Michael Cohn

Karma: 337

Michael Cohn May 1, 2025, 12:11 PM
1 point
0
on: Don’t accuse your interlocutor of being insufficiently truth-seeking
I’d go with “I don’t think this conversation is helping us ________” (eg, come up with solutions, figure out what to do next, understand why we really disagree). It opens the door to suggest meta-level changes to how you’re interacting without 1) accusing them, 2) suggesting that they’re the only one who should change, or 3) inviting arguments about their intentions or internal state. It might also help reorient the conversation from a small-scale win/lose frame towards a broader shared goal of accomplishing something. Finally, it allows you to suggest specific changes to make the conversation more truth-seeking while also addressing whatever may be motivating them to not be truth-seeking (eg, fearing that if they “lose” then their needs won’t get met, perceiving you as trying to pull status on them, trying to preserve their image for an external audience).
If you’re having a debate that’s mostly for an external audience, then maybe you should just call out that the liar is lying. If you’re trying to work with them, then it’s probably better to try to figure out what aspect of the conversation is motivating them to lie and trying to incentivise telling the truth instead. If you can’t do that then it doesn’t really matter what’s going on in their head; you’re not going to have a productive conversation anyway.

Michael Cohn Dec 30, 2024, 6:19 AM
1 point
4
in reply to: tup99’s comment on: When Is Insurance Worth It?
100% agree with the principle that buying peace of mind can be a good deal whether the peace of mind is quantitatively justified or not, and the broader principle that we shouldn’t be disdainful of emotions. But while emotions aren’t entirely rational, they’re not entirely irrational either. I expect that learning and applying the method in this post will help the user feel peace of mind at a level of insurance that’s somewhat closer to optimal than they would have otherwise.
It’s also probably useful to learn the quantiatively optimal strategy so you can be consciously aware of what premium you’re paying for peace of mind, and make thoughtful decisions about how much it’s worth to you. I said that buying peace of mind can be a good deal, but I’ll bet there are people who—if they could see exactly how big the risk-aversion premium they’re paying is—would decide that they’d rather deal with more anxiety and pocket the cash.

Michael Cohn Dec 30, 2024, 6:03 AM
10 points
2
in reply to: quila’s comment on: What Goes Without Saying
Maybe it’s because I’ve read other posts like this, but I read it as expressing the unspoken assumptions of a particular group, not trying to get others to adopt them. That is, I took the scare quotes around “be reasonable” as actually self-effacing. I mean, it’s obvious that the author does think these are good things, but the post came across to me as descriptive. If the post were written so as to imply that some people actively endorse the opposite of these things, eg, “pointless busywork is cool” then that would be obnoxious, but it seems worthwhile to me to point out that many people don’t pay much attention to busywork either way and it’s not a factor in their evaluation or decisionmaking.
I may also be biased because I love hearing about how different implicit assumptions and perspectives lead to different experiences, so that’s what I went in wanting to read (and was satisfied).

Michael Cohn Dec 1, 2024, 2:51 PM
4 points
2
in reply to: DaystarEld’s comment on: You are not too “irrational” to know your preferences.
Thanks, that clears up a lot for me! And it makes me think that the perspective you encourage has a lot of connections to other important habits of mind, like knowing how to question automatic thoughts and system 1 conclusions without beating yourself up for having them.

Michael Cohn Nov 29, 2024, 2:58 PM
3 points
0
on: You are not too “irrational” to know your preferences.
I’m a little surprised by how you view the subtext of the ice cream example. If I imagine myself in either role, I would not interpret Bryce as saying Ash shouldn’t like ice cream in some very base sense. I interpret conversations like that as meaning either:
1) “You might have a desire for X but you shouldn’t indulge that desire because it has net bad consequences”
or
2) “If you knew all the negative things that X causes, it would spoil your enjoyment of it and you wouldn’t be attracted to it anymore.”
or
3) “If you knew all the negative things that X causes, your hedonic attraction to the better world that not-x would create would outweigh your hedonic attraction to the experience of X.”
Those can all create some kind of unhealthy or manipulative dynamic but I don’t see them as the same thing you’re saying, which is more like 4) “it’s wrong and stupid to enjoy the physical sensation of eating ice cream.”
Do you agree with my reading that 1-3 are different from what you’re talking about, or do you think they’re included within it?

