I’m glad this post was written, but I don’t think it’s true in the sense that things have to be this way, even without new software to augment our abilities.
It’s true that 99% of people cannot resolve disagreements in any real sense, but it’s a mistake to assume that because Yudkowsky couldn’t resolve a months long debate with Hanson and the LessWrong team can’t resolve their disagreements that they’re inherently intractable.
If the Yud vs Hanson debate was basically Eliezer making solid arguments and Hanson responding with interesting contrarian points because he sees being an interesting contrarian as the purpose of debating, then their inability to resolve their debate tells you little about how easy the agreement would be to resolve.
If the LessWrong team is made up entirely of conflict-avoidant people who don’t ground their beliefs in falsifiable predictions (this is my impression, having spoken to all of them individually), then the fact that their disagreements don’t resolve after a year of discussion shouldn’t be all that surprising.
The bottleneck is the dysfunctional resolution process, not the absolute difficulty of resolving the disagreement.
It’s true that 99% of people cannot resolve disagreements in any real sense
But then go on to discuss specific cases in a way that gives me the impression a) that you don’t think disagreements take a long time for the reasons discussed in the post b) that rationalists should easily be able to avoid the traps of disagreements being lengthy and difficult if only they “did it right”.
If the impression I get from the comment represents your view, I’m concerned you’ll be missing ways to actually solve disagreements in more cases by dismissing the problem as other people’s fault.
a) that you don’t think disagreements take a long time for the reasons discussed in the post
Disagreements aren’t always trivial to resolve, but you’ve been actively debating an issue for a month and zero progress has been made, either the resolution process is broken or someone is doing something besides putting maximum effort into resolving the disagreement.
b) that rationalists should easily be able to avoid the traps of disagreements being lengthy and difficult if only they “did it right”.
Maybe people who call themselves rationalists “should” be able to, but that doesn’t seem to be what happens in practice. Then again, if you’ve ever watched a group of them spend 30 minutes debating something that can be googled, you have to wonder what else they might be missing.
I’m concerned you’ll be missing ways to actually solve disagreements in more cases by dismissing the problem as other people’s fault.
It’s true that if you are quick to blame others, you can fail to diagnose the real source of the problem. However, the reverse is also true. If the problem is that you or others aren’t putting in enough effort, but you’ve already ruled it out on principle, you will also fail to diagnose it.
Something about this comment feels slightly off.
I’m not surprised that the comment feels off, it felt off to write it. Saying something that’s outside the Overton window that doesn’t sound like clever contrarianism feels wrong. (Which may also explains why people rarely leave comments like that in good faith.)
I’m glad this post was written, but I don’t think it’s true in the sense that things have to be this way, even without new software to augment our abilities.
It’s true that 99% of people cannot resolve disagreements in any real sense, but it’s a mistake to assume that because Yudkowsky couldn’t resolve a months long debate with Hanson and the LessWrong team can’t resolve their disagreements that they’re inherently intractable.
If the Yud vs Hanson debate was basically Eliezer making solid arguments and Hanson responding with interesting contrarian points because he sees being an interesting contrarian as the purpose of debating, then their inability to resolve their debate tells you little about how easy the agreement would be to resolve.
If the LessWrong team is made up entirely of conflict-avoidant people who don’t ground their beliefs in falsifiable predictions (this is my impression, having spoken to all of them individually), then the fact that their disagreements don’t resolve after a year of discussion shouldn’t be all that surprising.
The bottleneck is the dysfunctional resolution process, not the absolute difficulty of resolving the disagreement.
Something about this comment feels slightly off.
You say
But then go on to discuss specific cases in a way that gives me the impression a) that you don’t think disagreements take a long time for the reasons discussed in the post b) that rationalists should easily be able to avoid the traps of disagreements being lengthy and difficult if only they “did it right”.
If the impression I get from the comment represents your view, I’m concerned you’ll be missing ways to actually solve disagreements in more cases by dismissing the problem as other people’s fault.
Disagreements aren’t always trivial to resolve, but you’ve been actively debating an issue for a month and zero progress has been made, either the resolution process is broken or someone is doing something besides putting maximum effort into resolving the disagreement.
Maybe people who call themselves rationalists “should” be able to, but that doesn’t seem to be what happens in practice. Then again, if you’ve ever watched a group of them spend 30 minutes debating something that can be googled, you have to wonder what else they might be missing.
It’s true that if you are quick to blame others, you can fail to diagnose the real source of the problem. However, the reverse is also true. If the problem is that you or others aren’t putting in enough effort, but you’ve already ruled it out on principle, you will also fail to diagnose it.
I’m not surprised that the comment feels off, it felt off to write it. Saying something that’s outside the Overton window that doesn’t sound like clever contrarianism feels wrong. (Which may also explains why people rarely leave comments like that in good faith.)