I don’t know whether this is the true cause, but re-reading your original comment, the word “just” in this sentence gives me a very slight sense of triggeredness:
They’re just like… incidental post-hoc things.
I have a feeling which has the rough shape of something like… “people here [me included] are likely to value thoughts a lot and think of them as important in shaping behavior, and may be put on the defensive by wording which seems to be dismissive towards the importance of thoughts”.
Your second comment (“Basically, as far as I know, System 1 is more or less directly responsible for all actions”) feels to me like it might trigger a bit of the same, as it can be read to imply something like… “all of the stuff in the Sequences about figuring out biases and correcting for them on a System 2 level is basically useless, since System 1 drives people’s actions”.
I also feel that neither of these explanations is exactly right, and it’s actually something more subtle than that. Maybe something like “thoughts being the cause of actions is related to a central strategy of many people around here”.
It’s also weird that, like Raemon says, the feeling-of-the-conversation-being-off is subtle; it doesn’t feel like anybody is being explicitly aggressive and one could in principle interpret the conversation as everyone just sharing their models and confusion. Yet it feels like there is that argumentative vibe.
thoughts being the cause of actions is related to a central strategy of many people around here
(It’s a good reason to at least welcome arguments against this being the case. If your central strategy is built on a false premise, you should want to know. It might be pointless to expect any useful info in this direction, but I think it’s healthier to still want to see it emotionally even when you decide that it’s not worth your time to seek it out.)
I suspect my slight trigger (1/10) set off other people’s triggers. And I’m more triggered now as a result (but still only like 3⁄10.)
I’d like to save this thread as an example of a broader pattern I think I see on LW, which makes having conversations here more unpleasant than is probably necessary? Not sure though.
(fwiw I agree something about the conversation felt a bit off/overly-argumentative to me, although it’s hard to place)
I acknowledge that it’s likely somehow because of how I worded things in my original comment. I wish I knew how to fix it.
I don’t know whether this is the true cause, but re-reading your original comment, the word “just” in this sentence gives me a very slight sense of triggeredness:
I have a feeling which has the rough shape of something like… “people here [me included] are likely to value thoughts a lot and think of them as important in shaping behavior, and may be put on the defensive by wording which seems to be dismissive towards the importance of thoughts”.
Your second comment (“Basically, as far as I know, System 1 is more or less directly responsible for all actions”) feels to me like it might trigger a bit of the same, as it can be read to imply something like… “all of the stuff in the Sequences about figuring out biases and correcting for them on a System 2 level is basically useless, since System 1 drives people’s actions”.
I also feel that neither of these explanations is exactly right, and it’s actually something more subtle than that. Maybe something like “thoughts being the cause of actions is related to a central strategy of many people around here”.
It’s also weird that, like Raemon says, the feeling-of-the-conversation-being-off is subtle; it doesn’t feel like anybody is being explicitly aggressive and one could in principle interpret the conversation as everyone just sharing their models and confusion. Yet it feels like there is that argumentative vibe.
(It’s a good reason to at least welcome arguments against this being the case. If your central strategy is built on a false premise, you should want to know. It might be pointless to expect any useful info in this direction, but I think it’s healthier to still want to see it emotionally even when you decide that it’s not worth your time to seek it out.)
(Agreed, didn’t mean to imply otherwise.)
Thanks! This was helpful analysis.
I suspect my slight trigger (1/10) set off other people’s triggers. And I’m more triggered now as a result (but still only like 3⁄10.)
I’d like to save this thread as an example of a broader pattern I think I see on LW, which makes having conversations here more unpleasant than is probably necessary? Not sure though.