In most cases this card was pulled when people were badly losing a rational argument.
Inferential distance issues is actually very high on the list of things that can make someone think that someone else is “badly losing” an argument. On at least one occasion I’ve had someone who was insisting that .9999… !=1 come away from a conversation with me convinced that they had “clearly won”.
But your point does have some validity, and if you look back at the original comment you replied to, I agreed with Nancy that it can be used in irrational ways. My point was about the more rational ways people can and do use the term. So what precisely are you trying to argue here?
This sounds then like an assertion not that people don’t use the phrase more rationally, but that you or others are unlikely to treat it as having a more rational meaning even when it does, because it has a history of being used more often in a more irrational fashion by people you politically disagree with. Is that a fair summary?
It is an assertion that in my personal experience people do not use the phrase rationally. YMMV and all that, of course.
This personal experience leads me to consider this particular phrase as an indicator of certain characteristics of people who us it, both with respect to their ideology and their rationality.
This personal experience leads me to consider this particular phrase as an indicator of certain characteristics of people who us it, both with respect to their ideology and their rationality.
Does it matter who they use that phrase to? Because some of us know how to speak “social justice-ese” to those who respond well to it, and “rational-ese” to those who respond better to that—but it can sometimes be frustrating when talking to a mixed audience. Whichever language one chooses, the other half will sense a betrayal.
I don’t know that I agree with that. I’ve found, for example, that plenty of social justice crusaders are perfectly willing and capable of learning rationalist thinking, but only from someone who has identified as a member of their pack. And plenty of rationalists express a desire for social justice people to behave more rationally. At what point should instrumental “skillful means” be seen as manipulation, and at what point is it a necessary handshake protocol?
plenty of social justice crusaders are perfectly willing and capable of learning rationalist thinking
Sure, if you recall that rationalist thinking is defined as winning.
but only from someone who has identified as a member of their pack.
So you are using the expression as a tribal membership sign? With the implication that “check your privilege” is a valid tribal marker?
At what point should instrumental “skillful means” be seen as manipulation, and at what point is it a necessary handshake protocol?
Depends on what you are promising and implying. Note the difficulty of using “skillful means” in mixed audiences, as mentioned above. By incorporating the right signs into the handshake protocols you represent yourself as a bona fide member of the tribe. And if then you start speaking as an outsider, tribe members will come to the correct conclusion that you only pretended to be a member of the tribe.
And from a tribal perspective, this illustrates the need for liminal / shamanistic roles—people who can be a bona fide member of the tribe, and yet also speak outsider language. There’s plenty of evidence that cultures from our ancestral environment codified roles that were allowed to break such taboos.
Well, we use the word “tribal” in such contexts, but we don’t really mean tribes in a literal sense. Even in tribal cultures, political and other alliances form and break off at a much smaller scale.
Sure, if you recall that rationalist thinking is defined as winning
I suspect that isn’t the definition that ialdabaoth is using here, but rather is talking about the cluster in meme space such as cognitive biases, tabooing terms, explicitly acknowledging inferential distance, making beliefs pay rent, etc.
In my biased opinion the social justice warriors would have trouble with this cluster. Their position is very much ideological and ideologies are not friendly towards this cluster.
In my biased opinion the social justice warriors would have trouble with this cluster. Their position is very much ideological and ideologies are not friendly towards this cluster.
What do you mean by ideology? Is say neo-reactionism an ideology? Is libertarianism an ideology?
In any event, this has little to do with my point since I was clarifying what ialdabaoth was talking about.
However, as long as were talking about biased, personal experiences, I’m going to need to strongly disagree in the specific case of people who self-identity as involved in social justice. In fact, the notion of inferential distance at least seems to be one that once you explain it, jumps out as a thing precisely because they are aware of examples of it, but don’t really have a separate term, or a decent overarching explanation for what is going on. I have to wonder if perhaps you are going into conversations with SJs or people on the left or far left with a more adversarial bent, and that’s contributing to the differences in experience?
I have to wonder if perhaps you are going into conversations with SJs or people on the left or far left with a more adversarial bent, and that’s contributing to the differences in experience?
