I don’t think your original comment actually contributes to understanding them – I’ve talked to you enough to have some idea what you meant, but it’s buried beneath layers of different frames and inferential distance, which adds up to:
a) the comment mostly just getting parsed ‘yay abuse’ rather than anything nuanced or important.
b) sort of a drive-by change-in-topic/frame/hammering-on-pet-issue. (i.e. sort of like if we periodically have discussion of videogames, and someone keeps jumping in to say ‘have you considered that videogames are superstimulus lotus eating?’ And maybe they are, and maybe it’s important to talk about, but that doesn’t mean it’s a productive dynamic to keep bringing them up in random threads)
I do think there’s an important thing you’re actually trying to say, and you’re welcome to say it either in your own top level posts (that actually spell out the inferential distance and make it clear what your actual goals are), or in the comments of people who opt into it. (I have no idea of Sarah’s take on that and whether she’d consider this subthread off-topic or on-topic).
But I think making comments like this whenever the topic veers in the direction of abuse or mental illness makes it harder, not easier, to talk seriously about it. And, yes, is generally uncomfortable and makes the site a place people are less excited to hang out, and that is something that actually matters.
I haven’t chatted with other moderators about this yet and haven’t formed an official longterm stance on this, but am leaning towards deleting comments similar to the initial downvoted one except on threads where the OP author has opted into it.
I’ve talked to you enough to have some idea what you meant, but it’s buried beneath layers of different frames and inferential distance
FWIW, I don’t think that I’ve talked to ialdabaoth a huge amount, but the comment seemed pretty comprehensible to me. The grammar isn’t very complicated, and all the words are pretty common and mean what they usually mean*. Maybe I’m just spoiled by reading a lot of Robin Hanson? I sort of agree that point (b) applies and is sort of annoying.
*except maybe ‘abuse’, which is one that I’ve never been super clear on what exactly people mean by it, but that’s a word that’s basically unavoidable here. [I’m not very interested in people explaining it to me in this thread]
I have more thoughts (short answer: yeah, I think reading and internalizing Hanson is a quite reasonable way to bridge most of the inferential distance, although not all of it). Will respond in more detail later.
I’ll be moving this subthread to meta, but I’m taking this opportunity to force myself to actually build a “move subthread to meta” tool instead of doing it manually.
1. It’s not a change in topic. It’s an explicit focus on the topic-in-question, and an attempt to explain—in a way that people’s guts will *get* - WHY the current equilibrium is preferred to the one being proposed by the author.
2. At no point does it even connotationally say “yay abuse”. It DOES connotationally call out humans-as-a-process for consistently performing actions that signal “yay abuse”, however. Connotationally saying “yay abuse” would have been phrased very differently, and I think we all know that.
3. Controversiality has less to do with opt-in/opt-out, and more to do with… who we think the connotations are making look bad. I’d really like that to stop.
… an attempt to explain—in a way that people’s guts will get—WHY the current equilibrium is preferred to the one being proposed by the author.
Though it’s likely that what you said is true in some cases, if you think that the model you propose is of comparable explanatory importance to what gwern said, then you’re simply mistaken—so framing your point as “I’m just explaining it in a way people will get” is not appropriate.
I don’t see how we can fight entropic systems without understanding them.
I don’t think your original comment actually contributes to understanding them – I’ve talked to you enough to have some idea what you meant, but it’s buried beneath layers of different frames and inferential distance, which adds up to:
a) the comment mostly just getting parsed ‘yay abuse’ rather than anything nuanced or important.
b) sort of a drive-by change-in-topic/frame/hammering-on-pet-issue. (i.e. sort of like if we periodically have discussion of videogames, and someone keeps jumping in to say ‘have you considered that videogames are superstimulus lotus eating?’ And maybe they are, and maybe it’s important to talk about, but that doesn’t mean it’s a productive dynamic to keep bringing them up in random threads)
I do think there’s an important thing you’re actually trying to say, and you’re welcome to say it either in your own top level posts (that actually spell out the inferential distance and make it clear what your actual goals are), or in the comments of people who opt into it. (I have no idea of Sarah’s take on that and whether she’d consider this subthread off-topic or on-topic).
But I think making comments like this whenever the topic veers in the direction of abuse or mental illness makes it harder, not easier, to talk seriously about it. And, yes, is generally uncomfortable and makes the site a place people are less excited to hang out, and that is something that actually matters.
I haven’t chatted with other moderators about this yet and haven’t formed an official longterm stance on this, but am leaning towards deleting comments similar to the initial downvoted one except on threads where the OP author has opted into it.
FWIW, I don’t think that I’ve talked to ialdabaoth a huge amount, but the comment seemed pretty comprehensible to me. The grammar isn’t very complicated, and all the words are pretty common and mean what they usually mean*. Maybe I’m just spoiled by reading a lot of Robin Hanson? I sort of agree that point (b) applies and is sort of annoying.
*except maybe ‘abuse’, which is one that I’ve never been super clear on what exactly people mean by it, but that’s a word that’s basically unavoidable here. [I’m not very interested in people explaining it to me in this thread]
I have more thoughts (short answer: yeah, I think reading and internalizing Hanson is a quite reasonable way to bridge most of the inferential distance, although not all of it). Will respond in more detail later.
I’ll be moving this subthread to meta, but I’m taking this opportunity to force myself to actually build a “move subthread to meta” tool instead of doing it manually.
I know the mod team have been busy in the past while, but I’d like to remind you of this.
Lol, thanks. I certainly did not end up getting around to this on the day I was planning to.
1. It’s not a change in topic. It’s an explicit focus on the topic-in-question, and an attempt to explain—in a way that people’s guts will *get* - WHY the current equilibrium is preferred to the one being proposed by the author.
2. At no point does it even connotationally say “yay abuse”. It DOES connotationally call out humans-as-a-process for consistently performing actions that signal “yay abuse”, however. Connotationally saying “yay abuse” would have been phrased very differently, and I think we all know that.
3. Controversiality has less to do with opt-in/opt-out, and more to do with… who we think the connotations are making look bad. I’d really like that to stop.
Though it’s likely that what you said is true in some cases, if you think that the model you propose is of comparable explanatory importance to what gwern said, then you’re simply mistaken—so framing your point as “I’m just explaining it in a way people will get” is not appropriate.
Even though it had equally suspect connotation?
What difference does that make…?
It hilights problematic assumptions that lead to problematic voting patterns.
Aaaaand now we really ARE meta.
That has nothing to do with what I said.
I disagree. How do we resolve who’s right, within the current trust environment?