I don’t find some of your arguments convincing. I agree with this:
Praise taps into an emotional aspect of human mind, and so is sometimes pursued terminally, irrespective of its instrumental value (praising plants).
I’m not moved by:
Praise should be used exclusively to identify perfect things, and this is required by “rationalism”. (If there is an emotional need for praise, it’s marginally good to praise even random things, so if anything you should find something real to praise, not stipulate an almost-empty category. Goodness certainly fits the bill. “Rationalism” is never an argument in itself.)
Collaborating on projects in the cases you listed is related to Eliezer’s article.
Stylistic disbalance of praise/criticism is justified by the danger of praise. (We don’t seem to actually have this disbalance problem on LW; if disbalance is a problem, then the direction of improvement is more praise, not less, you can’t argue both ways in the same situation.)
The concept of “rationalist images”.
There not being a guarantee to implement X is an argument about X’s properties. (This is even worse for “goodness”.)
Overall, you seem to use “rationality” as a curiosity-stopper, giving it as a reason for some of your arguments, but not unpacking it to get at the actual reasons that can move the opponent.
Thanks; I did write this all in one go and I may actually need to unpack the ideas better.
I suspected that “goodness” would be something that one need have no qualms about praising—the difficult with “goodness” is that it’s hard to visualize it, not that there’s anything wrong with praising it.
On whether it’s “rational” to praise things at random—the issue is, you have to believe your praise to some extent. Vladimir, you can say in a comment that it’s good to praise even random things. But are you really going to say, with sincerity, “Oh Bayes from whom all blessings flow”? You can’t, because that’s a kind of willful self-deception: all blessings do not flow from Bayes. I’m saying that unless you turn your brain off from time to time, you’re not going to be able to go into praise mode. If you know how to do otherwise—if you can think of an example that you’d be able to carry out—then do let me know.
Are you saying that there is not more criticism than praise on LW? Just counting up comments, there is; it doesn’t feel like a particularly critical environment because the tone is civil and there are areas of broad agreement, but we do criticize more than we praise.
I’ve seen distinct criticism around here for, say, Kurtzweilian AI—painting a picture of a utopia, claiming that it’s likely to come about, without much justification, in fact letting the image of the utopia be most of the justification. Using “applause lights” is frowned on here. So, yes, there are some images that are irrational (if you believe in them.)
Could you pray to goodness? Could you have a spiritual or transcendent relationship with a remote possibility (like very good future technology)? Would you want to? I would be surprised if anyone’s answer here was “yes,” but I can’t see anything wrong with saying “yes.” It just seems like it would bother people.
Could you pray to goodness? Could you have a spiritual or transcendent relationship with a remote possibility (like very good future technology)? Would you want to? I would be surprised if anyone’s answer here was “yes,” but I can’t see anything wrong with saying “yes.” It just seems like it would bother people.
I don’t find some of your arguments convincing. I agree with this:
Praise taps into an emotional aspect of human mind, and so is sometimes pursued terminally, irrespective of its instrumental value (praising plants).
I’m not moved by:
Praise should be used exclusively to identify perfect things, and this is required by “rationalism”. (If there is an emotional need for praise, it’s marginally good to praise even random things, so if anything you should find something real to praise, not stipulate an almost-empty category. Goodness certainly fits the bill. “Rationalism” is never an argument in itself.)
Collaborating on projects in the cases you listed is related to Eliezer’s article.
Stylistic disbalance of praise/criticism is justified by the danger of praise. (We don’t seem to actually have this disbalance problem on LW; if disbalance is a problem, then the direction of improvement is more praise, not less, you can’t argue both ways in the same situation.)
The concept of “rationalist images”.
There not being a guarantee to implement X is an argument about X’s properties. (This is even worse for “goodness”.)
Overall, you seem to use “rationality” as a curiosity-stopper, giving it as a reason for some of your arguments, but not unpacking it to get at the actual reasons that can move the opponent.
Thanks; I did write this all in one go and I may actually need to unpack the ideas better.
I suspected that “goodness” would be something that one need have no qualms about praising—the difficult with “goodness” is that it’s hard to visualize it, not that there’s anything wrong with praising it.
On whether it’s “rational” to praise things at random—the issue is, you have to believe your praise to some extent. Vladimir, you can say in a comment that it’s good to praise even random things. But are you really going to say, with sincerity, “Oh Bayes from whom all blessings flow”? You can’t, because that’s a kind of willful self-deception: all blessings do not flow from Bayes. I’m saying that unless you turn your brain off from time to time, you’re not going to be able to go into praise mode. If you know how to do otherwise—if you can think of an example that you’d be able to carry out—then do let me know.
Are you saying that there is not more criticism than praise on LW? Just counting up comments, there is; it doesn’t feel like a particularly critical environment because the tone is civil and there are areas of broad agreement, but we do criticize more than we praise.
I’ve seen distinct criticism around here for, say, Kurtzweilian AI—painting a picture of a utopia, claiming that it’s likely to come about, without much justification, in fact letting the image of the utopia be most of the justification. Using “applause lights” is frowned on here. So, yes, there are some images that are irrational (if you believe in them.)
Could you pray to goodness? Could you have a spiritual or transcendent relationship with a remote possibility (like very good future technology)? Would you want to? I would be surprised if anyone’s answer here was “yes,” but I can’t see anything wrong with saying “yes.” It just seems like it would bother people.
We’ve come a long, long way together Through the hard times and the good I have to cerebrate you, baby I have to bayes you like I should
MoR:Harry comes pretty damn close.