That is likely.
SJWs also are prone to going into adversarial mode pretty quickly when talking to me. I tend to believe that sacred cows make the best hamburger and they are usually quite fond of their sacred cows :-D
Pissing off ideologues or trolling people in real life can be fun, but it isn’t a useful way to get information about their actual beliefs or how rational they are.
Pissing off ideologues or trolling people in real life can be fun, but it isn’t a useful way to get information about their actual beliefs
Oh, I disagree. Pissed-off people often get agitated enough to actually state their true beliefs which they would normally mask and camouflage and hedge about.
There’s this common belief that people when angry say what they are really thinking, but I suspect that often what is coming out is oversimplified statements that given a few more seconds of thought they’d even say to themselves “No, I don’t really believe that.” Speaking personally, one thing I like a fair bit about the internet is that I can reread a statement and make sure it has all the necessary nuance, and isn’t a completely off the cuff remark that doesn’t include any disclaimers that are bouncing around in my head but didn’t make it to the keyboard.
There’s this common belief that people when angry say what they are really thinking
First, not always—sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t. However what people are willing to say, even under provocation, often offers insight into their minds.
Second, I was talking about beliefs which are less controlled by the conscious mind.
Values, as well as maps (in the map/territory meaning).
So, that’s two very broad categories and is most human thoughts. So when you say these beliefs are less controlled by the conscious mind, that’s opposed to what other thoughts?
That’s opposed to explicit logical (or “logical”) reasoning.
The distinction between underwater structures of the human mind and activity that happens in full sight above the water is rather basic and runs throughout the Sequences, for example.
There’s a massive difference between manipulating people and using vocabulary whose meaning people understand. To use a different example, I’ve ran into similar issues when having a discussion about religious matters in a group with both Jews and Christians.
Not actually a comparable situation. In one case, the goal of the conversation is to have a conversation and to share information and ideas, and hopefully come to a mutual understanding. The other one has a goal of getting in someone’s pants. I don’t think most people consider it manipulative to adjust vocabulary to match someone else’s in order to exchange ideas. Or if you want a different example: physicists and mathematicians sometimes use different notations (for example physicists like their bracket notation a lot). That’s in part a function of what objects one is most frequently talking about. Adjusting notation isn’t manipulative (although I suspect that a mixed group of mathematicians and physicists will mind such notational issues substantially less).
the goal of the conversation is to have a conversation and to share information and ideas
The conversations where “check your privilege” comes up are usually not about sharing information and ideas. They are usually about “I’m right and you’re wrong”.
In particular, by the time one party to the conversation tells the other “check your privilege” that conversation is clearly adversarial. This expression is not used in friendly discussion by people who respect each other.
This expression is not used in friendly discussion by people who respect each other.
My personal experience has falsified that statement many times. Perhaps you are not interacting with particularly intelligent or open social justice warriors, or perhaps I am interacting with atypically intelligent and open ones, but either way, I can attest that you are making an overgeneralization.
Perhaps you are not interacting with particularly intelligent or open social justice warriors
Perhaps. As I said, YMMV...
I would probably say that my conversations with smart social justice warriors usually short-circuit to value disagreements so quickly that CYP doesn’t even come up. Conversations that result tend to be about much more fundamental things.
I thought we just established that people can use that phrase in other ways, but that you find it to have too many bad connotations attached. Moreover, the actual comment you responded to was the statement that:
Does it matter who they use that phrase to? Because some of us know how to speak “social justice-ese” to those who respond well to it, and “rational-ese” to those who respond better to that—but it can sometimes be frustrating when talking to a mixed audience. Whichever language one chooses, the other half will sense a betrayal.
So I’m confused by your focus on apparently adversarial contexts.
I consider the phrase to be inherently adversarial.
That seems like a distinct claim than your earlier that
It is an assertion that in my personal experience people do not use the phrase rationally. YMMV and all that, of course.
This personal experience leads me to consider this particular phrase as an indicator of certain characteristics of people who us it, both with respect to their ideology and their rationality.
