Ok, so you previously said that you agree “that dfranke may have made a mistake”, and you now agree that this mistake was not a violation of social rules. You still assert that it was not a “mistake of rationality”.
Would you agree that it was a mistake that dfranke, and others who behave the same way, should take note of and avoid repeating in the future? Ultimately, my point is that whatever rules were correctly or incorrectly followed to lead to this bad outcome, the bad outcome should be a red flag that says we should try to understand what happened, and fix the rules or follow the rules better or whatever will work to not repeat the mistake.
The general problem with arguing that bad outcomes were not caused by a mistake is that whatever denotations you use to make it technically correct, it is bringing in connotations that there is nothing to fix, which is flat out false.
Ok, so you previously said that you agree “that dfranke may have made a mistake”, and you now agree that this mistake was not a violation of social rules.
No, I retract entirely the claim that he may have made a social mistake. I do not substitute for it any other claim.
You thought that dfrank had made a mistake of violating a social rule.
I argued that the mistake was not merely violation of a social rule.
You accepted my argument, thus modifying your belief to: there was no mistake?
Tabooing “mistake”, would you agree that a bad outcome occured, and that in the future we should make better decisions so that similar bad outcomes do not occur?
No, I did not accept your argument. I accepted a particular point that you raised. I quoted the point that I accepted
Fine, consider line 3 to be modified to say “You accepted a point in my argument” instead of “You accepted my argument”. I still want to know: is the result that you now believe there was no mistake? If so, how did that happen? If not, what was the result?
(Was that distinction really so important that it had to take the place of responding to my questions?)
And the really important part of that comment was:
Tabooing “mistake”, would you agree that a bad outcome occured, and that in the future we should make better decisions so that similar bad outcomes do not occur?
Tabooing “mistake”, would you agree that a bad outcome occured, and that in the future we should make better decisions so that similar bad outcomes do not occur?
I think that even ideal decisionmaking will, in the face of uncertainty, occasionally produce bad outcomes. Therefore the occurrence of a single bad outcome is not proof, and may not even be strong evidence, that a bad decision was made.
I think moreover that thinking about modifying the rules in the immediate wake of a specific bad outcome can be a dangerous thing to do, because the recency of the particular event will tend to bias the result toward avoiding that class of event, at the disproportionate expense of those who are inconvenienced or bothered by the imposition of the rule. I’m pretty sure that this class of bias has been named here before, though I don’t recall the name.
I think that even ideal decisionmaking will, in the face of uncertainty, occasionally produce bad outcomes.
The problem here is that what we are using is not even close to ideal. Yes, you should consider the reasons of why you made the decision the way you did, and how modifying it prevent the recent bad outcome may make you vulnerable to other bad outcomes. But that concern doesn’t mean that you should avoid even considering how to improve. It may also be that after looking for ways to improve you can’t figure anything out with acceptable tradeoffs. But you still should take note there is something you are dissatisfied with and would like third alternatives for.
the recency of the particular event will tend to bias the result toward avoiding that class of event, at the disproportionate expense of those who are inconvenienced or bothered by the imposition of the rule.
In this case, if it were an available action to make everyone feel more welcome in communities where they are not the dominant gender, at the expense of making everyone accept the inconvenience of learning new pronouns, taking that action would be a no brainer. The tradeoff is clear even before looking at the visceral physical fear our ignorance can cause in victims of those who are actively for less tolerant than ourselves.
In this case, if it were an available action to make everyone feel more welcome in communities where they are not the dominant gender, at the expense of making everyone accept the inconvenience of learning new pronouns, taking that action would be a no brainer. The tradeoff is clear...
Not without numbers. Would you prefer that one person be made to feel horribly unwelcome in an online community, or that 3^^^3 members of the community go to the trouble of using new pronouns?
Not without numbers. Would you prefer that one person be made to feel horribly unwelcome in an online community, or that 3^^^3 members of the community go to the trouble of using new pronouns?
Ok, in the real world where we are making the decisions I am talking about, there are not 3^^^3 people at all. Yes in that world I would say fine, the trivial convenience of those 3^^^3 trumps the inclusiveness for 1 person. But in the real world, there are about 7 billion people, and a substantial fraction of them are subject to the problems of exclusiveness.
Ok, so you previously said that you agree “that dfranke may have made a mistake”, and you now agree that this mistake was not a violation of social rules. You still assert that it was not a “mistake of rationality”.
Would you agree that it was a mistake that dfranke, and others who behave the same way, should take note of and avoid repeating in the future? Ultimately, my point is that whatever rules were correctly or incorrectly followed to lead to this bad outcome, the bad outcome should be a red flag that says we should try to understand what happened, and fix the rules or follow the rules better or whatever will work to not repeat the mistake.
The general problem with arguing that bad outcomes were not caused by a mistake is that whatever denotations you use to make it technically correct, it is bringing in connotations that there is nothing to fix, which is flat out false.
No, I retract entirely the claim that he may have made a social mistake. I do not substitute for it any other claim.
Let me get this straight:
You thought that dfrank had made a mistake of violating a social rule.
I argued that the mistake was not merely violation of a social rule.
You accepted my argument, thus modifying your belief to: there was no mistake?
Tabooing “mistake”, would you agree that a bad outcome occured, and that in the future we should make better decisions so that similar bad outcomes do not occur?
No, I did not accept your argument. I accepted a particular point that you raised. I quoted the point that I accepted.
Fine, consider line 3 to be modified to say “You accepted a point in my argument” instead of “You accepted my argument”. I still want to know: is the result that you now believe there was no mistake? If so, how did that happen? If not, what was the result?
(Was that distinction really so important that it had to take the place of responding to my questions?)
And the really important part of that comment was:
I think that even ideal decisionmaking will, in the face of uncertainty, occasionally produce bad outcomes. Therefore the occurrence of a single bad outcome is not proof, and may not even be strong evidence, that a bad decision was made.
I think moreover that thinking about modifying the rules in the immediate wake of a specific bad outcome can be a dangerous thing to do, because the recency of the particular event will tend to bias the result toward avoiding that class of event, at the disproportionate expense of those who are inconvenienced or bothered by the imposition of the rule. I’m pretty sure that this class of bias has been named here before, though I don’t recall the name.
The problem here is that what we are using is not even close to ideal. Yes, you should consider the reasons of why you made the decision the way you did, and how modifying it prevent the recent bad outcome may make you vulnerable to other bad outcomes. But that concern doesn’t mean that you should avoid even considering how to improve. It may also be that after looking for ways to improve you can’t figure anything out with acceptable tradeoffs. But you still should take note there is something you are dissatisfied with and would like third alternatives for.
In this case, if it were an available action to make everyone feel more welcome in communities where they are not the dominant gender, at the expense of making everyone accept the inconvenience of learning new pronouns, taking that action would be a no brainer. The tradeoff is clear even before looking at the visceral physical fear our ignorance can cause in victims of those who are actively for less tolerant than ourselves.
Not without numbers. Would you prefer that one person be made to feel horribly unwelcome in an online community, or that 3^^^3 members of the community go to the trouble of using new pronouns?
Ok, in the real world where we are making the decisions I am talking about, there are not 3^^^3 people at all. Yes in that world I would say fine, the trivial convenience of those 3^^^3 trumps the inclusiveness for 1 person. But in the real world, there are about 7 billion people, and a substantial fraction of them are subject to the problems of exclusiveness.
I don’t see how this profits anyone. Constant has been precise enough already.