To all that stuff about “consequentialism” and “writing down your bottom line”, I will say only that consequentialism is meaningless without values and preferences. I value honesty. I prefer that others with whom I interact do likewise.
Seen by whom?
Seen by the users of the site, at a general level, and in particular the overwhelming majority of lurkers
Now, how could you possibly know that?
you say almost nothing about the “necessary” criterion
This is incorrect as a factual matter. There are 3 crucial moments where the “necessary” criterion came into play in my explanation of the benefits of these norms:
Given that you didn’t actually make clear that any of those things were about the “necessary” condition (indeed you didn’t even mention the word in any of points #2, #3, or #4 in the grandparent—I did check), I think it’s hardly reasonable to call what I said “incorrect as a factual matter”. But never mind that; you’ve clarified your meaning now, I suppose…
Taking your clarification into account, I will say that I find all three of those points to be some combination of incomprehensible, baffling, and profoundly misguided. (I will elaborate if you like, though the details of these disagreements seem to me to be mostly a tangent.)
And when you do mention it, you actually shift, unremarked, between several different versions of it
There does not seem to be a natural boundary that carves reality at the joints in a manner that leaves the different formulations in different boxes, *given the particular context at play here (namely, user interactions in an online community). *From a literal perspective, it is virtually never “necessary” for a random internet person to tell you anything, unless for some reason you desperately need emergency help and they are the only ones that can supply you with the requisite information for you.
Yep. That certain is the problem. And therefore, the conclusion is that this concept is hopelessly confused and not possible to usefully apply in practice—right?
As such, “necessary” and “useful” play virtually the same role in this context. “Helpful” does as well, although it blends in part of (but not the entirety) of the “kindness” rubric that we’ve already gone over.
… I guess not.
Look, you certainly can say “I declare that what I mean by ‘necessary’ is ‘helpful’ and/or ‘useful’”. (Of course then you might find yourself having to field the question of whether “helpful” and “useful” are actually the same thing—but never mind that.) The question is, does everyone involved understand this term “necessary” in the same way?
Empirically: no.
except for possibly the last one, where “The topic or board you are looking for appears to be either missing or off limits to you”
Ah, sorry, that’s indeed a restricted forum. Here’s the post, with appropriate redactions:
They are the result of a changing and flowing communal understanding of ideas that happens organically instead of in a guided or designed manner.
Precisely the problem (well, one of the several problems, anyhow) is that there is not, in fact, a “communal understanding” of these concepts, but rather a whole bunch of different understandings—and given the words and concepts we’re talking about here, there’s no hope of it ever being otherwise.
Internet moderation
This discussion started out with a question about what is ideal, not what is allowed by the rules, or any such thing, so legibility of rules and consistency of moderation—important as those things might be—are not the point here.
To all that stuff about “consequentialism” and “writing down your bottom line”, I will say only that consequentialism is meaningless without values and preferences. I value honesty. I prefer that others with whom I interact do likewise.
As I mentioned, this fits in as a “particularly powerful commitment to truthtelling,” even as in your case it does not seem to be entirely deontological. Certainly a valid preference (in so much as preferences can even be described as “valid”), but orthogonal to the subset of empirical claims relating to how community interactions would likely play out under/without the norms under discussion.
Now, how could you possibly know that?
This is one of the rare occasions in which arguing by definition actually works (minus the general issues with modal logics). The lurkers are the members of the community that are active in terms of viewing (and even engaging with in terms of upvoting/downvoting) the content but who do not make their presence known through comments or posts. As per statistics I have seen on the site a few times (admittedly, most of them refer back to the period around ~2017 or so, but the phenomenon being discussed here has only been further accentuated with the more recent influx of users), LW is just like other Internet communities in terms of the vast majority of the userbase being made up of lurkers, most of whom have newer accounts and have engaged with the particularities of the subculture of longer-lasting members to a lesser extent. Instead, they come from different places on the Internet, with different background assumptions that are much more in line with the emphasis on kindness and usefulness (as LessWrong is more of an outlier among such communities in how much it cares about truth per se).
