I’d also link this to the recent marketing rationalism post. Using “dark art” means, an argument can be made as, or more compelling, than the argument would otherwise, all things being equal.
The question there seems to be, is it possible to use those means without negative side effects on the reader, and writer, when we know how easily the human mind can be displaced out of the (fairly artificial) state of rationality ?
Maybe we should cautiously train ourselves into both the defense against, and the use of “dark arts”, at the very least to be able to spot them when they’re used, and maybe, to know when it can be right to use them. This should follow the lesson in It’s okay to be (at least a little) irrational. We are running on a human brain. If we use, or even encounter, the dark arts, we run the risk of warping our own judgement, but if we shy away from them, pretending not to notice, we run the risk of using them without even our realizing it.
We need a safe, error recoverable, way to delve into these. How could we go about doing that ?
I don’t think it is enough to split the “dark arts” along the true/false axis. We also need to split along internal/external.
Consider the case that we have tried very hard to avoid being taken in by false arguments and have at long last reached a true and useful conclusion. Now what? We still have to remember our conclusion and refresh it so that it doesn’t slowly fade from view. Harder still, if we want our life to change, we need to find emotional equivalents for our intellectual understanding.
So I think that there are good internal uses for the “dark arts”. Once you have made your rational decision find a slogan that sticks in the memory and find motivational techniques with personal resonnance, even if they are not entirely honest. Of course, if one has made a mistake with ones initial assessment one is now digging oneself a very deep hole, they aren’t called dark arts for nothing.
What the hell are the “dark arts”? Could we quit playing super-secret dress-up society around here for one day and just speak in plain English, using terms with known meanings?
This is the Dark Side root link. In my opinion it’s a useful chunked) concept, though maybe people should be hyperlinking here when they use the term, to be more accessible to people who haven’t read every post. At the very least, the FAQ builders should add this, if it’s not there already.
Actually, the term “Dark Side Epistemology” seems to be tending towards over-generalization (being used to describe any persuasive art, say, rather than explicitly defended systematized bad rules of reasoning). “Dark Arts” isn’t even a term of my own invention; someone else imported that from Harry Potter. It seems to be trending towards synonymy with “Dark Side”. I may have to deprecate both terms as overly poetic and come up with something else—I’m thinking of Anti-Epistemology for systematically bad epistemology.
We have persuasive arguments in general, that which may be used to efficiently change someone else’s opinion in a predictable way (for instance to bring their opinion or beliefs closer to yours).
Those persuasive arguments may or may not be, intellectually honest or epistemically correct ones. The subset of persuasive arguments which are thusly wrong, overlaps with the set of arguments and techniques that are used in “anti-epistemology”, which is more general and contains methods and arguments that are not only wrong and deceptive, but also of no use to us.
As to the subset of arguments and methods which are epistemically wrong or dishonest, their specificity is that they are instrumentally right, and therefore whether the end result of their use is instrumentally rational, hinges on the epistemic rationality, and honesty, of the one who uses them.
I’m certainly not against using chunked concepts on here per se. But I think associating this community too closely with sci-fi/fantasy tropes could have deleterious consequences in the long run, as far as attracting diverse viewpoints and selling the ideas to people who aren’t already pre-disposed to buying them. If Eliezer really wanted to proselytize by poeticizing, he should turn LW into the most hyper-rational, successful PUA community on the Internet, rather than the Star Wars-esque roleplaying game it seems to want to become.
yes, what to call the chunk is a separate issue...I at least partially agree with you, but I’d want to hear what others have to say. The recent debate over the tone of the Twelve Virtues seems relevant.
Anders Sandberg is (or was, 10 years ago) a technopagan. As near as I can tell, this means using the dark arts on yourself in a controlled and planned manner for self-improvement.
I’d also link this to the recent marketing rationalism post. Using “dark art” means, an argument can be made as, or more compelling, than the argument would otherwise, all things being equal.