And given that multiple people on this thread have discussed non-adversarial interpretations of the phrase, I’m confused by how you can now assert that the phrase is inherently adversarial. That’s not even “often” or “frequently” or “the vast majority of the time”. What justifies this belief?
My opinion that CYP unrolls to “You’re wrong and you can’t even possibly come to the right conclusion because you are inherently deficient so you’ll have to trust what I am telling you and accept it. Oh, and you opinion is morally bad, you should be ashamed of having it”.
I have sufficient experience of meeting CYP in real life. I understand it could mean other things, it’s just that in reality it rarely does. Yes, that may be a function of the the subset of people I have interacted with and may not be representative, but that’s fine. I am not claiming this as a universal truth but as my opinion. Other people based on their experience can have different opinions, this fact does not force me to change mine.
FWIW, I probably agree with you that it’s more common for people to use that phrase as an adversarial shaming tactic than not.
Of course, I would say the same of many phrases, since it’s very common for people to adopt adversarial stances in conversation and for people to try to shame each other.
“Language is a tin drum on which we beat out a tune for a dancing bear, when we hope our music will move the stars.”
I consider the phrase to be inherently adversarial.
And then later you stated:
I am not claiming this as a universal truth but as my opinion
which are both hard to reconcile, with
Or it can shorthand for “You are making a long list of implicit assumptions, and it will take time to go through all of them, but you can conclude from someone who has actually been in the relevant situation that you are wrong about the actual situation on the ground.”
It can. But for me to accept this requires me to grant A LOT of credibility to the speaker.
None of these seem to be interconsistent.
And it makes particularly little sense to use any of them in the context of Ialdabaoth’s remark about using the correct vocabulary with different groups.
I don’t see why. The “You are making a long list of implicit assumptions...” expression is still adversarial. It is a polite version of the same underlying meaning—“You are wrong, I am right and you should just trust me that I’m right”.
Now, sometimes, rarely, that expression is actually correct—the party to whom it’s addressed really doesn’t have a clue about what being in a certain situation means. And that party can submit—accept that it doesn’t have a clue and should shut up and listen. This, as I said, requires the speaker to have a lot of credibility. And, by the way, doesn’t change the inherently adversarial character of the phrase.
Hmm. It seems to me that if you treat it as “adversarial” when someone provides you with clarifying information that they reasonably and correctly believe that you don’t possess, then you’re not going to learn very much.
The “You are making a long list of implicit assumptions...” expression is still adversarial
This may say more about your own attitudes than anything else, or you may have a different notion of what one means by adversarial. If someone seems to be making implicit assumptions, what is wrong with pointing that out?
If someone seems to be making implicit assumptions, what is wrong with pointing that out?
Because of two things. First, the emphasized parts in “You are wrong, I am right and you should just trust me that I’m right”. Second, CYP has a strong shaming component.
So, you seem to be extremely intent on not actually adjusting your views despite that many people have given examples of contexts where this is reasonable at this point, including TheOtherDave and Kaj I’m going try one more personal example and then give up. A while back, when discussing voting restrictions that increase the amount of time it takes for people to get IDs acceptable for voting and increase the wait time to actually vote, I was arguing with someone that this wasn’t a big deal since people could just take a few hours out of their day to do it. The response of CYP caused me to think about the matter more, and I immediately realized that the relevant issue was socioeconomic bracket: people in lower socioeconomic brackets can’t just take a few hours off or even if they can, they’ll end up losing income that they need. In this case, a three-word phrase was sufficient communication.
So, you seem to be extremely intent on not actually adjusting your views despite that many people have given examples of contexts where this is reasonable
In which direction do you think my views should be adjusted and on the basis of which evidence? Do notice that imagining contexts where something is possible or even likely does not constitute evidence.
...one more personal example
I am not sure what this personal anecdote is supposed to demonstrate? That you personally react well to CYP? Sure, that’s one datapoint. What’s next?
Oh, and by the way, in this particular context I don’t believe the conclusion you came to.
In one case, the goal of the conversation is to have a conversation and to share information and ideas, and hopefully come to a mutual understanding. The other one has a goal of getting in someone’s pants.
