Well, if Zack’s post isn’t properly understood as a response to yours, then there’s a disconnect somewhere. Obviously, if you say that you didn’t mean what Zack characterized you as saying, I believe you; but the question then is—what did you mean? I confess that I can’t see how to apply your point #5 either.
Er. If you’re actually saying “the burden of proof is on you to demonstrate that Zack hasn’t properly characterized your point,” as opposed to “it’s on Zack to demonstrate that he has,” then I’m not sure how to productively begin.
You may not be saying that. But Zack’s post reads, to me, like someone who read the bullet point, leapt to a conclusion about several dumb things that it meant, refused to read the expansion, and is off to the races. (This accords with my previous experiences of Zack.)
If you’ve read the expansion on 5 and you’re still confused, I’m happy to answer questions.
Er. If you’re actually saying “the burden of proof is on you to demonstrate that Zack hasn’t properly characterized your point,” as opposed to “it’s on Zack to demonstrate that he has,” then I’m not sure how to productively begin.
No, I am not saying that. All I meant was that I read your explanation, I had some thoughts about it; then I read Zack’s post, thought “yep, sounds about right”; then I read your comment on Zack’s post and was confused. Apparently, what I (and Zack?) understood you to be saying is not what you meant to say.
What you should do with this information is up to you, of course; I don’t say that you have any obligation here, as such. And, of course, there are some things that I could do: I could re-read that part of your post, I could ask specific questions, I could think more and harder, etc. Will I do some of those things? Maybe.
I don’t think that Zack’s reading is going to be especially representative; I think that a supermajority of people would not independently generate an understanding of 5 that matches his.
(Something different happens if people are given a Multiple Choice question where Zack’s interpretation is one of four or five possible interpretations; there I suspect it is an attractor that would drag more people in. This is most of why it’s important to me that he be understood to not actually be responding to me, rather than to his own strawman.)
If I were to discover that e.g. half of readers interpreted me the way Zack did, this would mean that I urgently needed to rewrite the post to head off those misunderstandings at the pass.
FYI I generated an understanding of 5 that was similar enough to Zack’s understanding to also nod along with his post and think “yup, sounds about right”(ish).
5 and 10 do feel like the weakest ones/the ones most likely to earn a rewrite that manages to strengthen them substantially.
But, like. It is specifically because of an anticipation that users like Zack would immediately and enthusiastically leap to recalcitrant strawmanning that I felt I had to post this wholesale as a complete list rather than ask “hey, I’ve got like eight of these I feel good about and two more I need help with; whaddyathink, LW?”
Like, what would’ve allowed a discussion on the merits of 5 and 10 to productively proceed is the prereq of enough-of-something-like-5-and-10 already being in the water (plus maybe a healthy dose of 8 and 9), and I was not at all confident we have that.
I for sure think that a conversation with Julia and Vaniver and Scott, etc., on how to create the better thing that 5 and 10 were trying to point to, would be lovely, and would work.
I feel like you’re not doing the mirror of guideline 8, here? Like, you’re being asked to restate or clarify your point, and your response looks to me like “well, until you show that you got it the first time around, I’m not going to clarify it.” If they got it the first time around, why would they need clarification?
Here and in one other notable place in this larger back-and-forth, I wasn’t asking him to show me that he understood it; I was asking him to share the labor of getting him across this inferential gap.
This was written when I thought Vaniver’s question was in the other place, so it’s a smidge odd as an answer here, but:
If someone asks me to explain why I think the sky is blue, especially if it’s someone who’s historically been a mixture of hostile, dismissive, and personally critical, I am suspicious that anything worthwhile will come from me putting forth effort.
(Here I’m basically claiming “I would have answered this question differently if it had come from Vaniver, or RandomLWUser420.”)
If they demonstrate that they’re really actually curious, by e.g. showing a little of their own attempt to figure out why I might have this belief, I am reassured, and more willing to give them the effort.
But of course, they’re welcome to say “not gonna jump through a hoop,” and in my world we have then achieved cooperation (in the form of each of us noting what we’re not interested in doing, and not doing it).
(I’m not super motivated to correct misunderstandings in the heads of Said or Zack particularly, so I didn’t have a want, myself, along the lines of “please let me try again.”)
Neither Said (who was actually present in the conversation) nor Zack (who was spiritually present and being invoked and very much at the forefront of my mind) seems to me to ever bother with the sixth guideline/split-and-commit, and more locally Zack was not bothering with it in his post in any genuinely substantive way, and Said was similarly not bothering with it in his back-and-forth with me.
“My conversational partner is willing to flex their sixth guideline muscles from time to time” is a prerequisite for my sustained/enthusiastic participation in a conversation.
In my experience, Said is pretty good at not jumping to conclusions in the ‘putting words in their mouth’ sense, tho in the opposite direction from how your guideline 6 suggests. Like, my model of Said tries to have a hole where the confusions are, instead of filling it with a distribution over lots of guesses.
I remember at one point pressing him on the “but why don’t you just guess and get it right tho” point, but couldn’t quickly find it; I think I might have been thinking of this thread on Zetetic Explanation. I don’t use his style, but it does seem coherent to me and I’m reluctant to declare it outside the bounds of rational conversation, and more than once have used Said as the target audience for a post.
“My conversational partner is willing to flex their sixth guideline muscles from time to time” is a prerequisite for my sustained/enthusiastic participation in a conversation.
