you are establishing an antogonistic [sic] tone to the interaction
Yes, that’s right, but I don’t care about not establishing an antagonistic tone to the interaction. I care about achieving the map that reflects the territory. To be sure, different maps can reflect different aspects of the same territory, and words can be used in many ways depending on context! So it would certainly be possible to write a slightly different blog post making more-or-less the same point and proposing the same causal graph, but labeling the parent nodes something like “Systematic Error” and “Unsystematic Error”, or maybe even “Conflict” and “Mistake”. But that is not the blog post that I, personally, felt like writing yesterday.
I don’t think it’s useful to include only two arrows here. For instance
Right, I agree that more detailed models are possible, that might achieve better predictions at the cost of more complexity.
make the other person defensive and less likely to listen to reason...
I guess that’s possible, but why is that my problem?
make the other person defensive and less likely to listen to reason...
I guess that’s possible, but why is that my problem?
This is as good a time as any to note a certain (somewhat odd) bias that I’ve long noticed on Less Wrong and in similar places—namely, the idea that the purpose of arguing with someone about something is to convince that person of your views.[1] Whereas, in practice, the purpose of arguing with someone may have nothing at all to do with that someone; you may well (and often do not) care little or nothing about whether your interlocutor is convinced of your side, or, indeed, anything at all about his final views. (This is particularly true, obviously, when arguing or discussing on a forum like Less Wrong.)
Now, here the cached response among rationalists is: “in fact the purpose should be, to find out the truth! together! If you are in fact right, you should want the other person to be convinced; if you are in fact wrong, you should want them to convince you …” and so on, and so forth. Yes, yes, this is all true and fine, but is not the distinction I am now discussing.
I guess that’s possible, but why is that my problem?
Why are you arguing with someone if you don’t want to learn from their point of view or share your point of view? Making someone defensive is counter productive to both goals.
Is there a reasonable third goal? (Maybe to convince an audience? Although, including an audience is starting to add more to the scenario ‘suppose you are arguing with someone.’)
Not obvious to me that defensiveness on their part interferes with learning from them? Providing information to the audience would be the main other reason, but the attitude I’m trying to convey more broadly is that I think I’m just … not a consequentialist about speech? (Speech is thought! Using thinking in order to select actions becomes a lot more complicated if thinking is itself construed as an action! This can’t literally be the complete answer, but I don’t know how to solve embedded agency!)
If you make someone defensive, they are incentivized to defend their character, rather than their argument. This makes it less likely that you will hear convincing arguments from them, even if they have them.
Also, speech can affect people and have consequences, such as passing on information or changing someones mood (e.g. making them defensive). For that matter, thinking is a behavior I can choose to engage in that can have consequences, e.g. if I lie to myself it will influence later perceptions and behavior, if I do a mental calculation then I have gained information. If you don’t want to call thinking or speech ‘action’ I guess that’s fine, but the arguments for consequentialism apply to them just as well.
Yes, that’s right, but I don’t care about not establishing an antagonistic tone to the interaction. I care about achieving the map that reflects the territory. To be sure, different maps can reflect different aspects of the same territory, and words can be used in many ways depending on context! So it would certainly be possible to write a slightly different blog post making more-or-less the same point and proposing the same causal graph, but labeling the parent nodes something like “Systematic Error” and “Unsystematic Error”, or maybe even “Conflict” and “Mistake”. But that is not the blog post that I, personally, felt like writing yesterday.
Right, I agree that more detailed models are possible, that might achieve better predictions at the cost of more complexity.
I guess that’s possible, but why is that my problem?
This is as good a time as any to note a certain (somewhat odd) bias that I’ve long noticed on Less Wrong and in similar places—namely, the idea that the purpose of arguing with someone about something is to convince that person of your views.[1] Whereas, in practice, the purpose of arguing with someone may have nothing at all to do with that someone; you may well (and often do not) care little or nothing about whether your interlocutor is convinced of your side, or, indeed, anything at all about his final views. (This is particularly true, obviously, when arguing or discussing on a forum like Less Wrong.)
Now, here the cached response among rationalists is: “in fact the purpose should be, to find out the truth! together! If you are in fact right, you should want the other person to be convinced; if you are in fact wrong, you should want them to convince you …” and so on, and so forth. Yes, yes, this is all true and fine, but is not the distinction I am now discussing.
What other reasonable purposes of arguing do you see, other than the one in the footnote? I am confused by your comment.
Why are you arguing with someone if you don’t want to learn from their point of view or share your point of view? Making someone defensive is counter productive to both goals.
Is there a reasonable third goal? (Maybe to convince an audience? Although, including an audience is starting to add more to the scenario ‘suppose you are arguing with someone.’)
Not obvious to me that defensiveness on their part interferes with learning from them? Providing information to the audience would be the main other reason, but the attitude I’m trying to convey more broadly is that I think I’m just … not a consequentialist about speech? (Speech is thought! Using thinking in order to select actions becomes a lot more complicated if thinking is itself construed as an action! This can’t literally be the complete answer, but I don’t know how to solve embedded agency!)
If you make someone defensive, they are incentivized to defend their character, rather than their argument. This makes it less likely that you will hear convincing arguments from them, even if they have them.
Also, speech can affect people and have consequences, such as passing on information or changing someones mood (e.g. making them defensive). For that matter, thinking is a behavior I can choose to engage in that can have consequences, e.g. if I lie to myself it will influence later perceptions and behavior, if I do a mental calculation then I have gained information. If you don’t want to call thinking or speech ‘action’ I guess that’s fine, but the arguments for consequentialism apply to them just as well.