, to avoid collateral damage.
(Sometimes of course, the damage won’t be collateral. If in private discussion, Quinn concludes, to the best of her ability to reason, that, in fact, it would be good if fewer people donated to PADP, she might then give that argument in public. And if others make bids to say explore that privately, at that stage, she might respond, “No. I am specifically arguing that onlookers should donate less to PADP (or think that decreasing their donations is a reasonable outcome of this argument). That isn’t accidental collateral damage. It’s the thing that’s at stake for me right now.”)
I don’t know if you already agree with what I’m saying here.
. . .
I don’t think we get to pick the rules of the battlefield. The rules of the battlefield are defined only by what causes one to win. Nature alone chooses the rules.
Bidding to move to a private space isn’t necessarily bad but at the same time it’s not an argument. “I want to take this private” doesn’t argue for any object-level position.
It seems that the text of what you’re saying implies you think humans have no agency over discourse norms, regulations, rules of games, etc, but that seems absurd so I don’t think you actually believe that. Perhaps you’ve given up on affecting them, though.
(“What wins” is underdetermined given choice is involved in what wins; you can’t extrapolate from two player zero sum games (where there’s basically one best strategy) to multi player zero sum games (where there isn’t, at least due to coalitional dynamics implying a “weaker” player can win by getting more supporters))
How much agency we have is proportional to how many other actors are in a space. I think it’s quite achievable (though requires a bit of coordination) to establish good norms for a space with 100 people. It’s still achievable, but… probably at least (10x?) as hard to establish good norms for 1000 people.
But “public searchable internet” is immediately putting things in in a context with at least millions if not billions of potentially relevant actors, many of whom don’t know anything about your norms. I’m still actually fairly optimistic about making important improvements to this space, but those improvements will have a lot of constraints for anyone with major goals that affect the world-stage.
Yes. This, exactly. Thank you for putting it so succinctly.
Furthermore, you have a lot more ability to enforce norms regarding what people say, as opposed to norms about how people interpret what people say.
I do think that is possible and often correct to push for some discourse norms over others. I will often reward moves that I think are good, and will sometimes challenge moves that I think are harmful to our collective epistemology.
But I don’t think that I have much ability to “choose” how other people will respond to my speech acts. The world is a lot bigger than me, and it would be imprudent to miss-model that fact that, for instance, many people will not or cannot follow some forms of argument, but will just round what you’re saying to the closest thing that they can understand. And that this can sometimes cause damage.
(I think that you must agree with this? Or maybe you think that you should refuse to engage in groups where the collective epistemology can’t track nuanced argument? I don’t think I’m getting you yet.)
I absolutely agree.
I think the main thing I want to stand for here is both that obviously the consequences of believing or saying a statement have no bearing on its truth value (except in unusual self-fulfilling prophecy edge cases), and it is often reasonable to say “Hey man, I don’t think you should say that here in this context where bystanders will overhear you.”
I’m afraid that those two might being conflated, or that one is is being confused for the other (not in this dialogue, but in the world).
To be clear, I’m not sure that I’m disagreeing with you. I do have the feeling that we are missing each other somehow.
Yes, and Carter is arguing in a context where it’s easy to shift the discourse norms, since there are few people present in the conversation.
LW doesn’t have that many active users, it’s possible to write posts arguing for discourse norms, sometimes to convince moderators they are good, etc.
Sure, and also “that’s just your opinion, man, so I’ll keep talking” is often a valid response to that. It’s important not to bias towards saying exposing information is risky while hiding it is not.
I think you meant ‘do not think’?
Yep. Fixed.