“optimize for sounding at least neutral but then stop there.”
That’s a strategy, not an epistemology. That is the priority which you did, in fact, display. You focus on tone, which shows you value that issue more. I’m not sure how you side-stepped that, by turning what I said into a claim of “nothing I said entails changing your factual comments.” I was actually pointing-out that you were trying to coerce a bargain: “We’ll ignore you unless you follow our edits, such as calling crew-costs ‘tiny’ when they are only 5% of expenses.” That’s not a “dilemma”—it’s just unethical. And, you keep pointing to Scott Alexander as an appeal to authority? Or, do you think I’m just unaware of the reasons for extra-polite wording?
I was actually pointing-out that you were trying to coerce a bargain: We’ll ignore you unless you follow our edits
… What do you think this site is? There is no “we” or “our”. Not a single person on this site will particularly care about what I think on this. And it goes against my honor to downvote you out of spite, which means I have zero leverage over you.
I was giving you advice because I saw you doing something that I know is self-desctructive. But you’ve exhausted my good will with this comment so I’m no longer going to do this conversation.
I don’t appreciate unsolitced advice on how you’d prefer I communicate; as I mentioned, your norms of politeness are a recent, regional change, where you consider it “self-destructive” that I referred to the 5% spending on ship’s crew as “tiny”. That’s bizarre.
You then conveniently ignore the core of my point, again: you hoped to coerce the bargain, by saying I should be ignored if I don’t meet your standards of communications, regardless of the merits of my arguments. You specifically said “Hence fewer people will believe your factual points.” Yet, if there is some person Bob, who ignores the factual points, then I know I don’t need to convince him; he is fooled by appearances, and fails to appreciate the facts. Bob won’t be able to provide any valuable insight or substantive critique of the concept itself. I notice you won’t be able to provide any valuable insight into the factual points and concept, either. I hope to avoid such people, so I am glad that you take your unsolicited advice away! :)
“A British person would see hedging around a difficult issue as politeness and civility, whereas a Dutch person might see the same thing as actually dishonest.”—BBC’s recent explainer clip “Why the Dutch Always Say What They Mean”
What Rafael referred to as “self-destructive” is considered appropriate in other cultures, and has absolutely nothing to do with epistemology. It belongs on LessRude, not LessWrong.
A great explainer on this concept of “unsolicited advice on a tangent I don’t value, which is then a reason to throw-up-hands in disgust” is Theramintrees’ video on the Martyr, “When Saviors Go Bad”
The concept Theramintrees discusses which is relevant is this:
The Savior-Complex rushes-in, offering help which that recipient did NOT ask for (in this case, I did not ask for “advice on the tone and presentation”—Rafael decided on his own that my tone “needs saving!”). Then, when the recipient is not gracious and fawning for the Savior’s help, that Savior declares their target ‘the problem’ and the Savior rushes-off in anger, to target another person with their unsolicited and irrelevant ‘help’.
[[Personal Examples of The Strategy of Politeness being Counter-Productive to Valuable Critique of a Concept: When I would dress-up, and say only polite things, going to the Innovation Oakland meet-ups to hob-nob with the Mayor and all the local techies, I quickly learned something—dress down. When you dress-up, every money-hunting idiot flocks to you, and believes any crazy idea you make-up on the spot, because they are gullible and uninformed. They will never provide you with valuable insight into your work. They suck-up your time and attention, and you end-up NOT talking to the scruffy engineer who would tell you why, specifically, your design sucks. You need to hear that engineer’s critique—and the only way to get it is by dressing down . Now, you scare-away all the folks who can only read a book by its cover! ONLY the scruffy engineer will talk to you, because she doesn’t care about appearances—she wants to hear your details, and tear you apart. :)
Similarly, if there are two people in an audience, Alice and Bob, and Alice will focus on the reasoning and evidence, while Bob focuses on tone. In 25 years of experience, I have never heard valuable critique of the concept from any of the Bobs—tell me if you’ve heard one! They complain about tone and presentation, without insights into the design; I have to meet their standards, or I should be ignored, regardless of the merits of my arguments. Alice is actually the only person I WANT to talk to. So, when you claim that “Being extra polite will win Bob to your side...” well, I don’t want Bob on my side; those guys clutter things up and get in the way, without providing valuable insight into the problem itself. I ONLY want to appeal to Alice, who as stated originally is not focused on tone.]]