What does it tell about me that the first thing some part of my brain thought after reading those two sentences was ‘well, in some sense the latter is just a special case of the former’? Probably, just that I’ve read this too many times! ;-)
Inferential distance issues is actually very high on the list of things that can make someone think that someone else is “badly losing” an argument. On at least one occasion I’ve had someone who was insisting that .9999… !=1 come away from a conversation with me convinced that they had “clearly won”.
But your point does have some validity, and if you look back at the original comment you replied to, I agreed with Nancy that it can be used in irrational ways. My point was about the more rational ways people can and do use the term. So what precisely are you trying to argue here?
My feeling is that the term is irretrievably tainted. I see its use as an ideological marker.
I accept that what it tries to express can be a useful point but this particular phrase by now carries way too much baggage.
This sounds then like an assertion not that people don’t use the phrase more rationally, but that you or others are unlikely to treat it as having a more rational meaning even when it does, because it has a history of being used more often in a more irrational fashion by people you politically disagree with. Is that a fair summary?
It is an assertion that in my personal experience people do not use the phrase rationally. YMMV and all that, of course.
This personal experience leads me to consider this particular phrase as an indicator of certain characteristics of people who us it, both with respect to their ideology and their rationality.
Does it matter who they use that phrase to? Because some of us know how to speak “social justice-ese” to those who respond well to it, and “rational-ese” to those who respond better to that—but it can sometimes be frustrating when talking to a mixed audience. Whichever language one chooses, the other half will sense a betrayal.
Correctly, too. Few like being manipulated and “two-faced” is not endearment.
I don’t know that I agree with that. I’ve found, for example, that plenty of social justice crusaders are perfectly willing and capable of learning rationalist thinking, but only from someone who has identified as a member of their pack. And plenty of rationalists express a desire for social justice people to behave more rationally. At what point should instrumental “skillful means” be seen as manipulation, and at what point is it a necessary handshake protocol?
Sure, if you recall that rationalist thinking is defined as winning.
So you are using the expression as a tribal membership sign? With the implication that “check your privilege” is a valid tribal marker?
Depends on what you are promising and implying. Note the difficulty of using “skillful means” in mixed audiences, as mentioned above. By incorporating the right signs into the handshake protocols you represent yourself as a bona fide member of the tribe. And if then you start speaking as an outsider, tribe members will come to the correct conclusion that you only pretended to be a member of the tribe.
And from a tribal perspective, this illustrates the need for liminal / shamanistic roles—people who can be a bona fide member of the tribe, and yet also speak outsider language. There’s plenty of evidence that cultures from our ancestral environment codified roles that were allowed to break such taboos.
It’s not a taboo if you are, without a doubt, the member of the tribe.
If you haven’t established that you belong, behaving as an outsider will likely be interpreted as treachery or evidence of two-facedness.
I suspect this may be extending the tribe metaphor too far.
Can you elaborate on your suspicion? Because I think it’s using the metaphor precisely where the mapping is tightest.
Well, we use the word “tribal” in such contexts, but we don’t really mean tribes in a literal sense. Even in tribal cultures, political and other alliances form and break off at a much smaller scale.
I suspect that isn’t the definition that ialdabaoth is using here, but rather is talking about the cluster in meme space such as cognitive biases, tabooing terms, explicitly acknowledging inferential distance, making beliefs pay rent, etc.
In my biased opinion the social justice warriors would have trouble with this cluster. Their position is very much ideological and ideologies are not friendly towards this cluster.
What do you mean by ideology? Is say neo-reactionism an ideology? Is libertarianism an ideology?
In any event, this has little to do with my point since I was clarifying what ialdabaoth was talking about.
However, as long as were talking about biased, personal experiences, I’m going to need to strongly disagree in the specific case of people who self-identity as involved in social justice. In fact, the notion of inferential distance at least seems to be one that once you explain it, jumps out as a thing precisely because they are aware of examples of it, but don’t really have a separate term, or a decent overarching explanation for what is going on. I have to wonder if perhaps you are going into conversations with SJs or people on the left or far left with a more adversarial bent, and that’s contributing to the differences in experience?
