The effect it has on me is for example that I’ve just added the “appear to be” disclaimer in the preceding sentence, and I’m somewhat afraid of talking to you about your beliefs or motives.
Thankyou for adding the disclaimer. My motives in that comment were not primarily about punishing the public declaration of false, negative motives and instead the following of practical incentives I spent three whole paragraphs patiently explaining in the preceeding comment. It would have been worse to make an unqualafied public declaration that my motives were that which they were not, in direct contradiction to my explicitly declared reasoning, than a qualified one. After all, “appear” is somewhat subjective such that mind of the observer is able to perceive whatever it happens to perceive and your perceptions can constitute a true fact about the world regardless of whether they are accurate perceptions.
I would of course prefer it if people refrained from making declarations about people’s (negative) motives (for the purpose of shaming them) out of courtesy, rather than fear. Yet if you don’t believe courtesy to apply and fear happens to reduce the occurrence that is still a positive outcome.
Note that I take little to no offense at you telling people that I am motivated to punish instances of the act “mind read negative motives in others then publicly declare them” because I would endorse that motive in myself and others if they happen to have it. The only reason the grandparent wasn’t an instance of that (pro-social) kind of punishment was because there were higher priorities at the time.
I recently made the observation:
That’s an untenable interpretation of the written words and plain rude. (Claiming to have) mind read negative beliefs and motives in others then declaring them publicly tends to be frowned upon. Certainly it is frowned upon me.
That is something I strongly endorse. It is a fairly general norm in the world at large (or, to be technical, there is a norm that such a thing is only to be done to enemies and is a defection against allies). I consider that to be a wise and practical norm. Thinking that it can be freely abandoned and that such actions wouldn’t result in negative side effects strikes me as naive.
I took it as a personal favor when the user I was replying to in the above removed the talk about some motives that I particularly didn’t want to be associated with (and couldn’t plausibly have been executing). (If I recall the declared motives there implied weakness and stupidity, both of which are more objectionable to me than merely being called ‘evil’.)
punishing for voicing hypotheses (when they are wrong)
People tend to hypothesise negative motives in those they are in conflict with. People also tend to believe what they are told. Communities are much better off when the participants don’t feel free to go around outright declaring (or even just ‘hypothesizing’) that others have motives that they should be shamed for—unless there is a particularly strong reason to make an exception. The ability to criticize actual external behavior is more than sufficient for most purposes.
From my perspective, what I did was to hypothesize that you had the motive to do good but wrong beliefs. The beliefs I attributed to you in my guess was that komponisto’s comment constituted social aggression and/or dark arts, and therefore countering/punishing it would be good for LW.
I do not understand in what sense I hypothesized “negative motives” in you or where I said or implied that you should be shamed (except in the sense that having systematically wrong beliefs might be considered shameful in a community that prides itself on its rationality, but I’m guessing that’s not what you mean).
You said you didn’t punish me in this instance but that you would endorse doing so, and I bet that many of the people you did punish are in the same bewildered position of wondering what they did to deserve it, and have little idea how they’re supposed to avoid such punishments, except by avoiding drawing your attention. The fact that
you do not have just one pet peeve but a number of them,
your frequent refusals to explain your beliefs and motives when asked,
your tendency to further punish people for more perceived wrongs while they are trying to understand what they did wrong or trying to explain why you may be mistaken about their wrongness, and
your apparent akrasia regarding making posts that might explain how others could avoid being punished by you,
All of these do not help. And I note that since you like to defend people besides yourself against perceived wrongs, there is no reliable way to avoid drawing your attention except by not posting or commenting.
EDIT: This reply applies to a previous version of the parent. I’m not sure whether it applies to the current version since just a glance at the new bulleted list was too much.
From my perspective, what I did was to hypothesize that you had the motive to do good but wrong beliefs.
Yes, were I to have actually objected in this manner to you comment I clearly would have objected to the attribution of “false beliefs result in ” based on untenable mind-reading and not “sinister motives”. You will note that Vladimir referred to both. As it happens I was not executing punishment of either kind and so chose to discuss insinuation of false motives rather than insinuation of toxic beliefs because objecting to the former was the stance I had already taken recently and is the one most significantly objectionable.
You will note that “punishment” here refers to nothing more than labeling a thing and saying it is undesirable. In recent context it refers to the following, in response to some rather… dramatic and inflammatory motives:
That’s an untenable interpretation of the written words and plain rude. (Claiming to have) mind read negative beliefs and motives in others then declaring them publicly tends to be frowned upon. Certainly it is frowned upon by me.
I do endorse such a response. It is a straightforward and rather clearly explained assertion of boundaries. Yes, a technical analysis of the social implications makes such boundary assertion and the labeling of behaviors as ‘rude’ entails a form of ‘punishment’.