Michael Cohn Nov 26, 2024, 6:53 AM
1 point
0
in reply to: Archimedes’s comment on: Locally optimal psychology
If I look at depression as a way of acting / thinking / feeling, then it makes sense that there could be multiple paths to end up that way. Some people could have neurological issues that make it difficult to do otherwise, while others could have the capacity to act/think/feel differently but have settled there as their locally optimal strategy.

Michael Cohn Nov 17, 2024, 11:03 PM
1 point
0
in reply to: Vlad Sitalo’s comment on: What Ketamine Therapy Is Like
The “horse tranquilizer” thing goes back to long before the pandemic. I was hearing it in the aughts in relation to recreational use. My guess about the term is that 1) among drug warriors, it’s good moral panic fodder, 2) among drug users, it sounds really funny, and 3) I imagine it’s easier to divert doses from the veterinary system than from the human pharmacy system, so it may have originated with dealers whose supply literally had the words “horse” and “tranquilizer” on the label.

Michael Cohn Nov 17, 2024, 10:52 PM
1 point
0
in reply to: Scott Alexander’s comment on: What Ketamine Therapy Is Like
I know of at least one telehealth service that reportedly has a pretty low bar for writing a ketamine prescription. My understanding is that everyonesmd.com is fully legit and a month’s supply of ketamine costs less than one dose from Mindbloom. Now, on the other hand, some people probably shouldn’t turn themselves loose with a month’s worth of a mind-altering drug to be used ad lib—but if you have a promising regimen in mind, and the medical system isn’t delivering, this could be a big deal.

(everyonesmd.com looks VERY sketchy but based on online reviews and a report from someone I know personally, they do provide a telehealth appointment that can result in a valid prescription. I don’t know if I would trust their drug suppliers but if you talk to customer service, instead of going through their checkout process, they are required to transfer your prescription to a reputable compounding pharmacy of your choice).

Michael Cohn Sep 21, 2024, 2:59 PM
1 point
0
on: Slave Morality: A place for every man and every man in his place
Another thought on this is that people often talk about smothering social norms or moralities by giving examples of petty, infantilizing rewards for behaving in infantilized ways. What about a libertarian-oriented society that enforces rules primarily intended to prevent people from restricting one another’s behavior? What about an economic system that encourages entrepreneurship and invention by doing things like enforcing contracts, or providing a social safety net so that more people can start businesses or create products without worrying that they’ll literally starve to death in the street if their first idea doesn’t work? Participants in a society like that should still maintain some awareness that this is the work of humanity, not an expression of a fundamentally just universe, but it’s hard for me to argue that just participating makes them into slaves.

Michael Cohn Sep 21, 2024, 2:53 PM
1 point
0
on: Slave Morality: A place for every man and every man in his place
This description does a good job of providing two kinds of evocative theme but I think it doesn’t draw out the connections or distinctions that need to be clarified when people are interacting with is vs ought, or perhaps with cosmos vs. society. When describing everyday life as a physical object in the universe, I think a rock-bottom existentialism is obviously right: The universe does not owe you anything. God isn’t going to punish your oppressors or reward you for being good, and God also isn’t going to punish you if you get what you want by being arrogant and doing things that are shocking. If that’s master morality, then fine.
But when we form a society, we can choose to make a world where people who follow the rules are rewarded. We can describe obligations for people to participate and belong, and actively put energy into the system to buffer those people from random shocks. I can see how that reads as slave morality from the perspective of someone who’s an unreflective participant in it, but I think that’s also an unsatisfying way to describe an active project to defy the nature of the universe and, through work, create a world more to our liking.
So in sum I think your description here needs to clarify when this kind of be-good-and-you’ll-get-a-cookie living is bad simply because it’s inaccurate (God is not going to give you a cookie) and when you think it’s wrong because, even if people establish an enclave in which rules are enforced and people are taken care of, that diminishes the human spirit or is actively harmful to its participants.
It might also just be a matter of hierarchical perception. To use a smaller scale example:
- On a day-to-day level I do my chores around the house even when I don’t feel like it, because if I do what I promised then my housemates will also do what they promised, and I’ll get the benefits of a functional place to live. That’s a quid-pro-quo with an external system but I wouldn’t call that slave morality.
- If my housemates arbitrarily stopped doing their chores, I’d go and remind them them we’d all agreed to do our chores. That’s expecting others to fulfill their obligations, but I wouldn’t call that slave morality.
- If they simply refused to do their chores and nothing I did could move them, and my response to that was to rend my garments and cry out to God that this was cosmically wrong and I refused to go on living, that would be slave morality. But if my reaction was to leave and find another place to live where people do their damn chores, I’d call that being a master.

