Sorry, but the specifics are centrally cruxy to me due to Aumann’s agreement theorem. If I hear people being angry about some random thing, I might assume that there is some underlying reason that the angry Lizardman people have for their opinion, and this reason might persuade me if I looked closer. Your post instead suggests that it’s not worth looking closer because they are probably just crazy, and we should set up some institutions to block the angry people from having an influence. Before setting up institutions to block people with inconvenient opinions, I’d really like to know whether those opinions do indeed tend to be crazy or if they are actually fairly worthwhile.
I find it telling that each of the concrete examples we have been able to come up with actually suggests that your post is exactly the opposite of the truth, and it suggests to me that maybe we need the opposite policy, institutions that better integrate people’s complaints.
You’re missing me in several ways, for instance doing a substitution from “if you remove insulation from existing institutions, people give up and those institutions erode” (which the post says) to “we should set up institutions to block angry people from having an influence” (which is similar but is not what the post is arguing).
I guess to me these feel like two sides of the same coin? Part of your point is that insulation levels have been dropping, and institutions seem to vary a lot in their insulation, so unless you believe that most reductions in insulation are good, one would think you would believe that there’s a need for some increases in isolation.
But if you are just pointing at the existence of a tradeoff to be mindful of, rather than advocating for one particular side of the tradeoff, and you find it plausible that most reductions insulation are good, then I am sympathetic to your point. That’s just not how your post came off to me, and in particular your post seems to be misdiagnosing aspects of the cause in a way that would suggest a more one-sided approach.
If we take someone drinking three cups of coffee a day and make them instead drink zero cups of coffee a day, they’re gonna have a bad time. That doesn’t mean we should have more people drinking three cups of coffee a day. It’s plausible we should, but someone saying “we shouldn’t take coffee-drinkers’ coffee away” is not saying “we should give non-coffee-drinkers more coffee”.
If I hear people being angry about some random thing, I might assume that there is some underlying reason that the angry Lizardman people have for their opinion, and this reason might persuade me if I looked closer.
and
I’d really like to know whether those opinions do indeed tend to be crazy or if they are actually fairly worthwhile.
… I direct your attention to Privileging the Hypothesis, which maybe I should edit into the OP as a prereq.
each of the concrete examples we have been able to come up with
Suppose that your good friend, the police commissioner, tells you in strictest confidence that the crime kingpin of your city is Wulky Wilkinsen. As a rationalist, are you licensed to believe this statement? Put it this way: if you go ahead and insult Wulky, I’d call you foolhardy. Since it is prudent to act as if Wulky has a substantially higher-than-default probability of being a crime boss, the police commissioner’s statement must have been strong Bayesian evidence.
Sorry, but the specifics are centrally cruxy to me due to Aumann’s agreement theorem. If I hear people being angry about some random thing, I might assume that there is some underlying reason that the angry Lizardman people have for their opinion, and this reason might persuade me if I looked closer. Your post instead suggests that it’s not worth looking closer because they are probably just crazy, and we should set up some institutions to block the angry people from having an influence. Before setting up institutions to block people with inconvenient opinions, I’d really like to know whether those opinions do indeed tend to be crazy or if they are actually fairly worthwhile.
I find it telling that each of the concrete examples we have been able to come up with actually suggests that your post is exactly the opposite of the truth, and it suggests to me that maybe we need the opposite policy, institutions that better integrate people’s complaints.
You’re missing me in several ways, for instance doing a substitution from “if you remove insulation from existing institutions, people give up and those institutions erode” (which the post says) to “we should set up institutions to block angry people from having an influence” (which is similar but is not what the post is arguing).
I guess to me these feel like two sides of the same coin? Part of your point is that insulation levels have been dropping, and institutions seem to vary a lot in their insulation, so unless you believe that most reductions in insulation are good, one would think you would believe that there’s a need for some increases in isolation.
But if you are just pointing at the existence of a tradeoff to be mindful of, rather than advocating for one particular side of the tradeoff, and you find it plausible that most reductions insulation are good, then I am sympathetic to your point. That’s just not how your post came off to me, and in particular your post seems to be misdiagnosing aspects of the cause in a way that would suggest a more one-sided approach.
People adapt to states of affairs.
If we take someone drinking three cups of coffee a day and make them instead drink zero cups of coffee a day, they’re gonna have a bad time. That doesn’t mean we should have more people drinking three cups of coffee a day. It’s plausible we should, but someone saying “we shouldn’t take coffee-drinkers’ coffee away” is not saying “we should give non-coffee-drinkers more coffee”.
As for
and
… I direct your attention to Privileging the Hypothesis, which maybe I should edit into the OP as a prereq.
Each of the concrete examples you have made up.
This thread started with one of the examples you came up with.
It’s not privileging the hypothesis to Aumann-agree with someone. See Scientific Evidence, Legal Evidence, Rational Evidence:
In general, people know what experiences they’ve had, and can exchange information about them through talking with each other. Strong evidence is common.