Yep. That certain is the problem. And therefore, the conclusion is that this concept is hopelessly confused and not possible to usefully apply in practice—right?
You seem to have confused the point about the fact that one literal meaning of “necessary” is that it refers only to cases of genuine (mostly medical) emergencies. It is not that this word is confused, but rather that, as with many parts of imperfect human languages that are built up on the fly instead of being designed purposefully from the beginning, it has different meanings in different contexts. It is overloaded, so the particular meaning at play depends on context clues (which are, by their nature, mostly implicit rather than explicitly pointed out) such as what the tone of the communication has been thus far, what forum it is taking place in, whether it is a formal or informal setting, whether it deals with topics in a mathematical or engineering or philosophical way, etc (this goes beyond mere Internet discussions and in fact applies to all aspects of human-to-human communication). This doesn’t mean the word is “bad”, as it may be (and often is) still the best option available in our speech to express the ideas we are getting across.
Whether it is “necessary” for someone to point out that some other person is making a particular error (say, for example, claiming that a particular piece of legislation was passed in 1883 instead of the correct answer of 1882) depends on that particular context: if it is a casual conversation between friends in which one is merely explaining to the other that there have been some concrete examples of government-sponsored anti-Chinese legislation, then butting in to correct that is not so “necessary”; by contrast, if this is a PhD student writing their dissertation on this topic, and you are their advisor, it becomes much more “necessary” to point out their error early on.
The question is, does everyone involved understand this term “necessary” in the same way?
Certainly not! It would be quite amazing (and frankly rather suspicious) if this were to happen; consider just how many different users there are. The likelihood of every single one of them having the same internal conception of the term is so low as to be negligible. But, of course, it is not necessary to reach this point, nor is it productive to do so, as it requires wasting valuable time and resources to attempt to pin down concepts through short sentences in a manner that simply cannot work out. What matters is whether sufficiently many users understand the ideas well enough to behave according to them in practice; small disagreements of opinion may remain, but those can be ironed out on a case-by-case basis through the reasoning and discretion of community leaders (often moderators).
Empirically: no.
Yes, you are right to say this, as it seems you do not believe you have the same internal representation of these words as you think other people do (I fully believe that you are genuine in this). But, as mentioned above, the mere existence of a counterexample is not close to sufficient to bring the edifice down, and empirically, your confusions are more revealing about yourself and the way your mind works than they are a signal of underlying problems with the general community understanding of these matters; this would be an instance of improperly Generalizing From One Example.
Ah, sorry, that’s indeed a restricted forum. Here’s the post, with appropriate redactions:
Precisely the problem (well, one of the several problems, anyhow) is that there is not, in fact, a “communal understanding” of these concepts, but rather a whole bunch of different understandings—and given the words and concepts we’re talking about here, there’s no hope of it ever being otherwise.
This discussion started out with a question about what is ideal, not what is allowed by the rules, or any such thing, so legibility of rules and consistency of moderation—important as those things might be—are not the point here.
“What is allowed by the rules”? What rules? There seems to be a different confusion going on in your paragraph here. What are being discussed are the rules and norms in the community; it’s not that these are allowed or prohibited by something else, but rather they are the principles that allow or prohibit other behaviors by users in the future. The legibility of rules and consistency of moderation are absolutely part of the point because they weigh (to a heavy but not overwhelming extent) on whether such rules and norms are desirable, and as a natural corollary, whether a particular system of such norms is ideal. This is because they impact the empirical outcomes of enacting them, such as whether users will understand them, adhere to them, promote them etc. Ignoring the consequences of that is making the same type of error that has been discussed in this thread in depth.
This is one of the rare occasions in which arguing by definition actually works
You then followed this with several empirical claims (one of which was based not on any concrete evidence but just on speculation based on claimed general patterns). No, sorry, arguing by definition does not work here.
It is not that this word is confused … It is overloaded
Well, words can’t really be confused, can they? But yes, the word “necessary” is overloaded, and some or possibly most or maybe even all of its common usages are also vague enough that people who think they’re talking about the same thing can come up with entirely different operationalizations for it, as I have empirically demonstrated, multiple times.
