It’s OK for criticism to be imperfect. But the worst sort of criticism has all five of these flaws:
Prickly: A tone that signals a lack of appreciation for the effort that’s gone in to presenting the original idea, or shaming the presenter for bringing it up.
Opaque: Making assertions or predictions without any attempt at specifying a contradictory gears-level model, evidence basis, even on the level of anecdote or fiction.
Nitpicky: Attacking the one part of the argument that seems flawed, without arguing for how the full original argument should be reinterpreted in light of the local disagreement.
Disengaged: Not signaling any commitment to continue the debate to mutual satisfaction, or even to listen to/read and respond to a reply.
Shallow: An obvious lack of engagement with the details of the argument or evidence originally offered.
I am absolutely guilty of having delivered Category 5 criticism, the worst sort of cheap shots.
There is an important tradeoff here. If standards are too high for critical commentary, it can chill debate and leave an impression that either nobody cares, everybody’s on board, or the argument’s simply correct. Sometimes, an idea can be wrong for non-obvious reasons, and it’s important for people to be able to say “this seems wrong for reasons I’m not clear about yet” without feeling like they’ve done wrong.
On the other hand, cheap criticism is so common because it’s cheap. It punishes all discourse equally, which means that the most damage is done to those who’ve put in the most effort to present their ideas. That is not what we want.
It usually takes more work to punish more heavily. Executing someone for a crime takes more work than jailing them, which takes more work than giving them a ticket. Addressing a grievance with murder is more dangerous than starting a brawl, which is more dangerous than starting an argument, which is more dangerous than giving someone the cold shoulder.
But in debate, cheap criticism has this perverse quality where it does the most to diminish a discussion, while being the easiest thingto contribute.
I think this is a reason to, on the whole, create norms against cheap criticism. If discussion is already at a certain volume, that can partially be accomplished by ignoring cheap criticism entirely.
But for many ideas, cheap criticism is almost all it gets, early on in the discussion. Just one or two cheap criticisms can kill an idea prematurely. So being able to address cheap criticisms effectively, without creating unreasonably high standards for critical commentary, seems important.
This seems like a fairly valuable framework. It occurs to me that all 5 of these flaws are present in the “Snark” genre present in places like Gawker and Jezebel.
I am going to experiment with a karma/reply policy to what I think would be a better incentive structure if broadly implemented. Loosely, it looks like this:
Strong downvote plus a meaningful explanatory comment for infractions worse than cheap criticism; summary deletions for the worst offenders.
Strong downvote for cheap criticism, no matter whether or not I agree with it.
Weak downvote for lazy or distracting comments.
Weak upvote for non-cheap criticism or warm feedback of any kind.
Strong upvote for thoughtful responses, perhaps including an appreciative note.
Strong upvote plus a thoughtful response of my own to comments that advance the discussion.
Strong upvote, a response of my own, and an appreciative note in my original post referring to the comment for comments that changed or broadened my point of view.
I’m trying a live experiment: I’m going to see if I can match your erisology one-to-one as antagonists to the Elements of Harmony from My Little Pony:
Prickly: Kindness
Opaque: Honesty
Nitpicky: Generosity
Disengaged: Loyalty
Shallow: Laughter
Interesting! They match up surprisingly well, and you’ve somehow also matched the order of 3 out of 5 of the corresponding “seeds of discord” from 1 Peter 2:1, CSB: “Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all slander.” If my pronouncement of success seems self-serving and opaque, I’ll elaborate soon:
Malice: Kindness
Deceit: Honesty
Hypocrisy: Loyalty
Envy: Generosity
Slander: Laughter
And now the reveal. I’m a generalist; I collect disparate lists of qualities (in the sense of “quality vs quantity”), and try to integrate all my knowledge into a comprehensive worldview. My world changed the day I first saw My Little Pony; it changed in a way I never expected, in a way many people claim to have been affected by HPMOR. I believed I’d seen a deep truth, and I’ve been subtly sharing it wherever I can.
The Elements of Harmony are the character qualities that, when present, result in a spark of something that brings people together. My hypothesis is that they point to a deep-seated human bond-testing instinct. The first time I noticed a match-up was when I heard a sermon on The Five Love Languages, which are presented in an entirely different order:
Words of affirmation: Honesty
Quality time: Laughter
Receiving gifts: Generosity
Acts of service: Loyalty
Physical touch: Kindness
Well! In just doing the basic research to write this reply, it turns out I’m re-inventing the wheel! Someone else has already written a psychometric analysis of the Five Love Languages and found they do indeed match up with another relational maintenance typology.
Thank you for your post; you’ve helped open my eyes up to existing research I can use in my philosophical pursuits, and sparked thoughts of what “effective altruism” use I can put them to.