This is an (arguably) nuanced and low level analysis of how social behaviors work and I note that by the same analysis your own comments tend to be heavily riddled with both punishments and threats. Since this is an area where you use words differently and tend to make objections in response to low level analysis I will note explicitly that under more typical definitions of ‘punishment’ that would not describe your behavior as frequently having the social implication of punishment I would also reject that word applying to most of what I do.
You said you didn’t punish me in this instance but that you would endorse doing so, and I bet that many of the people you did punish are in the same bewildered position of wondering what they did to deserve it
I assert that there is no instance where I have ‘punished’ people for accusing me of believing things or having motives that I do not have where I have not been abundantly clear about what I am objecting to. Because not only is this not something that comes up frequently the punishment consists of nothing more than the explanation itself. This can plausibly be described as ‘punishment’ in as much as it entails providing potentially negative utility in response to undesired stimulus but if that punishment is recognized as punishment then the meaning is already clear.
Your frequent refusals to explain your beliefs and motives when asked
No Wei. I give an excessive amount of explanation of motives. In fact it wouldn’t surprise me if I provide more and more detailed explanations of this kind than anyone on the site—partly because I comment frequently but mostly because such things happen to be of abstract decision theoretical interest to me. Once again, I don’t like being forced into a corner where I have to speak plainly about something some would take personally but you really seem set on pushing the issue here. I have already explainedin this thread:
Another good reason would be that I find arguing with you about what posts should be made to be both fruitless and unpleasant. I find that the difference in preferences, assumptions and beliefs constitute an inferential distance that does not seem to be successfully crossed—I don’t find I learn anything from your exhortations and don’t expect to convince you of anything either. Note that I applied rudimentary tact and mentioned only the contextual reason because no matter how many caveats I include it is always going to come across as more personal and rude than I intend to be (where that intent would be the minimum possible given significant disagreement).
“The definition of insanity” may be hyperbole but it remains the case that doing the same thing again and again while expecting different results is foolish. I sincerely believe that explanations to you specifically have next to no chance of achieving a desired goal and that giving them to you will continue to be detrimental to me, as I have found it to be in the past. For example the parent primes people to apply interpretations to my comments that I consider ridiculous. All your other comments in this thread can be presumed to have some influence in that direction as well, making it more difficult to make people correctly interpret my words in the future and generally interfering with my ability to communicate successfully. If I didn’t reply to you I would not have given you a platform from which to speak and influence others. You would have just been left with your initial comment and if you had kept making comments like “Non-explanatory punisher!” without me engaging you would have just looked like a stalker.
Anyhow it would seem that my unfortunate bias to explain myself when it would be more rational to ignore has struck again.
the punishment consists of nothing more than the explanation itself
You do explain things, but simultaneously you express judgment about the error, which distracts (and thereby detracts) from the explanation. It doesn’t seem to be the case that the punishment consists only of the explanation. An explanation would be stating things like “I don’t actually believe this”, while statements like “Nothing I have said suggests this. Indeed, this is explicitly incompatible with my words as I have written them and it is bizarre that it has come up.” communicate your judgment about the error, which is additional information that is not particularly useful as part of the explanation of the error. Also, discussing the nature of the error would be even more helpful than stating what it is, for example in the same thread Wei still didn’t understand his error after reading your comment, while Vaniver’s follow-up clarified it nicely: “his point is that if you misunderstand the dynamics of the system, then you can both have the best motives and the worst consequences” (with some flaws, like saying “best”/”worst”, but this is beside the point).
You will note that Vladimir referred to both.
(I didn’t refer to either, I was speaking more generally than this particular conversation. Note how this is an explanation of the way in which your guess happens to be wrong, which is distinct from saying things like “your claims to having mind-reading abilities are abhorrent” etc.)
statements like “Nothing I have said suggests this. Indeed, this is explicitly incompatible with my words as I have written them
Are significant. It does matter whether or not actual words expressed are being ignored or overwhelmed by insinuations and ‘hypotheses’ that the speaker believes and would have others believe. It is not-OK to say that people believe things that their words right there in the context say something completely different.
communicate your judgment about the error
Yes, that is intended. The error is a social one for which it is legitimate to claim offense. That is, to judge that the thing should not be done and suggest to observers also consider that said thing should not be done. Please see my earlier explanation regarding why outlawing the claiming of offense for this type of norm violation is considered detrimental (by me and, implicitly, by most civilised social groups). The precise details of how best to claim offense can and should be optimised for best effect. I of course agree that there is much that I could do to convey my intended point in such a way that I am most likely to get my most desired outcomes. Yet this remains an optimisation of how to most effectively convey “No, incompatible, offense”.
