Can you explain why this is a very high priority for you?
Any phrase beginning with “we should believe that” seems outright irrational. Rational beliefs are grow from evidence, not moral reasoning of any kind.
Instead of saying “we should believe that the Earth is round because it looks round when seen from the space”, just say “the Earth is round because it looks round when seen from the space”. The latter sentence is clearer and doesn’t lack anything important which the former has.
If you rather had in mind something like “we should believe that the Earth is round because else, we are no rationalists”, rather say “the belief in non-round Earth is not rational (given such and such definition of rationality)”.
If the proposed norms are intended rather procedurally, such as “we should believe that the Earth is round because whoever doesn’t will be forever banished from this community”, just say “whoever doesn’t believe in round Earth will be forever banished from this community”.
Except the last variant, the formulations without “should” don’t sound like norms, and that’s a feature, not a bug. Or at least should be.
Norms really are a ‘should’ type of thinking. I don’t like using ‘should’ in any capacity, because it sounds like I’m telling someone what to do, but in this case that’s exactly what norms do.
It’s a high priority because of the recent posts suggesting that we adopt select practices from religions. I want to know now if I should walk away, and if any efforts I’m in the process of making are just sunk costs already. Before we start adopting things from other groups, we need to have something to compare them to so that we can make sure that there aren’t hidden conflicts. In general, isn’t writing things down a way to avoid or expose biases?
I am also worried about adopting religious practices. But to ascertain whether it happens or not, it seems easier to ask directly: “do we want to adopt this set of practices?” rather than to ask “what norms we should adopt”. I would even be afraid that the simple fact of having explicit norms, especially norms on beliefs, would move the community closer to the realm of religions. I really don’t want to be told that I should support cryonics, believe in many-worlds QM and be an atheist, or leave LW for good (and if there is no “or leave” or analogical punishment for norm violation, why call that norms?). I prefer when people spread beliefs by argument, not by social pressure.
With the reception that this article has gotten so far, I suspect that it won’t result in a list of extant norms. I’ll give it a day or two so that everyone that wants to can weigh in, and then I’ll probably end up deleting it,.
I would prefer if you don’t delete it. As for now, you aren’t losing any karma from it, and there are already several comments. I am often frustrated when comments with replies get deleted and you can read the replies while the context is inaccessible. I don’t know what happens when a post with comments is deleted.
Moreover, even if the suggestion isn’t agreed upon, its existence at least makes clear what it is not agreed upon, and saves effort of future readers who may propose the same.
I would suspect that the whole thing including comments all vanishes, but I haven’t tested it yet.
edit—I really don’t care about karma, the only use it seems to have is voting people down and being able to post on the front page, and I doubt I’ll ever do either of those things. I’ll happily let other people be the top contributors.
The post disappears from the list of posts, and probably can’t be found by searching, but it still exists and can be linked to and commented on, and any comments on it still appear in the new comments feed.
I think it also can’t be voted on after being deleted, but I wouldn’t swear to it.
Instead of saying “we should believe that the Earth is round because it looks round when seen from the space”, just say “the Earth is round because it looks round when seen from the space”. The latter sentence is clearer and doesn’t lack anything important which the former has.
The latter sentence parses as either malformed or false, to me. The earth appears to be round from space because it’s round, not vice versa; the earth is round because of the forces that were involved in its creation.
I do agree that the ‘should’ needs to go, but I think the formulation should look something like ‘it is rational to believe [thing] because [evidence]’ or ‘I/we believe [thing] because [evidence]’.
Fair enough. “Because” itself isn’t perfectly transparent word: X because Y may mean that
(etymologically) Y is a cause of X: “I have been arrested because I have robbed a bank.”
Y is a purpose for X: “I robbed the bank because I wanted the money.”
X is logically deducible from Y: The apple fell down because of the laws of gravity.
(and I believed that also) X is probabilistically deducible from Y. I have used the word “because” in this sense, as a shorthand for “and the evidence for the previous claim is that”, which after all may be ungrammatical.
