Well, I’m sorry to say this, but part of what makes authority Authority is that your respect is not always required. Frankly, in this case Authority is going to start deleting your comments if you keep on telling newcomers who post in the Welcome thread not to read the QM sequence, which you’ve done quite a few times at this point unless my memory is failing me. You disagree with MWI. Okay. I get it. We all get it. I still want the next Mihaly to read the QM Sequence and I don’t want to have this conversation every time, nor is it an appropriate greeting for every newcomer.
Just to correct a few inaccuracies in your comment:
You disagree with MWI.
I don’t, I just don’t put nearly as much confidence in it as you do. It is also unfortunately abused on this site quite a bit.
nor is it an appropriate greeting for every newcomer.
I don’t even warn every newcomer who mentions the QM sequence, let alone “every newcomer”, only those who appear to be stuck on it. Surely Mihaly had no difficulties with it, so none of my warnings would interfere with “still want the next Mihaly to read the QM Sequence”.
You have a point, it’s easy to read my first comment rather uncharitably. I should have been more precise:
“My standard advice to all newcomers [who mention difficulties with the QM sequence]...” which is much closer to what actually happens. I don’t bring it up out of the blue every time I greet someone.
You are right. In my mind I read it as “I read through everything up until this, and this quantum thing looks scary and formidable, but it’s next, so I better get on with it”, which could have been a total misinterpretation of what was meant. So yeah, I have probably jumped in a bit early. Not that I think it was a bad advice. Anyway, it’s all a moot point now, I have promised EY not to give unsolicited advice to newcomers telling them to skip the QM sequence.
Hmm, the above got a lot of upvotes… I have no idea why.
Egalitarian instinct. Eliezer is using power against you, which drastically raises the standards of behavior expected from him while doing so—including less tolerance of him getting things wrong.
Your reply used the form ‘graceful’ in a context where you would have been given a lot of leeway even to be (overtly) rude. The corrections were portrayed as gentle and patient. Whether the corrections happen to be accurate or reasonable is usually almost irrelevant for the purpose of determining people’s voting behavior this far down into a charged thread.
Note that even though I approve of Eliezer’s decision to delete comments of yours disparaging the QM sequence to newcomers I still endorse your decision to force Eliezer to use his power instead of deferring to his judgement simply because he has the power. It was the right decision for you to make from your perspective and is also a much more desirable precedent.
I deliberately invoke this tactic on occasion in arguments on other people’s turf, particularly where the rules are unevenly applied. I was once accused by an acquaintance who witnessed it of being unreasonably reasonable.
It’s particularly useful when moderators routinely take sides in debates. It makes it dangerous for them to use their power to shut down dissent.
Egalitarian instinct. Eliezer is using power against you, which drastically raises the standards of behavior expected from him while doing so—including less tolerance of him getting things wrong.
Nailed it on the head. As my cursor began to instinctively over the “upvote” button on shminux’s comment I caught myself and thought, why am I doing this?. And while I didn’t come to your exact conclusion I realized my instinct had something to do with EY’s “use of power” and shminux’s gentle reply. Some sort of underdog quality that I didn’t yet take the time to assess but that my mouse-using-hand wanted badly to blindly reward.
I’m glad you pieced out the exact reasoning behind the scenes here. Stopping and taking a moment to understand behavior and then correct based on that understanding is why I am here.
That said, I really should think for a long time about your explanation before voting you up, too!
I’m glad you pieced out the exact reasoning behind the scenes here.
If it is as right as it is insightful (which it undeniably is), I would expect those who come across wedifid’s explanation to go back and change their vote, resulting in %positive going sharply down. It doesn’t appear to be happening.
If it is as right as it is insightful (which it undeniably is), I would expect those who come across wedifid’s explanation to go back and change their vote, resulting in %positive going sharply down.
A quirk (and often a bias) humans have is that we tend to assume that just because a social behavior or human instinct can be explained it must thereby be invalidated. Yet everything can (in principle) be explained and there are still things that are, in fact, noble. My parents’ love for myself and my siblings is no less real because I am capable of reasoning about the inclusive fitness of those peers of my anscestors that happened to love their children less.
In this case the explanation given was, roughly speaking “egalitarian instinct + politeness”. And personally I have to say that the egalitarian instinct is one of my favorite parts of humanity and one of the traits that I most value in those I prefer to surround myself with (Rah foragers!).
All else being equal the explanation in terms of egalitarian instinct and precedent setting regarding authority use describes (what I consider to be) a positive picture and in itself is no reason to downvote. (The comment deserves to be downvoted for innacuracy as described in differentcomments but this should be considered separately from the explanation of the reasons for upvoting.)