Whether it is “necessary” for someone to point out that some other person is making a particular error … depends on that particular context
That is not the problem. The problem (or rather—again—one of multiple problems) is that even given a fixed context, people easily can, and do, disagree not only on what “necessary” means in that context, but also on whether any given utterance fits that criterion (on which they disagree), and even on the purpose of having the criterion in the first place. This, again, is given some context.
What matters is whether sufficiently many users understand the ideas well enough to behave according to them in practice
It’s pretty clear that they don’t. I mean, we’ve had how many years of SSC, and now ACX (and, to a lesser extent, also DSL and Less Wrong) to demonstrate this?
But, as mentioned above, the mere existence of a counterexample is not close to sufficient to bring the edifice down, and empirically, your confusions are more revealing about yourself and the way your mind works than they are a signal of underlying problems with the general community understanding of these matters; this would be an instance of improperly Generalizing From One Example.
Sorry, no, this doesn’t work. I linked multiple examples of other people disagreeing on what “necessary” means in any given context, including Scott Alexander, who came up with this criterion in the first place, disagreeing with himself about it, in the course of the original post that laid out the concept of moderating according to this criterion!
This discussion started out with a question about what is ideal, not what is allowed by the rules, or any such thing, so legibility of rules and consistency of moderation—important as those things might be—are not the point here.
“What is allowed by the rules”? What rules? There seems to be a different confusion going on in your paragraph here.
Uh… I think you should maybe reread what I’m responding to, there.
people who think they’re talking about the same thing can come up with entirely different operationalizations for it, as I have empirically demonstrated, multiple times
In any case, as I have mentioned above, differences in opinion are not only inevitable, but also perfectly fine as long as they do not grow too large or too common. From my comment above: “small disagreements of opinion may remain, but those can be ironed out on a case-by-case basis through the reasoning and discretion of community leaders (often moderators).”
It’s pretty clear that they don’t. I mean, we’ve had how many years of SSC, and now ACX (and, to a lesser extent, also DSL and Less Wrong) to demonstrate this?
LessWrong and SSC (while it was running) have maintained arguably the highest aggregate qualities of commentary on the Internet, at least among relatively large communities that I know about. I do not see what is being demonstrated, other than precisely the opposite of the notion that norms sketched out in natural language cannot be followed en masse or cannot generate the type of culture that promotes such norms to new users (or users just transitioning from being lurkers to generating content of their own).
Uh… I think you should maybe reread what I’m responding to, there.
I think I’m going to tap out now. Unfortunately, I believe we have exhausted the vast majority of useful avenues of discourse on this matter.
From my comment above: “small disagreements of opinion may remain, but those can be ironed out on a case-by-case basis through the reasoning and discretion of community leaders (often moderators).”
But these aren’t small disagreements. They’re big disagreements.
I do not see what is being demonstrated, other than precisely the opposite of the notion that norms sketched out in natural language cannot be followed *en masse *or cannot generate the type of culture that promotes such norms to new users (or users just transitioning from being lurkers to generating content of their own).
The SSC case demonstrates precisely that these particular norms, at least, which were sketched out in natural language, cannot be followed en masse or, really, at all, and that (a) trying to enforce them leads to endless arguments (usually started by someone responding to someone else’s comment by demanding to know whether it was kind or necessary—note that the “true” criterion never led to such acrimony!), and (b) the actual result is a steady degradation of comment (and commenter) quality.
The Less Wrong case demonstrates that the whole criterion is unnecessary. (Discussions like this one also demonstrate some other things, but those are secondary.)
To all that stuff about “consequentialism” and “writing down your bottom line”, I will say only that consequentialism is meaningless without values and preferences. I value honesty. I prefer that others with whom I interact do likewise.
Now, how could you possibly know that?
Given that you didn’t actually make clear that any of those things were about the “necessary” condition (indeed you didn’t even mention the word in any of points #2, #3, or #4 in the grandparent—I did check), I think it’s hardly reasonable to call what I said “incorrect as a factual matter”. But never mind that; you’ve clarified your meaning now, I suppose…
Taking your clarification into account, I will say that I find all three of those points to be some combination of incomprehensible, baffling, and profoundly misguided. (I will elaborate if you like, though the details of these disagreements seem to me to be mostly a tangent.)