That is likely.
SJWs also are prone to going into adversarial mode pretty quickly when talking to me. I tend to believe that sacred cows make the best hamburger and they are usually quite fond of their sacred cows :-D
Pissing off ideologues or trolling people in real life can be fun, but it isn’t a useful way to get information about their actual beliefs or how rational they are.
Oh, I disagree. Pissed-off people often get agitated enough to actually state their true beliefs which they would normally mask and camouflage and hedge about.
There’s this common belief that people when angry say what they are really thinking, but I suspect that often what is coming out is oversimplified statements that given a few more seconds of thought they’d even say to themselves “No, I don’t really believe that.” Speaking personally, one thing I like a fair bit about the internet is that I can reread a statement and make sure it has all the necessary nuance, and isn’t a completely off the cuff remark that doesn’t include any disclaimers that are bouncing around in my head but didn’t make it to the keyboard.
First, not always—sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t. However what people are willing to say, even under provocation, often offers insight into their minds.
Second, I was talking about beliefs which are less controlled by the conscious mind.
That’s part of what the SJWs are doing, too—trying to guess at what people are really like from small clues.
What do you mean by beliefs?
Values, as well as maps (in the map/territory meaning).
So, that’s two very broad categories and is most human thoughts. So when you say these beliefs are less controlled by the conscious mind, that’s opposed to what other thoughts?
That’s opposed to explicit logical (or “logical”) reasoning.
The distinction between underwater structures of the human mind and activity that happens in full sight above the water is rather basic and runs throughout the Sequences, for example.
There’s a massive difference between manipulating people and using vocabulary whose meaning people understand. To use a different example, I’ve ran into similar issues when having a discussion about religious matters in a group with both Jews and Christians.
Let me rephrase the original quote a bit:
Because some of us know how to speak PUA to girls who respond well to it, and “rational-ese” to those who respond better to that.
Still fine with that? Can be frustrating when talking to a mixed audience, yes :-/
Not actually a comparable situation. In one case, the goal of the conversation is to have a conversation and to share information and ideas, and hopefully come to a mutual understanding. The other one has a goal of getting in someone’s pants. I don’t think most people consider it manipulative to adjust vocabulary to match someone else’s in order to exchange ideas. Or if you want a different example: physicists and mathematicians sometimes use different notations (for example physicists like their bracket notation a lot). That’s in part a function of what objects one is most frequently talking about. Adjusting notation isn’t manipulative (although I suspect that a mixed group of mathematicians and physicists will mind such notational issues substantially less).
The conversations where “check your privilege” comes up are usually not about sharing information and ideas. They are usually about “I’m right and you’re wrong”.
In particular, by the time one party to the conversation tells the other “check your privilege” that conversation is clearly adversarial. This expression is not used in friendly discussion by people who respect each other.
My personal experience has falsified that statement many times. Perhaps you are not interacting with particularly intelligent or open social justice warriors, or perhaps I am interacting with atypically intelligent and open ones, but either way, I can attest that you are making an overgeneralization.
Perhaps. As I said, YMMV...
I would probably say that my conversations with smart social justice warriors usually short-circuit to value disagreements so quickly that CYP doesn’t even come up. Conversations that result tend to be about much more fundamental things.
What values?
Basic ones :-D The balance of individual and community; the freedoms and responsibilities involved, the role of the state, etc.
And notice, we’re talking about smart SJWs. Most don’t have the faintest clues about economics...
I thought we just established that people can use that phrase in other ways, but that you find it to have too many bad connotations attached. Moreover, the actual comment you responded to was the statement that:
So I’m confused by your focus on apparently adversarial contexts.
I consider the phrase to be inherently adversarial.
That seems like a distinct claim than your earlier that
And given that multiple people on this thread have discussed non-adversarial interpretations of the phrase, I’m confused by how you can now assert that the phrase is inherently adversarial. That’s not even “often” or “frequently” or “the vast majority of the time”. What justifies this belief?