In terms of evidence I would say that I would not consider mass downvoting of this comment to be (non-trivial) evidence in support of my explanation. Commensurately I don’t consider the lack of such downvoting to be much evidence against. As for how much confidence I have in the explanation… well, I am reasonably confident that the egalitarian instinct and politeness are factors but far less confident that they represent a majority of the influence. Even my (mere) map of the social forces at work points to other influences that are at least as strong—and my ability to model and predict a crowd is far from flawless.
The question you ask is a surprisingly complicated one, if looked at closely.
They could just be a weird sort of lazy whereby they don’t scroll back up and change anything. Or maybe they never see his post. Or something else. I don’t think the -%positive-not-going-down-yet is any indication that wedrifid’s comment is not right.
You may well be right, it’s hard to tell. I don’t see an easy way of finding out short of people replying like you have. I assumed that there enough of those who would react to make the effect visible, and I don’t see how someone agreeing with wedrifid’s assessment would go back and upvote my original comment, so even a partial effect could be visible. But anyway, this is not important enough to continue discussing, I think. Tapping out.
In discussions where everyone tapping out is superior to the available alternatives, I’m more inclined to refer to the result as “minimizing loss” than “winning”.
Note that even though I tired of your talking about QM years ago
This is the second time you mention shminux having talked about QM for years. But I can’t find any comments or posts he’s made before July 2011. Does he have a dupe account or something else I don’t know about?
Since you are asking… July 2011 is right for the join date and some time later is when I voiced any opinion related to the QM sequence and MWI (I did read through it once and browsed now and again since). No, I did not have another account before that, as a long-term freenode ##physics IRC channel moderator, I dislike being confused about user’s previous identities, so I don’t do it myself (hence the silly nick chosen a decade or so ago, which has lost all relevance by now). On the other hand, I don’t mind people wanting a clean slate with a new nick, just not using socks to express a controversial or karma-draining opinion they are too chicken to have linked to their main account.
I also encourage you to take whatever wedrifid writes about me with a grain of salt. While I read what he writes and often upvote when I find it warranted, I quite publicly announced here about a year ago that I will not be replying to any of his comments, given how counterproductive it had been for me. (There are currently about 4 or 5 people on my LW “do-not-reply” list.) I have also warned other users once or twice, after I noticed them in a similarly futile discussion with wedrifid. I would be really surprised if this did not color his perception and attitude. It certainly would for me, were the roles reversed.
This is the second time you mention shminux having talked about QM for years. But I can’t find any comments or posts he’s made before July 2011. Does he have a dupe account or something else I don’t know about?
I don’t keep an exact mental record of the join dates. My guess from intuitive feel was “2 years”. It’s April 2013. It was July 2011 when the account joined. If anything you have prompted me to slightly increase my confidence in the calibration of my account-joining estimator.
If the subject of how long user:shminux has been complaining about the QM sequence ever becomes relevant again I’ll be sure to use Wei Dai’s script, search the text and provide a link to the exact first mention. In this case, however, the difference hardly seems significant or important.
Does he have a dupe account or something else I don’t know about?
I doubt it. If so I praise him for his flawless character separation.
Thanks for clarifying. I asked not because the exact timing is important but because the overstatement seemed uncharacteristic (albeit modest), and I wasn’t sure whether it was just offhand pique or something else. (Also, if something funny had been going on, it might’ve explained the weird rancour/sloppiness/mindkilledness in the broader thread.)
Thanks for clarifying. I asked not because the exact timing is important but because the overstatement seemed uncharacteristic (albeit modest), and I wasn’t sure whether it was just offhand pique or something else.
Just an error.
Note that in the context there was no particular pique. I intended acknowledgement of established disrespect, not conveyance of additional disrespect. The point was that I was instinctively (as well as rationally) motivated to support shminux despite also approving of Eliezer’s declared intent, which illustrates the strength of the effect.
Fortunately nothing is lost if I simply remove the phrase you quote entirely. The point remains clear even if I remove the detail of why I approve of Eliezer’s declaration.
Also, if something funny had been going on, it might’ve explained the weird rancour/sloppiness/mindkilledness in the broader thread.
The main explanation there is just that incarnations of this same argument have been cropping up with slight variations for (what seems like) a long time. As with several other subjects there are rather clear battle lines drawn and no particular chance of anyone learning anything. The quality of the discussion tends to be abysmal, riddled with status games and full of arguments that are sloppy in the extreme. As well as the problem of persuasion through raw persistence.