The question there seems to be, is it possible to use those means without negative side effects on the reader, and writer, when we know how easily the human mind can be displaced out of the (fairly artificial) state of rationality ?
Maybe we should cautiously train ourselves into both the defense against, and the use of “dark arts”, at the very least to be able to spot them when they’re used, and maybe, to know when it can be right to use them. This should follow the lesson in It’s okay to be (at least a little) irrational. We are running on a human brain. If we use, or even encounter, the dark arts, we run the risk of warping our own judgement, but if we shy away from them, pretending not to notice, we run the risk of using them without even our realizing it.
We need a safe, error recoverable, way to delve into these. How could we go about doing that ?
I don’t think it is enough to split the “dark arts” along the true/false axis. We also need to split along internal/external.
Consider the case that we have tried very hard to avoid being taken in by false arguments and have at long last reached a true and useful conclusion. Now what? We still have to remember our conclusion and refresh it so that it doesn’t slowly fade from view. Harder still, if we want our life to change, we need to find emotional equivalents for our intellectual understanding.
So I think that there are good internal uses for the “dark arts”. Once you have made your rational decision find a slogan that sticks in the memory and find motivational techniques with personal resonnance, even if they are not entirely honest. Of course, if one has made a mistake with ones initial assessment one is now digging oneself a very deep hole, they aren’t called dark arts for nothing.
What the hell are the “dark arts”? Could we quit playing super-secret dress-up society around here for one day and just speak in plain English, using terms with known meanings?
This is the Dark Side root link. In my opinion it’s a useful chunked) concept, though maybe people should be hyperlinking here when they use the term, to be more accessible to people who haven’t read every post. At the very least, the FAQ builders should add this, if it’s not there already.
Actually, the term “Dark Side Epistemology” seems to be tending towards over-generalization (being used to describe any persuasive art, say, rather than explicitly defended systematized bad rules of reasoning). “Dark Arts” isn’t even a term of my own invention; someone else imported that from Harry Potter. It seems to be trending towards synonymy with “Dark Side”. I may have to deprecate both terms as overly poetic and come up with something else—I’m thinking of Anti-Epistemology for systematically bad epistemology.
I have to say that I like the term “Dark Arts”. It’s kind of… cute.
I enjoy the sort of warm-and-fuzzy atmosphere that poetic vocabulary like this tends to foster.
We do actually need a term for “persuasion by cold blooded dirty tricks, even though possibly for noble ends”
Okay, in this case, how about this :
We have persuasive arguments in general, that which may be used to efficiently change someone else’s opinion in a predictable way (for instance to bring their opinion or beliefs closer to yours).
Those persuasive arguments may or may not be, intellectually honest or epistemically correct ones. The subset of persuasive arguments which are thusly wrong, overlaps with the set of arguments and techniques that are used in “anti-epistemology”, which is more general and contains methods and arguments that are not only wrong and deceptive, but also of no use to us.
As to the subset of arguments and methods which are epistemically wrong or dishonest, their specificity is that they are instrumentally right, and therefore whether the end result of their use is instrumentally rational, hinges on the epistemic rationality, and honesty, of the one who uses them.
I’m certainly not against using chunked concepts on here per se. But I think associating this community too closely with sci-fi/fantasy tropes could have deleterious consequences in the long run, as far as attracting diverse viewpoints and selling the ideas to people who aren’t already pre-disposed to buying them. If Eliezer really wanted to proselytize by poeticizing, he should turn LW into the most hyper-rational, successful PUA community on the Internet, rather than the Star Wars-esque roleplaying game it seems to want to become.
yes, what to call the chunk is a separate issue...I at least partially agree with you, but I’d want to hear what others have to say. The recent debate over the tone of the Twelve Virtues seems relevant.
The clothes make the man, they say, and sometimes the terminology makes the argument.
Anders Sandberg is (or was, 10 years ago) a technopagan. As near as I can tell, this means using the dark arts on yourself in a controlled and planned manner for self-improvement.
I see no mention of “dark arts” on: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pagan