I mean, I get that OrphanWilde is feeling very smug at having been able to “mug” some other people in the discussion here, and that this mugging is meant to be analogous both to the situation (deliberately incoherently) described in the article and to things that happen in real life.
But … so what? Are we meant to be startled by the revelation that sometimes people exploit other people? Hardly.
And what seems to be one of the points you say you’re trying to make—that when this happens we are liable to assume it’s our own fault rather than the other person’s malice—seems to me to be very ill supported by anything that’s happened here. (1) I don’t see other people assuming that the confusion here is their own fault, I see them trying to be tactful about the fact that it’s yours. (2) I would expect posters here to be more willing to give benefit of the doubt than, e.g., in a business situation where they and the other party are literally competing for money. (3) You say “Here, I mugged you for a few seconds or maybe minutes [...] in real life, that would be hours, weeks, months”—but I see no reason to expect people to be orders of magnitude slower in “real life” than here.
Further, you didn’t in fact exploit anyone because (unless you’re really malicious and actually enjoy seeing people waste time to no purpose, in which case fuck you) you didn’t gain anything. You (at most) just wasted some people’s time. Congratulations, but it’s not like that’s terribly hard to do. And, perhaps, you just made a bunch of people that little bit less inclined to be helpful and understanding to some confused-seeming guy on Less Wrong in the future.
I’m downvoting your post here and your replies in the comments, and would encourage other readers to do likewise. Making Less Wrong incrementally less useful in order to be able to preen about how you exploited people is not behaviour I wish to encourage here, and I see no actual insight (either overtly expressed or implicit) that counterbalances your act of defection.
[EDITED to add: OH HA HA I JUST MUGGED YOU AREN’T I CLEVER]
I don’t care about my karma points. If I did I wouldn’t create these kinds of posts, which aggravate people. All you’ve done is vent some of your evident anger. If I cared about my karma points, I wouldn’t create more comments, such as this one, for you to downvote. Feel free, just try not to get yourself banned for abusing it.
Incidentally, the purpose of this post was to teach, since you state that you don’t understand.
ETA:
The phrasing of that last sentence comes off as more “smug” than I intended. Read it for its literal value, if you would.
No, actually, not angry. I just think you did something of net negative value for crappy reasons.
I don’t think I’m in any danger of getting banned for downvoting things that are blatantly (and self-admittedly) of negative value.
the purpose of this post was to teach
And how effectively do you think you can teach, having just boasted of how you wasted your readers’ time being deliberately stupid at them? What incentive does anyone have to pay attention this time around?
(You might say: Aha, you learned my lesson. But, as it happens, I already knew.)
And how effectively do you think you can teach, having just boasted of how you wasted your readers’ time being deliberately stupid at them?
Depends on whether they’re looking to learn something, or looking for reasons not to learn something.
You might say: Aha, you learned my lesson. But, as it happens, I already knew.
Actually, you are entirely correct: You already knew. I did not, in fact, “mug” you. The mugging was not in the wasting of the readers’ time, that was merely what was lost; it was a conceptual mugging. Every reader who kept insisting on fighting the hypothetical was mugged with each insistence. In real life, they would have kept sticking to the same “I must have planned this wrong” line of reasoning—your first response was that this was the wrong line of reasoning. Which is why I brought up mugging, and focused on that instead; it was a better line of conversation with you.
But my hypothetical situation was no worse than most hypothetical situations, I was simply more honest about it. Hypothetical situations are most usually created to manufacture no-win situations for specific kinds of thought processes. This was no different.
looking to learn something, or looking for reasons not to learn something.
Well, all I can say other than appealing to intuitions that might not be shared is this: I was looking to learn something when I read this stuff; I was disappointed that it seemed to consist mostly of bad thinking; after your confession I spent a little while reading your comments before realising that I couldn’t and shouldn’t trust them to be written with any intention of helping (or even not to be attempts at outright mental sabotage, given what you say this is all meant to be analogous to), at which point I gave up.
(If you’re wondering, I’m continuing here mostly because it might be useful to other readers. I’m not very hopeful that it will, though, and will probably stop soon.)
Oh, sorry, I should have made the following explicit: The point isn’t to discourage you by making you suffer. It’s to discourage other people from similar negative-value actions.