Can you explain why this is a very high priority for you?
Any phrase beginning with “we should believe that” seems outright irrational. Rational beliefs are grow from evidence, not moral reasoning of any kind.
Instead of saying “we should believe that the Earth is round because it looks round when seen from the space”, just say “the Earth is round because it looks round when seen from the space”. The latter sentence is clearer and doesn’t lack anything important which the former has.
If you rather had in mind something like “we should believe that the Earth is round because else, we are no rationalists”, rather say “the belief in non-round Earth is not rational (given such and such definition of rationality)”.
If the proposed norms are intended rather procedurally, such as “we should believe that the Earth is round because whoever doesn’t will be forever banished from this community”, just say “whoever doesn’t believe in round Earth will be forever banished from this community”.
Except the last variant, the formulations without “should” don’t sound like norms, and that’s a feature, not a bug. Or at least should be.
Norms really are a ‘should’ type of thinking. I don’t like using ‘should’ in any capacity, because it sounds like I’m telling someone what to do, but in this case that’s exactly what norms do.
It’s a high priority because of the recent posts suggesting that we adopt select practices from religions. I want to know now if I should walk away, and if any efforts I’m in the process of making are just sunk costs already. Before we start adopting things from other groups, we need to have something to compare them to so that we can make sure that there aren’t hidden conflicts. In general, isn’t writing things down a way to avoid or expose biases?
I am also worried about adopting religious practices. But to ascertain whether it happens or not, it seems easier to ask directly: “do we want to adopt this set of practices?” rather than to ask “what norms we should adopt”. I would even be afraid that the simple fact of having explicit norms, especially norms on beliefs, would move the community closer to the realm of religions. I really don’t want to be told that I should support cryonics, believe in many-worlds QM and be an atheist, or leave LW for good (and if there is no “or leave” or analogical punishment for norm violation, why call that norms?). I prefer when people spread beliefs by argument, not by social pressure.
With the reception that this article has gotten so far, I suspect that it won’t result in a list of extant norms. I’ll give it a day or two so that everyone that wants to can weigh in, and then I’ll probably end up deleting it,.
I would prefer if you don’t delete it. As for now, you aren’t losing any karma from it, and there are already several comments. I am often frustrated when comments with replies get deleted and you can read the replies while the context is inaccessible. I don’t know what happens when a post with comments is deleted.
Moreover, even if the suggestion isn’t agreed upon, its existence at least makes clear what it is not agreed upon, and saves effort of future readers who may propose the same.
I would suspect that the whole thing including comments all vanishes, but I haven’t tested it yet.
edit—I really don’t care about karma, the only use it seems to have is voting people down and being able to post on the front page, and I doubt I’ll ever do either of those things. I’ll happily let other people be the top contributors.
The post disappears from the list of posts, and probably can’t be found by searching, but it still exists and can be linked to and commented on, and any comments on it still appear in the new comments feed.
I think it also can’t be voted on after being deleted, but I wouldn’t swear to it.
How refreshingly counterintuitive. (-_-)
The latter sentence parses as either malformed or false, to me. The earth appears to be round from space because it’s round, not vice versa; the earth is round because of the forces that were involved in its creation.
I do agree that the ‘should’ needs to go, but I think the formulation should look something like ‘it is rational to believe [thing] because [evidence]’ or ‘I/we believe [thing] because [evidence]’.
Fair enough. “Because” itself isn’t perfectly transparent word: X because Y may mean that
(etymologically) Y is a cause of X: “I have been arrested because I have robbed a bank.”
Y is a purpose for X: “I robbed the bank because I wanted the money.”
X is logically deducible from Y: The apple fell down because of the laws of gravity.
(and I believed that also) X is probabilistically deducible from Y. I have used the word “because” in this sense, as a shorthand for “and the evidence for the previous claim is that”, which after all may be ungrammatical.
In any case, should is redundand.
This is a good way to formulate it. I’ll implement this now.