Which doesn’t matter in a debate on mind-killing, discourse, etc. Suppose I made a meta argument like his (which is actually decent, connotations aside) accompanied by a “hypothetical” that ridiculed proponents of capitalism by describing them as “people who believe that using 2000s technology on luxury goods and high-tech weapons while there’s poverty even in the developed world is sane and logical… but that Evil Insane Tyranny would ensue if governments made a concerted effort to distribute resources differently.”.
Because I’d be (rightly) torn apart by reducing all apologetics of capitalism to this—everyone would point to it as a prime example of mind-killed strawmanning—and yet it’s not so different from how VB just described mindsets skeptical of the “free market”.
I see your point but I still think you’re being unfair. Viliam_Bur’s hypothetical leftish ideologue reads to me as only a little more strawmanish than his hypothetical libertarianish ideologue. I can imagine a right-libertarian Multiheaded from a parallel universe reading VB’s post and complaining (for example) that “I expect government to introduce bureaucracy and pervert good ideas” is a terrible strawman on the grounds that all right-thinking right-libertarians are well aware that using “bureaucracy” as a derogative is an unreflective cheap shot, that government bureaucracies sometimes merely substitute for private bureaucracies, that governments have implemented good ideas without perverting them, and so on.
Admittedly, when I read Viliam_Bur’s comments on politics, I do occasionally suspect the unconscious operation of the thought process you sarcastically identify (which is not to say it’s ever the dominant thought process at work). In fairness, I think VB himself often detects it too, and tries to consciously offset that in-group sensibility bias when he notices it. But now I am piling one speculation on top of another.
In any case, I agree that Viliam_Bur’s meta-level argument here is correct: ideologies make conflicting empirical claims as well as conflicting normative claims, and so empirical claims can reveal as much information about one’s ideology as normative claims can. For a local example, look at the correlation between politics and expected probability of global warming on the last LW survey. (For an even more local example, see this thread.)
Even if I concede that “I’m strawmanning one side only a little more than the other” accurately describes what’s going on here, which I’m not sure I do, I’m still not sure I endorse it.
Admittedly, if representing the two sides is worth doing in the first place, and representing them without strawmanning them is not worth the effort, and representing them by strawmanning them equally is not worth the effort, then the above is probably the next best choice. But I’m not sure any of that is true.
Not that this thread is unique in this respect. Lots of threads on LW do this sort of thing. I assume that if it weren’t for the anti-politics site norm there would be more of them; I expect that as this norm gets relaxed (as has been happening for the last year or so, and will likely keep happening) there will be more of them. Which is unfortunate, from my perspective.
ideologies make conflicting empirical claims as well as conflicting normative claims, and so empirical claims can reveal as much information about one’s ideology as normative claims can.
Even if I concede that “I’m strawmanning one side only a little more than the other” accurately describes what’s going on here, which I’m not sure I do, I’m still not sure I endorse it.
Agreed, but Multiheaded’s full-throated sarcasm was a disproportionate response.
I assume that if it weren’t for the anti-politics site norm there would be more of them; I expect that as this norm gets relaxed (as has been happening for the last year or so, and will likely keep happening)
I feel like there’s less political poo flinging on LW now than there was a year ago and two years ago. But I have no firm evidence.
Agreed, but Multiheaded’s full-throated sarcasm was a disproportionate response.
Not disputing that. I’m not sure what the “but” is doing there, though. Is the inappropriateness of VB’s comment somehow in tension with the inappropriateness of MH’s reply?
I feel like there’s less political poo flinging on LW now than there was a year ago and two years ago. But I have no firm evidence.
I’m delighted to hear that. I feel like there’s more, but I don’t trust my intuitions on the matter and haven’t looked into it in a reliable form, so evidence that I might be mistaken makes me feel better.
I’m not sure what the “but” is doing there, though. Is the inappropriateness of VB’s comment somehow in tension with the inappropriateness of MH’s reply?
Only rhetorically. I just wanted to emphasize that one needn’t endorse unequal strawmanning to find Multiheaded’s sarcasm unfair.
You omitted the start of that thought, where Viliam_Bur wrote, “For example, if”. It’s a hypothetical.
Which doesn’t matter in a debate on mind-killing, discourse, etc. Suppose I made a meta argument like his (which is actually decent, connotations aside) accompanied by a “hypothetical” that ridiculed proponents of capitalism by describing them as “people who believe that using 2000s technology on luxury goods and high-tech weapons while there’s poverty even in the developed world is sane and logical… but that Evil Insane Tyranny would ensue if governments made a concerted effort to distribute resources differently.”.
Because I’d be (rightly) torn apart by reducing all apologetics of capitalism to this—everyone would point to it as a prime example of mind-killed strawmanning—and yet it’s not so different from how VB just described mindsets skeptical of the “free market”.
I see your point but I still think you’re being unfair. Viliam_Bur’s hypothetical leftish ideologue reads to me as only a little more strawmanish than his hypothetical libertarianish ideologue. I can imagine a right-libertarian Multiheaded from a parallel universe reading VB’s post and complaining (for example) that “I expect government to introduce bureaucracy and pervert good ideas” is a terrible strawman on the grounds that all right-thinking right-libertarians are well aware that using “bureaucracy” as a derogative is an unreflective cheap shot, that government bureaucracies sometimes merely substitute for private bureaucracies, that governments have implemented good ideas without perverting them, and so on.
Admittedly, when I read Viliam_Bur’s comments on politics, I do occasionally suspect the unconscious operation of the thought process you sarcastically identify (which is not to say it’s ever the dominant thought process at work). In fairness, I think VB himself often detects it too, and tries to consciously offset that in-group sensibility bias when he notices it. But now I am piling one speculation on top of another.
In any case, I agree that Viliam_Bur’s meta-level argument here is correct: ideologies make conflicting empirical claims as well as conflicting normative claims, and so empirical claims can reveal as much information about one’s ideology as normative claims can. For a local example, look at the correlation between politics and expected probability of global warming on the last LW survey. (For an even more local example, see this thread.)
Even if I concede that “I’m strawmanning one side only a little more than the other” accurately describes what’s going on here, which I’m not sure I do, I’m still not sure I endorse it.
Admittedly, if representing the two sides is worth doing in the first place, and representing them without strawmanning them is not worth the effort, and representing them by strawmanning them equally is not worth the effort, then the above is probably the next best choice. But I’m not sure any of that is true.
Not that this thread is unique in this respect. Lots of threads on LW do this sort of thing. I assume that if it weren’t for the anti-politics site norm there would be more of them; I expect that as this norm gets relaxed (as has been happening for the last year or so, and will likely keep happening) there will be more of them. Which is unfortunate, from my perspective.
Absolutely true.
Agreed, but Multiheaded’s full-throated sarcasm was a disproportionate response.
I feel like there’s less political poo flinging on LW now than there was a year ago and two years ago. But I have no firm evidence.
Not disputing that.
I’m not sure what the “but” is doing there, though.
Is the inappropriateness of VB’s comment somehow in tension with the inappropriateness of MH’s reply?
I’m delighted to hear that. I feel like there’s more, but I don’t trust my intuitions on the matter and haven’t looked into it in a reliable form, so evidence that I might be mistaken makes me feel better.
Only rhetorically. I just wanted to emphasize that one needn’t endorse unequal strawmanning to find Multiheaded’s sarcasm unfair.