While going on tangents is a common and expected occurrence, each such tangent has a chance of steering/commandeering the original conversation. LW has a tendency of going meta too much, when actual object level discourse would have a higher content value.
While you were practically invited to indulge in the death-by-meta with the hook of “Are you aware that that is basically what every crank says about some other field?”, we should be aware when leaving the object-level debating, and the consequences thereof. Especially since the lure can be strong:
When sufficiently meta, object-level disagreements may fizzle into cosmic/abstract insignificance, allowing for a peaceful pseudo-resolution, which ultimately just protects that which should be destroyed by the truth from being destroyed.
Such lures may be interpreted similarly to ad hominems: The latter try to drown out object-level disagreements by flinging shit until everyone’s dirty, the former zoom out until everyone’s dizzy floating in space, with vertigo. Same result to the actual debate. It’s an effective device, and one usually embraced by someone who feels like object-level arguments no longer serve his/her goals.
Ironically, this very comment goes meta lamenting going meta.
While going on tangents is a common and expected occurrence, each such tangent has a chance of steering/commandeering the original conversation. LW has a tendency of going meta too much, when actual object level discourse would have a higher content value.
While you were practically invited to indulge in the death-by-meta with the hook of “Are you aware that that is basically what every crank says about some other field?”, we should be aware when leaving the object-level debating, and the consequences thereof. Especially since the lure can be strong:
When sufficiently meta, object-level disagreements may fizzle into cosmic/abstract insignificance, allowing for a peaceful pseudo-resolution, which ultimately just protects that which should be destroyed by the truth from being destroyed.
Such lures may be interpreted similarly to ad hominems: The latter try to drown out object-level disagreements by flinging shit until everyone’s dirty, the former zoom out until everyone’s dizzy floating in space, with vertigo. Same result to the actual debate. It’s an effective device, and one usually embraced by someone who feels like object-level arguments no longer serve his/her goals.
Ironically, this very comment goes meta lamenting going meta.