The problems you cite in bullets are only nontrivial if you don’t sufficiently value social cohesion. My biggest faux pas have sufficiently conditioned me to make them less often because I put a high premium on that cohesion. So I think it’s less a question of social intelligence and more one of priorities. I don’t have to keep “constant focus”—after a few faux pas it becomes plainly apparent which subjects are controversial and which aren’t, and when we do come around to touchy ones I watch myself a little more.
I thought I would get away with that simplification. Heh.
Those skills do come naturally to some people, but not everyone. They certainly don’t come naturally to me. Even if I’m in a social group with rules that allow me to notice that a faux pas has occurred (not all do; some groups consider it normal to obscure such things to the point where I’ll find out weeks or months later, if at all), it’s still not usually obvious what I did wrong or what else I could do instead, and I have to intentionally sit down and come up with theories that I may or may not even have a chance to test.
Right, I get that people fare differently when it comes to this stuff, but I do think it’s a matter of practice and attention more than innate ability (for most people). And this is really my point, that the sort of monastic rationality frequently espoused on these boards can have politically antirational effects. It’s way easier to influence others if you first establish a decent rapport with them.
I don’t at all disagree that the skills are good to learn, especially if you’re going to be focusing on tasks that involve dealing with non-rationalists. I think it may be a bit of an over generalization to say that they should be a high priority for everyone, but probably not much of one.
I do have a problem with judging people for not having already mastered those skills, or for having higher priorities than tackling those skills immediately with all their energy, though, which seems to be what you’re doing. Am I inferring too much when I come to that conclusion?
Look, this whole thread started because of Annoyance’s judgment of people who have higher priorities than rationality, right? Did you have a problem with that?
All I’m saying is that this community in general gives way too short shrift to the utility of social cohesion. Sorry if that bothers you.
Most of what he said condenses to “people who are not practicing rationality are irrational”, which is only an insult if you consider ‘irrational’ to be an insult, which I didn’t see any evidence of. I saw frustration at the difficulty in dealing with them without social awkwardness, but that’s not the same.
Yes, and most of what I said reduces to “Annoyance is not practicing rationality with statements like “‘social cohesion is one of the enemies of rationality.’” You said you had a “problem” with my contention and then I pointed out that Annoyance had made a qualitatively similar claim that hadn’t bothered you. Aside from our apparent disagreement on the point I don’t get how my claim could be a problem for you.
I think I’ve made myself clear and this is getting tiresome so I’ll invite you to have the last word.
I hope I’m not the only one who sees the irony in you refusing to answer my question about your reasoning, given where this thread started.
I guess the best option now is to sum this disagreement up in condensations. For simplicity’s sake, I’m only going to do comments on the branch that leads directly here. I’m starting with this comment.
Annoyance: counterargument: “Most people are not interested enough in being rational for that suggestion to work; they’ll find a way around it, instead”
Me: disagreement with Annoyance—I was wrong
Annoyance: Pointed out my mistake
Me: “Oh, right”
Annoyance: “That is a common mistake, and one that I haven’t fully overcome yet, which means I still have trouble communicating with people who are not practicing rationality” (probably intended to make me feel better)
You: “I object to the above exchange; you’re just masking your prejudice against irrational people by refusing to communicate clearly with them”
Me: “Actually, it’s not a refusal, it’s just hard.”
You: “No, it’s not hard, and refusal to do it means that you don’t value social cohesion.” with a personal example of it not being hard.
Me: “Okay, you got me. It’s only hard for some people.”
You: “Okay, it is hard for some people, but it’s still learnable, and harmful to the cause of rationality if you present yourself as a rationalist without having those skills.”
Me: “They’re good to learn, but I think you’re over-valuing them, and judging people for not sharing your values.”
You: “Why are you complaining about me being judgmental when you didn’t complain about Annoyance being judgmental?”, plus what appears to be some social-signaling stuff intended to indicate that I’m a bad person because I don’t care about social cohesion. I don’t know enough about what you mean by “social cohesion” to make sense of that part of the thread, but I suspect that your assertion that I don’t value it is correct.
Me: “Where was Annoyance judgmental? I didn’t see him being judgmental anywhere.”
This brings us to your comment directly above, which doesn’t condense well. You didn’t answer my question (and I don’t take this as proof that there is no instance of Annoyance being judgmental—I may have missed something somewhere—but I consider it pretty unlikely that you’d refuse to defend your assertion if there was a clear one, so it’s at least strong evidence that there isn’t), accused Annoyance of being irrational, and claimed that I should be accepting your claim even though you refuse to actually defend it.