This seems right and fair to me, and I think you and others feeling this way is a huge force behind the “we’re going to try to make LW fun again” moderation push of the last ~5 years.
Well, if Zack’s post isn’t properly understood as a response to yours, then there’s a disconnect somewhere. Obviously, if you say that you didn’t mean what Zack characterized you as saying, I believe you; but the question then is—what did you mean? I confess that I can’t see how to apply your point #5 either.
Er. If you’re actually saying “the burden of proof is on you to demonstrate that Zack hasn’t properly characterized your point,” as opposed to “it’s on Zack to demonstrate that he has,” then I’m not sure how to productively begin.
You may not be saying that. But Zack’s post reads, to me, like someone who read the bullet point, leapt to a conclusion about several dumb things that it meant, refused to read the expansion, and is off to the races. (This accords with my previous experiences of Zack.)
If you’ve read the expansion on 5 and you’re still confused, I’m happy to answer questions.
No, I am not saying that. All I meant was that I read your explanation, I had some thoughts about it; then I read Zack’s post, thought “yep, sounds about right”; then I read your comment on Zack’s post and was confused. Apparently, what I (and Zack?) understood you to be saying is not what you meant to say.
What you should do with this information is up to you, of course; I don’t say that you have any obligation here, as such. And, of course, there are some things that I could do: I could re-read that part of your post, I could ask specific questions, I could think more and harder, etc. Will I do some of those things? Maybe.
I don’t think that Zack’s reading is going to be especially representative; I think that a supermajority of people would not independently generate an understanding of 5 that matches his.
(Something different happens if people are given a Multiple Choice question where Zack’s interpretation is one of four or five possible interpretations; there I suspect it is an attractor that would drag more people in. This is most of why it’s important to me that he be understood to not actually be responding to me, rather than to his own strawman.)
If I were to discover that e.g. half of readers interpreted me the way Zack did, this would mean that I urgently needed to rewrite the post to head off those misunderstandings at the pass.
But I don’t currently anticipate that.
FYI I generated an understanding of 5 that was similar enough to Zack’s understanding to also nod along with his post and think “yup, sounds about right”(ish).
5 and 10 do feel like the weakest ones/the ones most likely to earn a rewrite that manages to strengthen them substantially.
But, like. It is specifically because of an anticipation that users like Zack would immediately and enthusiastically leap to recalcitrant strawmanning that I felt I had to post this wholesale as a complete list rather than ask “hey, I’ve got like eight of these I feel good about and two more I need help with; whaddyathink, LW?”
Like, what would’ve allowed a discussion on the merits of 5 and 10 to productively proceed is the prereq of enough-of-something-like-5-and-10 already being in the water (plus maybe a healthy dose of 8 and 9), and I was not at all confident we have that.
I for sure think that a conversation with Julia and Vaniver and Scott, etc., on how to create the better thing that 5 and 10 were trying to point to, would be lovely, and would work.
I feel like you’re not doing the mirror of guideline 8, here? Like, you’re being asked to restate or clarify your point, and your response looks to me like “well, until you show that you got it the first time around, I’m not going to clarify it.” If they got it the first time around, why would they need clarification?
Here and in one other notable place in this larger back-and-forth, I wasn’t asking him to show me that he understood it; I was asking him to share the labor of getting him across this inferential gap.
This was written when I thought Vaniver’s question was in the other place, so it’s a smidge odd as an answer here, but:
If someone asks me to explain why I think the sky is blue, especially if it’s someone who’s historically been a mixture of hostile, dismissive, and personally critical, I am suspicious that anything worthwhile will come from me putting forth effort.
(Here I’m basically claiming “I would have answered this question differently if it had come from Vaniver, or RandomLWUser420.”)
If they demonstrate that they’re really actually curious, by e.g. showing a little of their own attempt to figure out why I might have this belief, I am reassured, and more willing to give them the effort.
But of course, they’re welcome to say “not gonna jump through a hoop,” and in my world we have then achieved cooperation (in the form of each of us noting what we’re not interested in doing, and not doing it).
(I’m not super motivated to correct misunderstandings in the heads of Said or Zack particularly, so I didn’t have a want, myself, along the lines of “please let me try again.”)
Another way to say this:
Neither Said (who was actually present in the conversation) nor Zack (who was spiritually present and being invoked and very much at the forefront of my mind) seems to me to ever bother with the sixth guideline/split-and-commit, and more locally Zack was not bothering with it in his post in any genuinely substantive way, and Said was similarly not bothering with it in his back-and-forth with me.
“My conversational partner is willing to flex their sixth guideline muscles from time to time” is a prerequisite for my sustained/enthusiastic participation in a conversation.
In my experience, Said is pretty good at not jumping to conclusions in the ‘putting words in their mouth’ sense, tho in the opposite direction from how your guideline 6 suggests. Like, my model of Said tries to have a hole where the confusions are, instead of filling it with a distribution over lots of guesses.
I remember at one point pressing him on the “but why don’t you just guess and get it right tho” point, but couldn’t quickly find it; I think I might have been thinking of this thread on Zetetic Explanation. I don’t use his style, but it does seem coherent to me and I’m reluctant to declare it outside the bounds of rational conversation, and more than once have used Said as the target audience for a post.
This seems right and fair to me, and I think you and others feeling this way is a huge force behind the “we’re going to try to make LW fun again” moderation push of the last ~5 years.