I was speaking more generally than this particular conversation.
So was I, with the statement this replies to.
Note how this is an explanation of the way in which your guess happens to be wrong
I understand that, my point is that this is the part of the punishment that explains something other than the object-level error in question, which is the distinction Wei was also trying to make.
(I guess my position on offense is that one should deliberately avoid taking or expressing offense in all situations. There are other modes of social enforcement that don’t have offense’s mind-killing properties.)
I was speaking more generally than this particular conversation.
I guess my position on offense is that one should deliberately avoid taking or expressing offense in all situations. There are other modes of social enforcement that don’t have offense’s mind-killing properties.
That doesn’t seem right, although perhaps you define “offence claiming” more narrowly than I. I’m talking about anything up from making the simple statement “this shouldn’t be done”. Basically the least invasive sort of social intervention I can imagine, apart downvoting and body language indications—but even then my understanding is that is where most communication along the lines of ‘offense taking’ actually happens.
Thankyou for adding the disclaimer. My motives in that comment were not primarily about punishing the public declaration of false, negative motives and instead the following of practical incentives I spent three whole paragraphs patiently explaining in the preceeding comment. It would have been worse to make an unqualafied public declaration that my motives were that which they were not, in direct contradiction to my explicitly declared reasoning, than a qualified one. After all, “appear” is somewhat subjective such that mind of the observer is able to perceive whatever it happens to perceive and your perceptions can constitute a true fact about the world regardless of whether they are accurate perceptions.
I would of course prefer it if people refrained from making declarations about people’s (negative) motives (for the purpose of shaming them) out of courtesy, rather than fear. Yet if you don’t believe courtesy to apply and fear happens to reduce the occurrence that is still a positive outcome.
Note that I take little to no offense at you telling people that I am motivated to punish instances of the act “mind read negative motives in others then publicly declare them” because I would endorse that motive in myself and others if they happen to have it. The only reason the grandparent wasn’t an instance of that (pro-social) kind of punishment was because there were higher priorities at the time.
I recently made the observation:
That is something I strongly endorse. It is a fairly general norm in the world at large (or, to be technical, there is a norm that such a thing is only to be done to enemies and is a defection against allies). I consider that to be a wise and practical norm. Thinking that it can be freely abandoned and that such actions wouldn’t result in negative side effects strikes me as naive.
I took it as a personal favor when the user I was replying to in the above removed the talk about some motives that I particularly didn’t want to be associated with (and couldn’t plausibly have been executing). (If I recall the declared motives there implied weakness and stupidity, both of which are more objectionable to me than merely being called ‘evil’.)
People tend to hypothesise negative motives in those they are in conflict with. People also tend to believe what they are told. Communities are much better off when the participants don’t feel free to go around outright declaring (or even just ‘hypothesizing’) that others have motives that they should be shamed for—unless there is a particularly strong reason to make an exception. The ability to criticize actual external behavior is more than sufficient for most purposes.
From my perspective, what I did was to hypothesize that you had the motive to do good but wrong beliefs. The beliefs I attributed to you in my guess was that komponisto’s comment constituted social aggression and/or dark arts, and therefore countering/punishing it would be good for LW.
I do not understand in what sense I hypothesized “negative motives” in you or where I said or implied that you should be shamed (except in the sense that having systematically wrong beliefs might be considered shameful in a community that prides itself on its rationality, but I’m guessing that’s not what you mean).
You said you didn’t punish me in this instance but that you would endorse doing so, and I bet that many of the people you did punish are in the same bewildered position of wondering what they did to deserve it, and have little idea how they’re supposed to avoid such punishments, except by avoiding drawing your attention. The fact that
you do not have just one pet peeve but a number of them,
your frequent refusals to explain your beliefs and motives when asked,
your tendency to further punish people for more perceived wrongs while they are trying to understand what they did wrong or trying to explain why you may be mistaken about their wrongness, and
your apparent akrasia regarding making posts that might explain how others could avoid being punished by you,
All of these do not help. And I note that since you like to defend people besides yourself against perceived wrongs, there is no reliable way to avoid drawing your attention except by not posting or commenting.
EDIT: This reply applies to a previous version of the parent. I’m not sure whether it applies to the current version since just a glance at the new bulleted list was too much.
Yes, were I to have actually objected in this manner to you comment I clearly would have objected to the attribution of “false beliefs result in ” based on untenable mind-reading and not “sinister motives”. You will note that Vladimir referred to both. As it happens I was not executing punishment of either kind and so chose to discuss insinuation of false motives rather than insinuation of toxic beliefs because objecting to the former was the stance I had already taken recently and is the one most significantly objectionable.