I do agree with you that the skills involved in dealing with irrational people are useful to learn. But we obviously disagree in many, many ways on what kinds of support should be necessary for an argument to be taken seriously here.
That’s not a judgment against less intelligent people; it’s a judgment against all of us, himself included. I recognize it as being the more rational decision in the situation I mentioned here as one that I’m failing at from a rationalist standpoint, and am not going to bother challenging his rational view on a rational forum when the best defense I can think of is “yes, but you shouldn’t say that to the muggles”.
Social cohesion is one of the enemies of rationality.
It’s not necessarily so in that it’s not always opposed to it, but it is incompatible with the mechanisms that bring it about and permit it to error-correct. It tends to reinforce error. When it happens to reinforce correctness, it’s not needed, and when it doesn’t, it makes it significantly harder to correct the errors.
“When it happens to reinforce correctness, it’s not needed”
Can you elaborate?
I’ll note that rationality isn’t an end. My ideal world state would involve a healthy serving of both rationality and social cohesion. There are many situations in which these forces work in tandem and many where they’re at odds.
A perfect example is this site. There are rules the community follows to maintain a certain level of social cohesion, which in turn aides us in the pursuit of rationality. Or are the rules not needed?
It’s demonstrated by the fact that you can up/down vote and report anyone’s posts, and that you need a certain number of upvotes to write articles. This is a method of policing the discourse on the site so that social cohesion doesn’t break down to an extent which impairs our discussion. These mechanisms “reinforce correctness,” in your terms. So I’ll ask again, can we do away with them?
I don’t think humanity follows obviously from rationality, which is what I meant about rationality being a means rather than an end.
There are rules the community follows to maintain a certain level of social cohesion, which in turn aides us in the pursuit of rationality.
How is that demonstrated?
Those rules are rarely discussed outright, at least not comprehensively.
I’m pretty sure if I started posting half of my comments in pig-Latin or French or something, for no apparent reason, and refused to explain or stop, I’d be asked to leave fairly quickly, though. That all communication will be in plain English unless there’s a reason for it not to be is one example. I’m sure there are others.
The problems you cite in bullets are only nontrivial if you don’t sufficiently value social cohesion. My biggest faux pas have sufficiently conditioned me to make them less often because I put a high premium on that cohesion. So I think it’s less a question of social intelligence and more one of priorities. I don’t have to keep “constant focus”—after a few faux pas it becomes plainly apparent which subjects are controversial and which aren’t, and when we do come around to touchy ones I watch myself a little more.
I thought I would get away with that simplification. Heh.
Those skills do come naturally to some people, but not everyone. They certainly don’t come naturally to me. Even if I’m in a social group with rules that allow me to notice that a faux pas has occurred (not all do; some groups consider it normal to obscure such things to the point where I’ll find out weeks or months later, if at all), it’s still not usually obvious what I did wrong or what else I could do instead, and I have to intentionally sit down and come up with theories that I may or may not even have a chance to test.
Right, I get that people fare differently when it comes to this stuff, but I do think it’s a matter of practice and attention more than innate ability (for most people). And this is really my point, that the sort of monastic rationality frequently espoused on these boards can have politically antirational effects. It’s way easier to influence others if you first establish a decent rapport with them.
I don’t at all disagree that the skills are good to learn, especially if you’re going to be focusing on tasks that involve dealing with non-rationalists. I think it may be a bit of an over generalization to say that they should be a high priority for everyone, but probably not much of one.
I do have a problem with judging people for not having already mastered those skills, or for having higher priorities than tackling those skills immediately with all their energy, though, which seems to be what you’re doing. Am I inferring too much when I come to that conclusion?
Look, this whole thread started because of Annoyance’s judgment of people who have higher priorities than rationality, right? Did you have a problem with that?
All I’m saying is that this community in general gives way too short shrift to the utility of social cohesion. Sorry if that bothers you.
Quote, please?
Most of what he said condenses to “people who are not practicing rationality are irrational”, which is only an insult if you consider ‘irrational’ to be an insult, which I didn’t see any evidence of. I saw frustration at the difficulty in dealing with them without social awkwardness, but that’s not the same.
Have I missed something?
Yes, and most of what I said reduces to “Annoyance is not practicing rationality with statements like “‘social cohesion is one of the enemies of rationality.’” You said you had a “problem” with my contention and then I pointed out that Annoyance had made a qualitatively similar claim that hadn’t bothered you. Aside from our apparent disagreement on the point I don’t get how my claim could be a problem for you.