Yep. That certain is the problem. And therefore, the conclusion is that this concept is hopelessly confused and not possible to usefully apply in practice—right?
… I guess not.
Look, you certainly can say “I declare that what I mean by ‘necessary’ is ‘helpful’ and/or ‘useful’”. (Of course then you might find yourself having to field the question of whether “helpful” and “useful” are actually the same thing—but never mind that.) The question is, does everyone involved understand this term “necessary” in the same way?
Empirically: no.
Ah, sorry, that’s indeed a restricted forum. Here’s the post, with appropriate redactions:
https://wiki.obormot.net/Temp/QuotedDSLForumPost
Precisely the problem (well, one of the several problems, anyhow) is that there is not, in fact, a “communal understanding” of these concepts, but rather a whole bunch of different understandings—and given the words and concepts we’re talking about here, there’s no hope of it ever being otherwise.
This discussion started out with a question about what is ideal, not what is allowed by the rules, or any such thing, so legibility of rules and consistency of moderation—important as those things might be—are not the point here.
As I mentioned, this fits in as a “particularly powerful commitment to truthtelling,” even as in your case it does not seem to be entirely deontological. Certainly a valid preference (in so much as preferences can even be described as “valid”), but orthogonal to the subset of empirical claims relating to how community interactions would likely play out under/without the norms under discussion.
This is one of the rare occasions in which arguing by definition actually works (minus the general issues with modal logics). The lurkers are the members of the community that are active in terms of viewing (and even engaging with in terms of upvoting/downvoting) the content but who do not make their presence known through comments or posts. As per statistics I have seen on the site a few times (admittedly, most of them refer back to the period around ~2017 or so, but the phenomenon being discussed here has only been further accentuated with the more recent influx of users), LW is just like other Internet communities in terms of the vast majority of the userbase being made up of lurkers, most of whom have newer accounts and have engaged with the particularities of the subculture of longer-lasting members to a lesser extent. Instead, they come from different places on the Internet, with different background assumptions that are much more in line with the emphasis on kindness and usefulness (as LessWrong is more of an outlier among such communities in how much it cares about truth per se).
You seem to have confused the point about the fact that one literal meaning of “necessary” is that it refers only to cases of genuine (mostly medical) emergencies. It is not that this word is confused, but rather that, as with many parts of imperfect human languages that are built up on the fly instead of being designed purposefully from the beginning, it has different meanings in different contexts. It is overloaded, so the particular meaning at play depends on context clues (which are, by their nature, mostly implicit rather than explicitly pointed out) such as what the tone of the communication has been thus far, what forum it is taking place in, whether it is a formal or informal setting, whether it deals with topics in a mathematical or engineering or philosophical way, etc (this goes beyond mere Internet discussions and in fact applies to all aspects of human-to-human communication). This doesn’t mean the word is “bad”, as it may be (and often is) still the best option available in our speech to express the ideas we are getting across.
Whether it is “necessary” for someone to point out that some other person is making a particular error (say, for example, claiming that a particular piece of legislation was passed in 1883 instead of the correct answer of 1882) depends on that particular context: if it is a casual conversation between friends in which one is merely explaining to the other that there have been some concrete examples of government-sponsored anti-Chinese legislation, then butting in to correct that is not so “necessary”; by contrast, if this is a PhD student writing their dissertation on this topic, and you are their advisor, it becomes much more “necessary” to point out their error early on.
Certainly not! It would be quite amazing (and frankly rather suspicious) if this were to happen; consider just how many different users there are. The likelihood of every single one of them having the same internal conception of the term is so low as to be negligible. But, of course, it is not necessary to reach this point, nor is it productive to do so, as it requires wasting valuable time and resources to attempt to pin down concepts through short sentences in a manner that simply cannot work out. What matters is whether sufficiently many users understand the ideas well enough to behave according to them in practice; small disagreements of opinion may remain, but those can be ironed out on a case-by-case basis through the reasoning and discretion of community leaders (often moderators).