You will note that “punishment” here refers to nothing more than labeling a thing and saying it is undesirable. In recent context it refers to the following, in response to some rather… dramatic and inflammatory motives:
I do endorse such a response. It is a straightforward and rather clearly explained assertion of boundaries. Yes, a technical analysis of the social implications makes such boundary assertion and the labeling of behaviors as ‘rude’ entails a form of ‘punishment’.
This is an (arguably) nuanced and low level analysis of how social behaviors work and I note that by the same analysis your own comments tend to be heavily riddled with both punishments and threats. Since this is an area where you use words differently and tend to make objections in response to low level analysis I will note explicitly that under more typical definitions of ‘punishment’ that would not describe your behavior as frequently having the social implication of punishment I would also reject that word applying to most of what I do.
I assert that there is no instance where I have ‘punished’ people for accusing me of believing things or having motives that I do not have where I have not been abundantly clear about what I am objecting to. Because not only is this not something that comes up frequently the punishment consists of nothing more than the explanation itself. This can plausibly be described as ‘punishment’ in as much as it entails providing potentially negative utility in response to undesired stimulus but if that punishment is recognized as punishment then the meaning is already clear.
No Wei. I give an excessive amount of explanation of motives. In fact it wouldn’t surprise me if I provide more and more detailed explanations of this kind than anyone on the site—partly because I comment frequently but mostly because such things happen to be of abstract decision theoretical interest to me. Once again, I don’t like being forced into a corner where I have to speak plainly about something some would take personally but you really seem set on pushing the issue here. I have already explained in this thread:
“The definition of insanity” may be hyperbole but it remains the case that doing the same thing again and again while expecting different results is foolish. I sincerely believe that explanations to you specifically have next to no chance of achieving a desired goal and that giving them to you will continue to be detrimental to me, as I have found it to be in the past. For example the parent primes people to apply interpretations to my comments that I consider ridiculous. All your other comments in this thread can be presumed to have some influence in that direction as well, making it more difficult to make people correctly interpret my words in the future and generally interfering with my ability to communicate successfully. If I didn’t reply to you I would not have given you a platform from which to speak and influence others. You would have just been left with your initial comment and if you had kept making comments like “Non-explanatory punisher!” without me engaging you would have just looked like a stalker.
Anyhow it would seem that my unfortunate bias to explain myself when it would be more rational to ignore has struck again.
You do explain things, but simultaneously you express judgment about the error, which distracts (and thereby detracts) from the explanation. It doesn’t seem to be the case that the punishment consists only of the explanation. An explanation would be stating things like “I don’t actually believe this”, while statements like “Nothing I have said suggests this. Indeed, this is explicitly incompatible with my words as I have written them and it is bizarre that it has come up.” communicate your judgment about the error, which is additional information that is not particularly useful as part of the explanation of the error. Also, discussing the nature of the error would be even more helpful than stating what it is, for example in the same thread Wei still didn’t understand his error after reading your comment, while Vaniver’s follow-up clarified it nicely: “his point is that if you misunderstand the dynamics of the system, then you can both have the best motives and the worst consequences” (with some flaws, like saying “best”/”worst”, but this is beside the point).
(I didn’t refer to either, I was speaking more generally than this particular conversation. Note how this is an explanation of the way in which your guess happens to be wrong, which is distinct from saying things like “your claims to having mind-reading abilities are abhorrent” etc.)
Are significant. It does matter whether or not actual words expressed are being ignored or overwhelmed by insinuations and ‘hypotheses’ that the speaker believes and would have others believe. It is not-OK to say that people believe things that their words right there in the context say something completely different.
Yes, that is intended. The error is a social one for which it is legitimate to claim offense. That is, to judge that the thing should not be done and suggest to observers also consider that said thing should not be done. Please see my earlier explanation regarding why outlawing the claiming of offense for this type of norm violation is considered detrimental (by me and, implicitly, by most civilised social groups). The precise details of how best to claim offense can and should be optimised for best effect. I of course agree that there is much that I could do to convey my intended point in such a way that I am most likely to get my most desired outcomes. Yet this remains an optimisation of how to most effectively convey “No, incompatible, offense”.
So was I, with the statement this replies to.
So no, it isn’t.
I understand that, my point is that this is the part of the punishment that explains something other than the object-level error in question, which is the distinction Wei was also trying to make.
(I guess my position on offense is that one should deliberately avoid taking or expressing offense in all situations. There are other modes of social enforcement that don’t have offense’s mind-killing properties.)
Okay.
That doesn’t seem right, although perhaps you define “offence claiming” more narrowly than I. I’m talking about anything up from making the simple statement “this shouldn’t be done”. Basically the least invasive sort of social intervention I can imagine, apart downvoting and body language indications—but even then my understanding is that is where most communication along the lines of ‘offense taking’ actually happens.