Metrics are only useful for comparison if they’re accepted by a sufficient broad cross section of society. Since nearly everyone engages in discourse.
I note that “sufficiently broad” might mean something like “most of LessWrong users” or “most people attending this [set of] meetups”. Just as communication is targeted at a particular audience, discourse norms are (presumably) intended for a specific context. That context probably includes things like intended users, audience, goals, and so on. I doubt “rationalist discourse” norms will align well with “televised political debate discourse” norms any time soon.
Nonetheless, I think we can discuss, measure, and improve rationalist discourse norms; and I don’t think we should concern ourselves overly much with how well those norms would work in a presidential debate or a TV ad. I suspect there are still norms that apply very broadly, with broad agreement—but those mostly aren’t the ones we’re talking about here on LessWrong.
I note that “sufficiently broad” might mean something like “most of LessWrong users” or “most people attending this [set of] meetups”. Just as communication is targeted at a particular audience, discourse norms are (presumably) intended for a specific context. That context probably includes things like intended users, audience, goals, and so on. I doubt “rationalist discourse” norms will align well with “televised political debate discourse” norms any time soon.
Nonetheless, I think we can discuss, measure, and improve rationalist discourse norms; and I don’t think we should concern ourselves overly much with how well those norms would work in a presidential debate or a TV ad. I suspect there are still norms that apply very broadly, with broad agreement—but those mostly aren’t the ones we’re talking about here on LessWrong.