Of course it has impacts on others in society! In finding out the truth and investigating and finding strong arguments and evidence. The overall effect of a lot of high quality, curious, public investigation is to greatly improve others maps of the world in surprising ways and help people make better decisions, and this is true even if no individual thread of questioning is primarily optimized to help people make better decisions.
Re censoriousness: I think your question of how best to pressure an unethical company to be less unethical is a fine question, but to imply it’s the only good question (which I read into your comment, perhaps inaccurately) goes against the spirit of intellectual discourse.
It is genuinely a sign that we are all very bad at predicting others’ minds that it didn’t occur to me that if I said effectively “OP asked for ‘takes’, here’s a take on why I think this is pragmatically a bad idea” would also mean that I was saying “and therefore there is no other good question here”. That’s, as the meme goes, a whole different sentence.
Well, but you didn’t give a take on why it’s pragmatically a bad idea. If you’d written a comment with a pointer to something else worth pressuring them on, or gave a reason why publishing all the safety research doesn’t help very much / has hidden costs, I would’ve thought it a fine contribution to the discussion. Without that, the comment read to me as dismissive of the idea of exploring this question.
I disagree. I think the standard of “Am I contributing anything of substance to the conversation, such as a new argument or new information that someone can engage with?” is a pretty good standard for most/all comments to hold themselves to, regardless of the amount of engagement that is expected.
[Edit: Just FWIW, I have not voted on any of your comments in this thread.]
I think, having been raised in a series of very debate- and seminar-centric discussion cultures, that a quick-hit question like that is indeed contributing something of substance. I think it’s fair that folks disagree, and I think it’s also fair that people signal (e.g., with karma) that they think “hey man, let’s go a little less Socratic in our inquiry mode here.”
But, put in more rationalist-centric terms, sometimes the most useful Bayesian update you can offer someone else is, “I do not think everyone is having the same reaction to your argument that you expected.” (Also true for others doing that to me!)
(Edit to add two words to avoid ambiguity in meaning of my last sentence)
Of course it has impacts on others in society! In finding out the truth and investigating and finding strong arguments and evidence. The overall effect of a lot of high quality, curious, public investigation is to greatly improve others maps of the world in surprising ways and help people make better decisions, and this is true even if no individual thread of questioning is primarily optimized to help people make better decisions.
Re censoriousness: I think your question of how best to pressure an unethical company to be less unethical is a fine question, but to imply it’s the only good question (which I read into your comment, perhaps inaccurately) goes against the spirit of intellectual discourse.
It is genuinely a sign that we are all very bad at predicting others’ minds that it didn’t occur to me that if I said effectively “OP asked for ‘takes’, here’s a take on why I think this is pragmatically a bad idea” would also mean that I was saying “and therefore there is no other good question here”. That’s, as the meme goes, a whole different sentence.
Well, but you didn’t give a take on why it’s pragmatically a bad idea. If you’d written a comment with a pointer to something else worth pressuring them on, or gave a reason why publishing all the safety research doesn’t help very much / has hidden costs, I would’ve thought it a fine contribution to the discussion. Without that, the comment read to me as dismissive of the idea of exploring this question.
Yes, I would agree that if I expected a short take to have this degree of attention, I would probably have written a longer comment.
Well, no, I take that back. I probably wouldn’t have written anything at all. To some, that might be a feature; to me, that’s a bug.
I disagree. I think the standard of “Am I contributing anything of substance to the conversation, such as a new argument or new information that someone can engage with?” is a pretty good standard for most/all comments to hold themselves to, regardless of the amount of engagement that is expected.
[Edit: Just FWIW, I have not voted on any of your comments in this thread.]
I think, having been raised in a series of very debate- and seminar-centric discussion cultures, that a quick-hit question like that is indeed contributing something of substance. I think it’s fair that folks disagree, and I think it’s also fair that people signal (e.g., with karma) that they think “hey man, let’s go a little less Socratic in our inquiry mode here.”
But, put in more rationalist-centric terms, sometimes the most useful Bayesian update you can offer someone else is, “I do not think everyone is having the same reaction to your argument that you expected.” (Also true for others doing that to me!)
(Edit to add two words to avoid ambiguity in meaning of my last sentence)