if you don’t see what’s wrong with claiming that your opinion on a linguistic matter is basis for significant Bayesian update, especially in the style that you did, then that significantly lowers any update I would make based on your communication skills. I strongly think that “the singularity institute” sounds better, but you’re making me sad to agree with you.
(1) I have not made any claim to superior “communication skills”. Those are highly complex and involve many smaller abilities. The most I did was make a claim to (a certain kind of) superior language skills in order to draw attention to an explicit argument I had given that had been ignored.
(2) Compare the following:
if you don’t see what’s wrong with claiming that your opinion on a [insert adjective] matter is basis for significant Bayesian update...
For what class of adjective do you regard this as a general template for a sound argument?
I’ll let you in on a secret. IN THE STYLE YOU DID was a part of what I said, and it was an important part. Claiming to be wise enough that what you think should make other people significantly change their point of view is OBVIOUSLY arrogant. What is so hard to understand about that? Adding lines like “I’ll let you in on a secret” makes you come off significantly worse. Your style of communication is dismissive of any contrary opinion, insulting, and ridiculously pompous. If you can’t see this, my opinion of your language skills HAS to go down based on them being a subset of being able to understand communication. Your dislike of singularity institute is clearly based on what you think that phrasing communicates, and yet you can’t seem to understand why people might dislike your own communications.
The class of adjective is irrelevant. What’s wrong with that claim is not whether or not it is true or useful, but how well it persuades. And a flat statement saying you should update on my beliefs, when we are specifically talking about whether to update beliefs based on how something is said, is unconvincing and annoying.
Thank you for the feedback. Let me now try to reply to some of your points, in order to help you and anyone else reading better understand where I am coming from. (I don’t intend these replies as rejections of the information you’ve offered about your own perspective.)
Claiming to be wise enough that what you think should make other people significantly change their point of view is OBVIOUSLY arrogant. What is so hard to understand about that?
I was only claiming to be “wise enough” to have my point of view taken into account. Not all Bayesian updates are large updates! Now, of course, in this particular case, I did think a large update was warranted; but I didn’t expect that large update to be made on the basis of my authority, I expected it to be made on the basis of my arguments.
“I’ll let you in on a secret” makes you come off significantly worse
That seems bizarre, unless you interpreted it as sarcasm. But it wasn’t sarcasm: I spelled out in the next sentence that I was actually embarrassed to be making the admission!
Another strange thing about the reaction to this is that I didn’t actually claim my “single greatest skill” was actually all that great. I just said it was the greatest skill I had. It could perhaps be quite bad, with all the other skills simply being even worse. The only comparison was with my own other skills, not the skills of other people.
What I was saying was “if you ever listen to me on anything, listen to me on this!”.
And a flat statement saying you should update on my beliefs
This feels to me like I’m being interpreted uncharitably. My statement was highly specific and limited in scope. It was not in any sense a “flat” statement; it was fairly narrowly circumscribed.
“I’ll let you in on a secret” makes you come off significantly worse
That seems bizarre, unless you interpreted it as sarcasm.
A data point: doesn’t seem bizarre to me. Whether I interpret it as (a specific type of) sarcasm I’m not sure. Sarcasm needn’t hinge only on the contradiction between the literal and factual meaning of “secret”, but also on the contradiction between a relatively familiar / seemingly friendly phrase and the general expression of disagreement.
Data point: It didn’t come off that way to me either, I found it sounded condescending.
I agree that “at Singularity Institute” sounds weird, but I also know that judgement on what sounds weird or what connotations come up—including things like “I’ll let you in on a secret”—vary a lot from person to person, even among people from the same language and country and background.
if you don’t see what’s wrong with claiming that your opinion on a linguistic matter is basis for significant Bayesian update, especially in the style that you did, then that significantly lowers any update I would make based on your communication skills. I strongly think that “the singularity institute” sounds better, but you’re making me sad to agree with you.
This is a cheap shot.
(1) I have not made any claim to superior “communication skills”. Those are highly complex and involve many smaller abilities. The most I did was make a claim to (a certain kind of) superior language skills in order to draw attention to an explicit argument I had given that had been ignored.
(2) Compare the following:
For what class of adjective do you regard this as a general template for a sound argument?
I’ll let you in on a secret. IN THE STYLE YOU DID was a part of what I said, and it was an important part. Claiming to be wise enough that what you think should make other people significantly change their point of view is OBVIOUSLY arrogant. What is so hard to understand about that? Adding lines like “I’ll let you in on a secret” makes you come off significantly worse. Your style of communication is dismissive of any contrary opinion, insulting, and ridiculously pompous. If you can’t see this, my opinion of your language skills HAS to go down based on them being a subset of being able to understand communication. Your dislike of singularity institute is clearly based on what you think that phrasing communicates, and yet you can’t seem to understand why people might dislike your own communications.
The class of adjective is irrelevant. What’s wrong with that claim is not whether or not it is true or useful, but how well it persuades. And a flat statement saying you should update on my beliefs, when we are specifically talking about whether to update beliefs based on how something is said, is unconvincing and annoying.
I have now edited the comment, removing what I understand to have been the most offensive passage.
Thank you for the feedback. Let me now try to reply to some of your points, in order to help you and anyone else reading better understand where I am coming from. (I don’t intend these replies as rejections of the information you’ve offered about your own perspective.)
I was only claiming to be “wise enough” to have my point of view taken into account. Not all Bayesian updates are large updates! Now, of course, in this particular case, I did think a large update was warranted; but I didn’t expect that large update to be made on the basis of my authority, I expected it to be made on the basis of my arguments.
That seems bizarre, unless you interpreted it as sarcasm. But it wasn’t sarcasm: I spelled out in the next sentence that I was actually embarrassed to be making the admission!
Another strange thing about the reaction to this is that I didn’t actually claim my “single greatest skill” was actually all that great. I just said it was the greatest skill I had. It could perhaps be quite bad, with all the other skills simply being even worse. The only comparison was with my own other skills, not the skills of other people.
What I was saying was “if you ever listen to me on anything, listen to me on this!”.
This feels to me like I’m being interpreted uncharitably. My statement was highly specific and limited in scope. It was not in any sense a “flat” statement; it was fairly narrowly circumscribed.
A data point: doesn’t seem bizarre to me. Whether I interpret it as (a specific type of) sarcasm I’m not sure. Sarcasm needn’t hinge only on the contradiction between the literal and factual meaning of “secret”, but also on the contradiction between a relatively familiar / seemingly friendly phrase and the general expression of disagreement.
The phrase was intended to be friendly, precisely in order to mitigate the general expression of disagreement!
Data point: It didn’t come off that way to me either, I found it sounded condescending.
I agree that “at Singularity Institute” sounds weird, but I also know that judgement on what sounds weird or what connotations come up—including things like “I’ll let you in on a secret”—vary a lot from person to person, even among people from the same language and country and background.