Well, I’m sorry to say this, but part of what makes authority Authority is that your respect is not always required. Frankly, in this case Authority is going to start deleting your comments if you keep on telling newcomers who post in the Welcome thread not to read the QM sequence, which you’ve done quite a few times at this point unless my memory is failing me. You disagree with MWI. Okay. I get it. We all get it. I still want the next Mihaly to read the QM Sequence and I don’t want to have this conversation every time, nor is it an appropriate greeting for every newcomer.
Sure, your site, your rules.
Just to correct a few inaccuracies in your comment:
I don’t, I just don’t put nearly as much confidence in it as you do. It is also unfortunately abused on this site quite a bit.
I don’t even warn every newcomer who mentions the QM sequence, let alone “every newcomer”, only those who appear to be stuck on it. Surely Mihaly had no difficulties with it, so none of my warnings would interfere with “still want the next Mihaly to read the QM Sequence”.
The claim you made that prompted the reply was:
It is rather disingenuous to then express exaggerated ‘let alone’ rejections of the reply “nor is it an appropriate greeting for every newcomer”.
Uhuh.
That said, kudos to you for remaining calm and reasonable
You have a point, it’s easy to read my first comment rather uncharitably. I should have been more precise:
“My standard advice to all newcomers [who mention difficulties with the QM sequence]...” which is much closer to what actually happens. I don’t bring it up out of the blue every time I greet someone.
Sorry, could you point out where difficulties with the QM sequence were mentioned? All I could find was
You are right. In my mind I read it as “I read through everything up until this, and this quantum thing looks scary and formidable, but it’s next, so I better get on with it”, which could have been a total misinterpretation of what was meant. So yeah, I have probably jumped in a bit early. Not that I think it was a bad advice. Anyway, it’s all a moot point now, I have promised EY not to give unsolicited advice to newcomers telling them to skip the QM sequence.
Fair enough, I thought I might have somehow missed it.
Hmm, the above got a lot of upvotes… I have no idea why.
Egalitarian instinct. Eliezer is using power against you, which drastically raises the standards of behavior expected from him while doing so—including less tolerance of him getting things wrong.
Your reply used the form ‘graceful’ in a context where you would have been given a lot of leeway even to be (overtly) rude. The corrections were portrayed as gentle and patient. Whether the corrections happen to be accurate or reasonable is usually almost irrelevant for the purpose of determining people’s voting behavior this far down into a charged thread.
Note that even though I approve of Eliezer’s decision to delete comments of yours disparaging the QM sequence to newcomers I still endorse your decision to force Eliezer to use his power instead of deferring to his judgement simply because he has the power. It was the right decision for you to make from your perspective and is also a much more desirable precedent.
I deliberately invoke this tactic on occasion in arguments on other people’s turf, particularly where the rules are unevenly applied. I was once accused by an acquaintance who witnessed it of being unreasonably reasonable.
It’s particularly useful when moderators routinely take sides in debates. It makes it dangerous for them to use their power to shut down dissent.
Nailed it on the head. As my cursor began to instinctively over the “upvote” button on shminux’s comment I caught myself and thought, why am I doing this?. And while I didn’t come to your exact conclusion I realized my instinct had something to do with EY’s “use of power” and shminux’s gentle reply. Some sort of underdog quality that I didn’t yet take the time to assess but that my mouse-using-hand wanted badly to blindly reward.
I’m glad you pieced out the exact reasoning behind the scenes here. Stopping and taking a moment to understand behavior and then correct based on that understanding is why I am here.
That said, I really should think for a long time about your explanation before voting you up, too!
If it is as right as it is insightful (which it undeniably is), I would expect those who come across wedifid’s explanation to go back and change their vote, resulting in %positive going sharply down. It doesn’t appear to be happening.
A quirk (and often a bias) humans have is that we tend to assume that just because a social behavior or human instinct can be explained it must thereby be invalidated. Yet everything can (in principle) be explained and there are still things that are, in fact, noble. My parents’ love for myself and my siblings is no less real because I am capable of reasoning about the inclusive fitness of those peers of my anscestors that happened to love their children less.
In this case the explanation given was, roughly speaking “egalitarian instinct + politeness”. And personally I have to say that the egalitarian instinct is one of my favorite parts of humanity and one of the traits that I most value in those I prefer to surround myself with (Rah foragers!).
All else being equal the explanation in terms of egalitarian instinct and precedent setting regarding authority use describes (what I consider to be) a positive picture and in itself is no reason to downvote. (The comment deserves to be downvoted for innacuracy as described in different comments but this should be considered separately from the explanation of the reasons for upvoting.)
