Seeing you write about this problem, in such harsh terms as “formerly-known-as-rationality community” and “effects are iffier and getting worse”, is surprising in a good way.
Maybe talking clearly could help against these effects. The American talking style has been getting more oblique lately, and it’s especially bad on LW, maybe due to all the mind practices. I feel this, I guess that, I’d like to understand better… For contrast, read DeMille’s interview after he quit dianetics. It’s such a refreshingly direct style, like he spent years mired in oblique talk and mind practices then got fed up and flipped to the opposite, total clarity. I’d love to see more of that here.
The American talking style has been getting more oblique lately, and it’s especially bad on LW, maybe due to all the mind practices. I feel this, I guess that, I’d like to understand better…
I tend to talk like that, prefer that kind of talk, and haven’t done any mind practices. (I guess you mean meditation, circling, that kind of thing?) I think it’s a good way to communicate degrees of uncertainty (and other “metadata”) without having to put a lot of effort into coming up with explicit numbers. I don’t see anything in Anna’s post that argues against this, so if you want to push against it I think you’ll have to say more about your objections.
For some reason it’s not as annoying to me when you do it. But still, in most cases I’d prefer to learn the actual evidence that someone saw, rather than their posterior beliefs or even their likelihood ratios (as your conversation with Hal Finney here shows very nicely). And when sharing evidence you don’t have to qualify it as much, you can just say what you saw.
But still, in most cases I’d prefer to learn the actual evidence that someone saw, rather than their posterior beliefs or even their likelihood ratios (as your conversation with Hal Finney here shows very nicely).
I think that makes sense (and made the point more explicitly at the end of Probability Space & Aumann Agreement). But sharing evidence is pretty costly and it’s infeasible to share everything that goes into one’s posterior beliefs. It seems sensible to share posterior beliefs first and then engage in some protocol (e.g., double cruxing or just ordinary discussion) for exchanging the most important evidence while minimizing cost with whoever actually disagrees with you. (This does leave the possibility that two people agree after having observed different evidence and could still benefit from exchanging evidence, but still seems reasonable as a rule of thumb in the real world.)
And when sharing evidence you don’t have to qualify it so much, you can just say what you saw.
I think you still do? Because you may not be sure that you remember it correctly, or interpreted it correctly in the first place, or don’t totally trust the source of the evidence, etc.
That’s fair. Though I’m also worried that when Alice and Bob exchange beliefs (“I believe in global warming” “I don’t”), they might not go on to exchange evidence, because one or both of them just get frustrated and leave. When someone states their belief first, it’s hard to know where to even start arguing. This effect is kind of unseen, but I think it stops a lot of good conversations from happening.
While if you start with evidence, there’s at least some chance of conversation about the actual thing. And it’s not that time-consuming, if everyone shares their strongest evidence first and gets a chance to respond to the other person’s strongest evidence. I wish more conversations went like that.
Seeing you write about this problem, in such harsh terms as “formerly-known-as-rationality community” and “effects are iffier and getting worse”, is surprising in a good way.
Maybe talking clearly could help against these effects. The American talking style has been getting more oblique lately, and it’s especially bad on LW, maybe due to all the mind practices. I feel this, I guess that, I’d like to understand better… For contrast, read DeMille’s interview after he quit dianetics. It’s such a refreshingly direct style, like he spent years mired in oblique talk and mind practices then got fed up and flipped to the opposite, total clarity. I’d love to see more of that here.
I tend to talk like that, prefer that kind of talk, and haven’t done any mind practices. (I guess you mean meditation, circling, that kind of thing?) I think it’s a good way to communicate degrees of uncertainty (and other “metadata”) without having to put a lot of effort into coming up with explicit numbers. I don’t see anything in Anna’s post that argues against this, so if you want to push against it I think you’ll have to say more about your objections.
For some reason it’s not as annoying to me when you do it. But still, in most cases I’d prefer to learn the actual evidence that someone saw, rather than their posterior beliefs or even their likelihood ratios (as your conversation with Hal Finney here shows very nicely). And when sharing evidence you don’t have to qualify it as much, you can just say what you saw.
I think that makes sense (and made the point more explicitly at the end of Probability Space & Aumann Agreement). But sharing evidence is pretty costly and it’s infeasible to share everything that goes into one’s posterior beliefs. It seems sensible to share posterior beliefs first and then engage in some protocol (e.g., double cruxing or just ordinary discussion) for exchanging the most important evidence while minimizing cost with whoever actually disagrees with you. (This does leave the possibility that two people agree after having observed different evidence and could still benefit from exchanging evidence, but still seems reasonable as a rule of thumb in the real world.)
I think you still do? Because you may not be sure that you remember it correctly, or interpreted it correctly in the first place, or don’t totally trust the source of the evidence, etc.
That’s fair. Though I’m also worried that when Alice and Bob exchange beliefs (“I believe in global warming” “I don’t”), they might not go on to exchange evidence, because one or both of them just get frustrated and leave. When someone states their belief first, it’s hard to know where to even start arguing. This effect is kind of unseen, but I think it stops a lot of good conversations from happening.
While if you start with evidence, there’s at least some chance of conversation about the actual thing. And it’s not that time-consuming, if everyone shares their strongest evidence first and gets a chance to respond to the other person’s strongest evidence. I wish more conversations went like that.