This intersects sharply with your prior post about feedback loops, I think.
As it is really hard / maybe impossible (???) for individuals to reason well in situations where you do not have a feedback loop, it is really hard / maybe impossible to make a community of reasoning well in a situation without feedback loops.
Like at some point, in a community, you need to be able to point to (1) canonical works that form the foundation of further thought, (2) examples of good reasoning to be imitated by everyone. If you don’t have those, you have a sort of glob of memes and ideas and shit that people can talk about to signal that they “get it,” but it’s all kinda arbitrary and conversation cannot move on because nothing is ever established for sure.
And like—if you never have clear feedback, I think it’s hard to have canonical works / examples of good reasoning other than by convention and social proof. There are works in LW which you have to have read in order to continue various conversations, but whether these works are good or not is highly disputed.
I of course have some proposed ideas for how to fix the situation—this—but my proposed ideas would clean out the methods of reasoning and argument with which I disagree, which is indeed the problem.
I of course have some proposed ideas for how to fix the situation—this—but my proposed ideas would clean out the methods of reasoning and argument with which I disagree, which is indeed the problem.
I don’t have a super strong memory of this, did you have a link? (not sure how directly relevant but was interested)
Your memory is fine, I was writing badly—I meant the ideas I would propose rather than the ideas I have proposed by “proposed ideas.” The flavor would be something super-empiricist like this, not that I endorse that as perfect. I do think ideas without empirical restraint loom too large in the collective.
This intersects sharply with your prior post about feedback loops, I think.
As it is really hard / maybe impossible (???) for individuals to reason well in situations where you do not have a feedback loop, it is really hard / maybe impossible to make a community of reasoning well in a situation without feedback loops.
Like at some point, in a community, you need to be able to point to (1) canonical works that form the foundation of further thought, (2) examples of good reasoning to be imitated by everyone. If you don’t have those, you have a sort of glob of memes and ideas and shit that people can talk about to signal that they “get it,” but it’s all kinda arbitrary and conversation cannot move on because nothing is ever established for sure.
And like—if you never have clear feedback, I think it’s hard to have canonical works / examples of good reasoning other than by convention and social proof. There are works in LW which you have to have read in order to continue various conversations, but whether these works are good or not is highly disputed.
I of course have some proposed ideas for how to fix the situation—this—but my proposed ideas would clean out the methods of reasoning and argument with which I disagree, which is indeed the problem.
I don’t have a super strong memory of this, did you have a link? (not sure how directly relevant but was interested)
Your memory is fine, I was writing badly—I meant the ideas I would propose rather than the ideas I have proposed by “proposed ideas.” The flavor would be something super-empiricist like this, not that I endorse that as perfect. I do think ideas without empirical restraint loom too large in the collective.