Thoughts on cheap criticism
It’s OK for criticism to be imperfect. But the worst sort of criticism has all five of these flaws:
Prickly: A tone that signals a lack of appreciation for the effort that’s gone in to presenting the original idea, or shaming the presenter for bringing it up.
Opaque: Making assertions or predictions without any attempt at specifying a contradictory gears-level model, evidence basis, even on the level of anecdote or fiction.
Nitpicky: Attacking the one part of the argument that seems flawed, without arguing for how the full original argument should be reinterpreted in light of the local disagreement.
Disengaged: Not signaling any commitment to continue the debate to mutual satisfaction, or even to listen to/read and respond to a reply.
Shallow: An obvious lack of engagement with the details of the argument or evidence originally offered.
I am absolutely guilty of having delivered Category 5 criticism, the worst sort of cheap shots.
There is an important tradeoff here. If standards are too high for critical commentary, it can chill debate and leave an impression that either nobody cares, everybody’s on board, or the argument’s simply correct. Sometimes, an idea can be wrong for non-obvious reasons, and it’s important for people to be able to say “this seems wrong for reasons I’m not clear about yet” without feeling like they’ve done wrong.
On the other hand, cheap criticism is so common because it’s cheap. It punishes all discourse equally, which means that the most damage is done to those who’ve put in the most effort to present their ideas. That is not what we want.
It usually takes more work to punish more heavily. Executing someone for a crime takes more work than jailing them, which takes more work than giving them a ticket. Addressing a grievance with murder is more dangerous than starting a brawl, which is more dangerous than starting an argument, which is more dangerous than giving someone the cold shoulder.
But in debate, cheap criticism has this perverse quality where it does the most to diminish a discussion, while being the easiest thing to contribute.
I think this is a reason to, on the whole, create norms against cheap criticism. If discussion is already at a certain volume, that can partially be accomplished by ignoring cheap criticism entirely.
But for many ideas, cheap criticism is almost all it gets, early on in the discussion. Just one or two cheap criticisms can kill an idea prematurely. So being able to address cheap criticisms effectively, without creating unreasonably high standards for critical commentary, seems important.
This seems like a fairly valuable framework. It occurs to me that all 5 of these flaws are present in the “Snark” genre present in places like Gawker and Jezebel.
I am going to experiment with a karma/reply policy to what I think would be a better incentive structure if broadly implemented. Loosely, it looks like this:
Strong downvote plus a meaningful explanatory comment for infractions worse than cheap criticism; summary deletions for the worst offenders.
Strong downvote for cheap criticism, no matter whether or not I agree with it.
Weak downvote for lazy or distracting comments.
Weak upvote for non-cheap criticism or warm feedback of any kind.
Strong upvote for thoughtful responses, perhaps including an appreciative note.
Strong upvote plus a thoughtful response of my own to comments that advance the discussion.
Strong upvote, a response of my own, and an appreciative note in my original post referring to the comment for comments that changed or broadened my point of view.
I’m trying a live experiment: I’m going to see if I can match your erisology one-to-one as antagonists to the Elements of Harmony from My Little Pony:
Prickly: Kindness
Opaque: Honesty
Nitpicky: Generosity
Disengaged: Loyalty
Shallow: Laughter
Interesting! They match up surprisingly well, and you’ve somehow also matched the order of 3 out of 5 of the corresponding “seeds of discord” from 1 Peter 2:1, CSB: “Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all slander.” If my pronouncement of success seems self-serving and opaque, I’ll elaborate soon:
Malice: Kindness
Deceit: Honesty
Hypocrisy: Loyalty
Envy: Generosity
Slander: Laughter
And now the reveal. I’m a generalist; I collect disparate lists of qualities (in the sense of “quality vs quantity”), and try to integrate all my knowledge into a comprehensive worldview. My world changed the day I first saw My Little Pony; it changed in a way I never expected, in a way many people claim to have been affected by HPMOR. I believed I’d seen a deep truth, and I’ve been subtly sharing it wherever I can.
The Elements of Harmony are the character qualities that, when present, result in a spark of something that brings people together. My hypothesis is that they point to a deep-seated human bond-testing instinct. The first time I noticed a match-up was when I heard a sermon on The Five Love Languages, which are presented in an entirely different order:
Words of affirmation: Honesty
Quality time: Laughter
Receiving gifts: Generosity
Acts of service: Loyalty
Physical touch: Kindness
Well! In just doing the basic research to write this reply, it turns out I’m re-inventing the wheel! Someone else has already written a psychometric analysis of the Five Love Languages and found they do indeed match up with another relational maintenance typology.
Thank you for your post; you’ve helped open my eyes up to existing research I can use in my philosophical pursuits, and sparked thoughts of what “effective altruism” use I can put them to.