Me too, including in this discussion. I’m saying that people shouldn’t categorically hold indignation in. Some types of indignation should probably be expressed: the question is when, and what evidence needs to be met before you can feel confident that the indignation is deserved, and that expressing it will further your conversational goals.
Generally, my standard is to hold indignation in unless I can see that someone is persistently doing something problematic and I think they should know better, and if my efforts at getting them to clarify or change their mind fail. And when I do show indignation, it’s mainly in the amount that I feel is deserved (people may have noticed me with a slightly more strident tone in some of my recent comments).
Sometimes, even when I’m pretty confident someone is being a jerk, I’ll wait. My view is that if I’m feeling indignant, I don’t have to blast someone with it now. I can bide my time, and continue the discussion with them trying to get them to either back down, or dig themselves into an even deeper hole. Then I can bring down the hammer, feeling confident that it’s deserved, and that observers will agree. Luckily, I rarely get pushed to this last step on LessWrong, because people here are too good at rationality: even if I never end up seeing eye-to-eye with people, I can usually get a combination of explanations or updating from them that defuses my indignation before I have to bring out the full brunt of it.
I’m not confident that everyone should follow this standard (it’s nice to have people on your “side” in an argument who get indignant sooner than you and express what you are feeling), but I do think that people should scrutinize their indignation before expressing it.
I can see expressing indignation being called for if someone is being unpleasant to other LW members, but I think expressing indignation at opinions you find unpleasant would be beyond the pale on a forum ideally suited for finding truth, especially in light of the motivating power of trivial inconveniences, and in light of the way that in a noisy world, asymmetrically suppressing falsehoods means suppressing truths, and in light of the way that when the opinions in question are unpopular, expressed indignation can be seen as carrying an implicit threat to damage the opiner’s reputation. The main thing that gives me pause here is that if LW is seen as “contaminated” with “impure” beliefs, that may harm its ability to fight the more important battles that it’s fighting; but that argues more for paranoia than indignation.
Why not? I hold in indignation at LW comments all the time. It’s a safe policy that helps prevent disasters like this entire thread has been.
Me too, including in this discussion. I’m saying that people shouldn’t categorically hold indignation in. Some types of indignation should probably be expressed: the question is when, and what evidence needs to be met before you can feel confident that the indignation is deserved, and that expressing it will further your conversational goals.
Generally, my standard is to hold indignation in unless I can see that someone is persistently doing something problematic and I think they should know better, and if my efforts at getting them to clarify or change their mind fail. And when I do show indignation, it’s mainly in the amount that I feel is deserved (people may have noticed me with a slightly more strident tone in some of my recent comments).
Sometimes, even when I’m pretty confident someone is being a jerk, I’ll wait. My view is that if I’m feeling indignant, I don’t have to blast someone with it now. I can bide my time, and continue the discussion with them trying to get them to either back down, or dig themselves into an even deeper hole. Then I can bring down the hammer, feeling confident that it’s deserved, and that observers will agree. Luckily, I rarely get pushed to this last step on LessWrong, because people here are too good at rationality: even if I never end up seeing eye-to-eye with people, I can usually get a combination of explanations or updating from them that defuses my indignation before I have to bring out the full brunt of it.
I’m not confident that everyone should follow this standard (it’s nice to have people on your “side” in an argument who get indignant sooner than you and express what you are feeling), but I do think that people should scrutinize their indignation before expressing it.
I can see expressing indignation being called for if someone is being unpleasant to other LW members, but I think expressing indignation at opinions you find unpleasant would be beyond the pale on a forum ideally suited for finding truth, especially in light of the motivating power of trivial inconveniences, and in light of the way that in a noisy world, asymmetrically suppressing falsehoods means suppressing truths, and in light of the way that when the opinions in question are unpopular, expressed indignation can be seen as carrying an implicit threat to damage the opiner’s reputation. The main thing that gives me pause here is that if LW is seen as “contaminated” with “impure” beliefs, that may harm its ability to fight the more important battles that it’s fighting; but that argues more for paranoia than indignation.