In terms of evidence I would say that I would not consider mass downvoting of this comment to be (non-trivial) evidence in support of my explanation. Commensurately I don’t consider the lack of such downvoting to be much evidence against. As for how much confidence I have in the explanation… well, I am reasonably confident that the egalitarian instinct and politeness are factors but far less confident that they represent a majority of the influence. Even my (mere) map of the social forces at work points to other influences that are at least as strong—and my ability to model and predict a crowd is far from flawless.
The question you ask is a surprisingly complicated one, if looked at closely.
I believe that I already knew I was acting on egalitarian instinct when I upvoted your comment.
They could just be a weird sort of lazy whereby they don’t scroll back up and change anything. Or maybe they never see his post. Or something else. I don’t think the -%positive-not-going-down-yet is any indication that wedrifid’s comment is not right.
You may well be right, it’s hard to tell. I don’t see an easy way of finding out short of people replying like you have. I assumed that there enough of those who would react to make the effect visible, and I don’t see how someone agreeing with wedrifid’s assessment would go back and upvote my original comment, so even a partial effect could be visible. But anyway, this is not important enough to continue discussing, I think. Tapping out.
I completely agree with what you are saying and also tap out, even though it may be redundant. Let us kill this line of comments together.
If you both tap out, then anyone who steps into the discussion wins by default!
In many such cases it may be better to say that if both tap out then everybody wins by default!
-3 karma, apparently.
In discussions where everyone tapping out is superior to the available alternatives, I’m more inclined to refer to the result as “minimizing loss” than “winning”.
Well to your credit you don’t see LW as a zero sum game.
What does he win?
This is the second time you mention shminux having talked about QM for years. But I can’t find any comments or posts he’s made before July 2011. Does he have a dupe account or something else I don’t know about?
Since you are asking… July 2011 is right for the join date and some time later is when I voiced any opinion related to the QM sequence and MWI (I did read through it once and browsed now and again since). No, I did not have another account before that, as a long-term freenode ##physics IRC channel moderator, I dislike being confused about user’s previous identities, so I don’t do it myself (hence the silly nick chosen a decade or so ago, which has lost all relevance by now). On the other hand, I don’t mind people wanting a clean slate with a new nick, just not using socks to express a controversial or karma-draining opinion they are too chicken to have linked to their main account.
I also encourage you to take whatever wedrifid writes about me with a grain of salt. While I read what he writes and often upvote when I find it warranted, I quite publicly announced here about a year ago that I will not be replying to any of his comments, given how counterproductive it had been for me. (There are currently about 4 or 5 people on my LW “do-not-reply” list.) I have also warned other users once or twice, after I noticed them in a similarly futile discussion with wedrifid. I would be really surprised if this did not color his perception and attitude. It certainly would for me, were the roles reversed.
I’m also interested in this. Hopefully it’s not an overt lie or something.
I don’t keep an exact mental record of the join dates. My guess from intuitive feel was “2 years”. It’s April 2013. It was July 2011 when the account joined. If anything you have prompted me to slightly increase my confidence in the calibration of my account-joining estimator.
If the subject of how long user:shminux has been complaining about the QM sequence ever becomes relevant again I’ll be sure to use Wei Dai’s script, search the text and provide a link to the exact first mention. In this case, however, the difference hardly seems significant or important.
I doubt it. If so I praise him for his flawless character separation.
Thanks for clarifying. I asked not because the exact timing is important but because the overstatement seemed uncharacteristic (albeit modest), and I wasn’t sure whether it was just offhand pique or something else. (Also, if something funny had been going on, it might’ve explained the weird rancour/sloppiness/mindkilledness in the broader thread.)
Just an error.
Note that in the context there was no particular pique. I intended acknowledgement of established disrespect, not conveyance of additional disrespect. The point was that I was instinctively (as well as rationally) motivated to support shminux despite also approving of Eliezer’s declared intent, which illustrates the strength of the effect.
Fortunately nothing is lost if I simply remove the phrase you quote entirely. The point remains clear even if I remove the detail of why I approve of Eliezer’s declaration.
The main explanation there is just that incarnations of this same argument have been cropping up with slight variations for (what seems like) a long time. As with several other subjects there are rather clear battle lines drawn and no particular chance of anyone learning anything. The quality of the discussion tends to be abysmal, riddled with status games and full of arguments that are sloppy in the extreme. As well as the problem of persuasion through raw persistence.