I don’t understand the point of this.
I mean, I get that OrphanWilde is feeling very smug at having been able to “mug” some other people in the discussion here, and that this mugging is meant to be analogous both to the situation (deliberately incoherently) described in the article and to things that happen in real life.
But … so what? Are we meant to be startled by the revelation that sometimes people exploit other people? Hardly.
And what seems to be one of the points you say you’re trying to make—that when this happens we are liable to assume it’s our own fault rather than the other person’s malice—seems to me to be very ill supported by anything that’s happened here. (1) I don’t see other people assuming that the confusion here is their own fault, I see them trying to be tactful about the fact that it’s yours. (2) I would expect posters here to be more willing to give benefit of the doubt than, e.g., in a business situation where they and the other party are literally competing for money. (3) You say “Here, I mugged you for a few seconds or maybe minutes [...] in real life, that would be hours, weeks, months”—but I see no reason to expect people to be orders of magnitude slower in “real life” than here.
Further, you didn’t in fact exploit anyone because (unless you’re really malicious and actually enjoy seeing people waste time to no purpose, in which case fuck you) you didn’t gain anything. You (at most) just wasted some people’s time. Congratulations, but it’s not like that’s terribly hard to do. And, perhaps, you just made a bunch of people that little bit less inclined to be helpful and understanding to some confused-seeming guy on Less Wrong in the future.
I’m downvoting your post here and your replies in the comments, and would encourage other readers to do likewise. Making Less Wrong incrementally less useful in order to be able to preen about how you exploited people is not behaviour I wish to encourage here, and I see no actual insight (either overtly expressed or implicit) that counterbalances your act of defection.
[EDITED to add: OH HA HA I JUST MUGGED YOU AREN’T I CLEVER]
The usual verb is “to troll”.
I know, but OrphanWilde chose “mug” and I played along.
Clearly, the lesson didn’t take :-P
I don’t care about my karma points. If I did I wouldn’t create these kinds of posts, which aggravate people. All you’ve done is vent some of your evident anger. If I cared about my karma points, I wouldn’t create more comments, such as this one, for you to downvote. Feel free, just try not to get yourself banned for abusing it.
Incidentally, the purpose of this post was to teach, since you state that you don’t understand.
ETA: The phrasing of that last sentence comes off as more “smug” than I intended. Read it for its literal value, if you would.
No, actually, not angry. I just think you did something of net negative value for crappy reasons.
I don’t think I’m in any danger of getting banned for downvoting things that are blatantly (and self-admittedly) of negative value.
And how effectively do you think you can teach, having just boasted of how you wasted your readers’ time being deliberately stupid at them? What incentive does anyone have to pay attention this time around?
(You might say: Aha, you learned my lesson. But, as it happens, I already knew.)
Depends on whether they’re looking to learn something, or looking for reasons not to learn something.
Actually, you are entirely correct: You already knew. I did not, in fact, “mug” you. The mugging was not in the wasting of the readers’ time, that was merely what was lost; it was a conceptual mugging. Every reader who kept insisting on fighting the hypothetical was mugged with each insistence. In real life, they would have kept sticking to the same “I must have planned this wrong” line of reasoning—your first response was that this was the wrong line of reasoning. Which is why I brought up mugging, and focused on that instead; it was a better line of conversation with you.
But my hypothetical situation was no worse than most hypothetical situations, I was simply more honest about it. Hypothetical situations are most usually created to manufacture no-win situations for specific kinds of thought processes. This was no different.
Well, all I can say other than appealing to intuitions that might not be shared is this: I was looking to learn something when I read this stuff; I was disappointed that it seemed to consist mostly of bad thinking; after your confession I spent a little while reading your comments before realising that I couldn’t and shouldn’t trust them to be written with any intention of helping (or even not to be attempts at outright mental sabotage, given what you say this is all meant to be analogous to), at which point I gave up.
(If you’re wondering, I’m continuing here mostly because it might be useful to other readers. I’m not very hopeful that it will, though, and will probably stop soon.)
Oh, sorry, I should have made the following explicit: The point isn’t to discourage you by making you suffer. It’s to discourage other people from similar negative-value actions.