Yes, you are right to say this, as it seems you do not believe you have the same internal representation of these words as you think other people do (I fully believe that you are genuine in this). But, as mentioned above, the mere existence of a counterexample is not close to sufficient to bring the edifice down, and empirically, your confusions are more revealing about yourself and the way your mind works than they are a signal of underlying problems with the general community understanding of these matters; this would be an instance of improperly Generalizing From One Example.
Yeah, this works.
For the reasons mentioned above, I do not believe this do be correct at an empirical level, just as I agree with the assessments that many of the previous confusions you have previously professed are not about concepts confusing to the vast majority of other people (and, in particular, other users of LW).
“What is allowed by the rules”? What rules? There seems to be a different confusion going on in your paragraph here. What are being discussed are the rules and norms in the community; it’s not that these are allowed or prohibited by something else, but rather they are the principles that allow or prohibit other behaviors by users in the future. The legibility of rules and consistency of moderation are absolutely part of the point because they weigh (to a heavy but not overwhelming extent) on whether such rules and norms are desirable, and as a natural corollary, whether a particular system of such norms is ideal. This is because they impact the empirical outcomes of enacting them, such as whether users will understand them, adhere to them, promote them etc. Ignoring the consequences of that is making the same type of error that has been discussed in this thread in depth.
You then followed this with several empirical claims (one of which was based not on any concrete evidence but just on speculation based on claimed general patterns). No, sorry, arguing by definition does not work here.
Well, words can’t really be confused, can they? But yes, the word “necessary” is overloaded, and some or possibly most or maybe even all of its common usages are also vague enough that people who think they’re talking about the same thing can come up with entirely different operationalizations for it, as I have empirically demonstrated, multiple times.
That is not the problem. The problem (or rather—again—one of multiple problems) is that even given a fixed context, people easily can, and do, disagree not only on what “necessary” means in that context, but also on whether any given utterance fits that criterion (on which they disagree), and even on the purpose of having the criterion in the first place. This, again, is given some context.
It’s pretty clear that they don’t. I mean, we’ve had how many years of SSC, and now ACX (and, to a lesser extent, also DSL and Less Wrong) to demonstrate this?
Sorry, no, this doesn’t work. I linked multiple examples of other people disagreeing on what “necessary” means in any given context, including Scott Alexander, who came up with this criterion in the first place, disagreeing with himself about it, in the course of the original post that laid out the concept of moderating according to this criterion!
Uh… I think you should maybe reread what I’m responding to, there.
Yes, people end up with different representations of the same kinds of ideas when you force them to spell out how they conceptualize a certain word when that word does not have a simple representation in natural language. It is the same phenomenon that prompted Critch to label “consciousness” as a conflationary alliance (and Paradiddle accurately identified the underlying issue that caused this seeming disparity in understanding).
In any case, as I have mentioned above, differences in opinion are not only inevitable, but also perfectly fine as long as they do not grow too large or too common. From my comment above: “small disagreements of opinion may remain, but those can be ironed out on a case-by-case basis through the reasoning and discretion of community leaders (often moderators).”
LessWrong and SSC (while it was running) have maintained arguably the highest aggregate qualities of commentary on the Internet, at least among relatively large communities that I know about. I do not see what is being demonstrated, other than precisely the opposite of the notion that norms sketched out in natural language cannot be followed en masse or cannot generate the type of culture that promotes such norms to new users (or users just transitioning from being lurkers to generating content of their own).
I think I’m going to tap out now. Unfortunately, I believe we have exhausted the vast majority of useful avenues of discourse on this matter.
But these aren’t small disagreements. They’re big disagreements.
The SSC case demonstrates precisely that these particular norms, at least, which were sketched out in natural language, cannot be followed en masse or, really, at all, and that (a) trying to enforce them leads to endless arguments (usually started by someone responding to someone else’s comment by demanding to know whether it was kind or necessary—note that the “true” criterion never led to such acrimony!), and (b) the actual result is a steady degradation of comment (and commenter) quality.
The Less Wrong case demonstrates that the whole criterion is unnecessary. (Discussions like this one also demonstrate some other things, but those are secondary.)