My opinion that CYP unrolls to “You’re wrong and you can’t even possibly come to the right conclusion because you are inherently deficient so you’ll have to trust what I am telling you and accept it. Oh, and you opinion is morally bad, you should be ashamed of having it”.
And that people on this thread have given other possible meanings of what that phrase is short-hand for?
Yes, and..?
I have sufficient experience of meeting CYP in real life. I understand it could mean other things, it’s just that in reality it rarely does. Yes, that may be a function of the the subset of people I have interacted with and may not be representative, but that’s fine. I am not claiming this as a universal truth but as my opinion. Other people based on their experience can have different opinions, this fact does not force me to change mine.
FWIW, I probably agree with you that it’s more common for people to use that phrase as an adversarial shaming tactic than not.
Of course, I would say the same of many phrases, since it’s very common for people to adopt adversarial stances in conversation and for people to try to shame each other.
“Language is a tin drum on which we beat out a tune for a dancing bear, when we hope our music will move the stars.”
So, what do you mean when you use the word “inherently”? And in what context did you reply to Ialdabaoth’s comment http://lesswrong.com/lw/j5i/the_craft_and_the_community_the_basics_apologizing/a3n5 here, given that that’s clear not the meaning of the phrase or similar phrases he’s intending to use? And how does that work with your statement http://lesswrong.com/lw/j5i/the_craft_and_the_community_the_basics_apologizing/a3mf ?
Oh, please. I am not going to fisk multiple posts—if you feel I have contradicted myself, be specific.
Sure, I’m confused by your statement that:
And then later you stated:
which are both hard to reconcile, with
None of these seem to be interconsistent.
And it makes particularly little sense to use any of them in the context of Ialdabaoth’s remark about using the correct vocabulary with different groups.
I don’t see why. The “You are making a long list of implicit assumptions...” expression is still adversarial. It is a polite version of the same underlying meaning—“You are wrong, I am right and you should just trust me that I’m right”.
Now, sometimes, rarely, that expression is actually correct—the party to whom it’s addressed really doesn’t have a clue about what being in a certain situation means. And that party can submit—accept that it doesn’t have a clue and should shut up and listen. This, as I said, requires the speaker to have a lot of credibility. And, by the way, doesn’t change the inherently adversarial character of the phrase.
Hmm. It seems to me that if you treat it as “adversarial” when someone provides you with clarifying information that they reasonably and correctly believe that you don’t possess, then you’re not going to learn very much.
No, they don’t provide me with clarifying information. They provide me with a ready-made conclusion which they insist I must accept on trust.
I’ll take my chances.
This may say more about your own attitudes than anything else, or you may have a different notion of what one means by adversarial. If someone seems to be making implicit assumptions, what is wrong with pointing that out?
Because of two things. First, the emphasized parts in “You are wrong, I am right and you should just trust me that I’m right”. Second, CYP has a strong shaming component.
So, you seem to be extremely intent on not actually adjusting your views despite that many people have given examples of contexts where this is reasonable at this point, including TheOtherDave and Kaj I’m going try one more personal example and then give up. A while back, when discussing voting restrictions that increase the amount of time it takes for people to get IDs acceptable for voting and increase the wait time to actually vote, I was arguing with someone that this wasn’t a big deal since people could just take a few hours out of their day to do it. The response of CYP caused me to think about the matter more, and I immediately realized that the relevant issue was socioeconomic bracket: people in lower socioeconomic brackets can’t just take a few hours off or even if they can, they’ll end up losing income that they need. In this case, a three-word phrase was sufficient communication.
In which direction do you think my views should be adjusted and on the basis of which evidence? Do notice that imagining contexts where something is possible or even likely does not constitute evidence.
I am not sure what this personal anecdote is supposed to demonstrate? That you personally react well to CYP? Sure, that’s one datapoint. What’s next?
Oh, and by the way, in this particular context I don’t believe the conclusion you came to.
What does it tell about me that the first thing some part of my brain thought after reading those two sentences was ‘well, in some sense the latter is just a special case of the former’? Probably, just that I’ve read this too many times! ;-)