“optimize for sounding at least neutral but then stop there.”
That’s a strategy, not an epistemology. That is the priority which you did, in fact, display. You focus on tone, which shows you value that issue more. I’m not sure how you side-stepped that, by turning what I said into a claim of “nothing I said entails changing your factual comments.” I was actually pointing-out that you were trying to coerce a bargain: “We’ll ignore you unless you follow our edits, such as calling crew-costs ‘tiny’ when they are only 5% of expenses.” That’s not a “dilemma”—it’s just unethical. And, you keep pointing to Scott Alexander as an appeal to authority? Or, do you think I’m just unaware of the reasons for extra-polite wording?
… What do you think this site is? There is no “we” or “our”. Not a single person on this site will particularly care about what I think on this. And it goes against my honor to downvote you out of spite, which means I have zero leverage over you.
I was giving you advice because I saw you doing something that I know is self-desctructive. But you’ve exhausted my good will with this comment so I’m no longer going to do this conversation.
I don’t appreciate unsolitced advice on how you’d prefer I communicate; as I mentioned, your norms of politeness are a recent, regional change, where you consider it “self-destructive” that I referred to the 5% spending on ship’s crew as “tiny”. That’s bizarre.
You then conveniently ignore the core of my point, again: you hoped to coerce the bargain, by saying I should be ignored if I don’t meet your standards of communications, regardless of the merits of my arguments. You specifically said “Hence fewer people will believe your factual points.” Yet, if there is some person Bob, who ignores the factual points, then I know I don’t need to convince him; he is fooled by appearances, and fails to appreciate the facts. Bob won’t be able to provide any valuable insight or substantive critique of the concept itself. I notice you won’t be able to provide any valuable insight into the factual points and concept, either. I hope to avoid such people, so I am glad that you take your unsolicited advice away! :)
“A British person would see hedging around a difficult issue as politeness and civility, whereas a Dutch person might see the same thing as actually dishonest.”—BBC’s recent explainer clip “Why the Dutch Always Say What They Mean”
What Rafael referred to as “self-destructive” is considered appropriate in other cultures, and has absolutely nothing to do with epistemology. It belongs on LessRude, not LessWrong.
A great explainer on this concept of “unsolicited advice on a tangent I don’t value, which is then a reason to throw-up-hands in disgust” is Theramintrees’ video on the Martyr, “When Saviors Go Bad”
The concept Theramintrees discusses which is relevant is this:
The Savior-Complex rushes-in, offering help which that recipient did NOT ask for (in this case, I did not ask for “advice on the tone and presentation”—Rafael decided on his own that my tone “needs saving!”). Then, when the recipient is not gracious and fawning for the Savior’s help, that Savior declares their target ‘the problem’ and the Savior rushes-off in anger, to target another person with their unsolicited and irrelevant ‘help’.
[[Personal Examples of The Strategy of Politeness being Counter-Productive to Valuable Critique of a Concept: When I would dress-up, and say only polite things, going to the Innovation Oakland meet-ups to hob-nob with the Mayor and all the local techies, I quickly learned something—dress down. When you dress-up, every money-hunting idiot flocks to you, and believes any crazy idea you make-up on the spot, because they are gullible and uninformed. They will never provide you with valuable insight into your work. They suck-up your time and attention, and you end-up NOT talking to the scruffy engineer who would tell you why, specifically, your design sucks. You need to hear that engineer’s critique—and the only way to get it is by dressing down . Now, you scare-away all the folks who can only read a book by its cover! ONLY the scruffy engineer will talk to you, because she doesn’t care about appearances—she wants to hear your details, and tear you apart. :)
Similarly, if there are two people in an audience, Alice and Bob, and Alice will focus on the reasoning and evidence, while Bob focuses on tone. In 25 years of experience, I have never heard valuable critique of the concept from any of the Bobs—tell me if you’ve heard one! They complain about tone and presentation, without insights into the design; I have to meet their standards, or I should be ignored, regardless of the merits of my arguments. Alice is actually the only person I WANT to talk to. So, when you claim that “Being extra polite will win Bob to your side...” well, I don’t want Bob on my side; those guys clutter things up and get in the way, without providing valuable insight into the problem itself. I ONLY want to appeal to Alice, who as stated originally is not focused on tone.]]