I think I’ve made myself clear and this is getting tiresome so I’ll invite you to have the last word.
I hope I’m not the only one who sees the irony in you refusing to answer my question about your reasoning, given where this thread started.
I guess the best option now is to sum this disagreement up in condensations. For simplicity’s sake, I’m only going to do comments on the branch that leads directly here. I’m starting with this comment.
JamesCole: Quoted hypothetical social-norm suggestion, disagreed, offered altenate suggestion suggestion, offered supporting logic.
JamesCole: Restated supporting logic.
Me: Agreed, offered more support.
Annoyance: counterargument: “Most people are not interested enough in being rational for that suggestion to work; they’ll find a way around it, instead”
Me: disagreement with Annoyance—I was wrong
Annoyance: Pointed out my mistake
Me: “Oh, right”
Annoyance: “That is a common mistake, and one that I haven’t fully overcome yet, which means I still have trouble communicating with people who are not practicing rationality” (probably intended to make me feel better)
You: “I object to the above exchange; you’re just masking your prejudice against irrational people by refusing to communicate clearly with them”
Me: “Actually, it’s not a refusal, it’s just hard.”
You: “No, it’s not hard, and refusal to do it means that you don’t value social cohesion.” with a personal example of it not being hard.
Me: “Okay, you got me. It’s only hard for some people.”
You: “Okay, it is hard for some people, but it’s still learnable, and harmful to the cause of rationality if you present yourself as a rationalist without having those skills.”
Me: “They’re good to learn, but I think you’re over-valuing them, and judging people for not sharing your values.”
You: “Why are you complaining about me being judgmental when you didn’t complain about Annoyance being judgmental?”, plus what appears to be some social-signaling stuff intended to indicate that I’m a bad person because I don’t care about social cohesion. I don’t know enough about what you mean by “social cohesion” to make sense of that part of the thread, but I suspect that your assertion that I don’t value it is correct.
Me: “Where was Annoyance judgmental? I didn’t see him being judgmental anywhere.”
This brings us to your comment directly above, which doesn’t condense well. You didn’t answer my question (and I don’t take this as proof that there is no instance of Annoyance being judgmental—I may have missed something somewhere—but I consider it pretty unlikely that you’d refuse to defend your assertion if there was a clear one, so it’s at least strong evidence that there isn’t), accused Annoyance of being irrational, and claimed that I should be accepting your claim even though you refuse to actually defend it.
I do agree with you that the skills involved in dealing with irrational people are useful to learn. But we obviously disagree in many, many ways on what kinds of support should be necessary for an argument to be taken seriously here.
Hmm, might you have been referring to this?
That’s not a judgment against less intelligent people; it’s a judgment against all of us, himself included. I recognize it as being the more rational decision in the situation I mentioned here as one that I’m failing at from a rationalist standpoint, and am not going to bother challenging his rational view on a rational forum when the best defense I can think of is “yes, but you shouldn’t say that to the muggles”.
Social cohesion is one of the enemies of rationality.
It’s not necessarily so in that it’s not always opposed to it, but it is incompatible with the mechanisms that bring it about and permit it to error-correct. It tends to reinforce error. When it happens to reinforce correctness, it’s not needed, and when it doesn’t, it makes it significantly harder to correct the errors.
“When it happens to reinforce correctness, it’s not needed”
Can you elaborate?
I’ll note that rationality isn’t an end. My ideal world state would involve a healthy serving of both rationality and social cohesion. There are many situations in which these forces work in tandem and many where they’re at odds.
A perfect example is this site. There are rules the community follows to maintain a certain level of social cohesion, which in turn aides us in the pursuit of rationality. Or are the rules not needed?
Why can’t it be?
How is that demonstrated?
It’s demonstrated by the fact that you can up/down vote and report anyone’s posts, and that you need a certain number of upvotes to write articles. This is a method of policing the discourse on the site so that social cohesion doesn’t break down to an extent which impairs our discussion. These mechanisms “reinforce correctness,” in your terms. So I’ll ask again, can we do away with them?
I don’t think humanity follows obviously from rationality, which is what I meant about rationality being a means rather than an end.
You’re assuming a fact not in evidence.
So you tell me what you think they’re for, then.
Those rules are rarely discussed outright, at least not comprehensively.
I’m pretty sure if I started posting half of my comments in pig-Latin or French or something, for no apparent reason, and refused to explain or stop, I’d be asked to leave fairly quickly, though. That all communication will be in plain English unless there’s a reason for it not to be is one example. I’m sure there are others.