Michael Cohn Sep 19, 2024, 5:39 AM
3 points
0
in reply to: Said Achmiz’s comment on: Not every accommodation is a Curb Cut Effect: The Handicapped Parking Effect, the Clapper Effect, and more
I didn’t know much about this subject when I made the original post, because I was interested in handicapped parking as a design pattern rather than a specific topic, but it turns out that the ADA has a very clear answer: 2-4% of all spaces, with a minimum of 1 space.
I don’t know how they came up with that percentage or if there’s any mechanism for updating it based on the prevalence of mobility limitations. Requirements are considerably higher for hospitals and rehab facilities, which does seem sensible.
This is a topic I’d like to learn more about sometime. I imagine it causes some tension for urbanist types because they tend to love accessibility but hate parking space mandates.

Michael Cohn Sep 19, 2024, 5:25 AM
3 points
0
in reply to: Said Achmiz’s comment on: Not every accommodation is a Curb Cut Effect: The Handicapped Parking Effect, the Clapper Effect, and more
That makes sense, thanks. I should think more about cases where design for accessibility just generally makes something worse. You could shoehorn that into the handicapped parking paradigm but it’s not really the best fit—the challenge there isn’t allocating a limited resource, though there probably is an underlying limitation in terms of budget or attention. Those are frustrating because usually you can imagine a thoughtful solution that would make everyone happy, but you can’t count on it actually working out that way.

Michael Cohn Sep 19, 2024, 1:18 AM
6 points
−3
in reply to: Joseph Miller’s comment on: Pronouns are Annoying
I also don’t think it’s useful to try and learn much about pronouns qua pronouns social battles over them. Using the pronoun people ask you to use has become a proxy for all sorts of other tolerant/benevolent attitudes towards that person and the way they want to live their life, and to an even greater extent, refusing to do that is a proxy for thinking they should be ignored, or possibly reviled, or possibly killed.
I don’t think everyone proxies it that way—I know there are some people who are just old-fashioned, or passionate about prescriptive grammar, or have essentialist beliefs about gender but are libertarian about others’ behavior. I think that if everyone had very high confidence that someone not using the pronouns they requested meant that at worst that person mildly disapproves of them but would still actively defend their civil + legal + human rights, there would probably be a lot less of the handwringing you mention, and we’d be able to learn a lot more about the fundamental intrinsic meaning of pronouns.

Michael Cohn Sep 18, 2024, 6:32 AM
1 point
0
in reply to: IgnatzMouse’s comment on: Not every accommodation is a Curb Cut Effect: The Handicapped Parking Effect, the Clapper Effect, and more
That’s an amazing story, thanks for sharing! I would not have expected that outcome, and I hope the folks in charge take other lessons / hypotheses from it too.

Michael Cohn Sep 18, 2024, 6:30 AM
3 points
0
in reply to: Said Achmiz’s comment on: Not every accommodation is a Curb Cut Effect: The Handicapped Parking Effect, the Clapper Effect, and more
I agree that allocation is hard and in particular that if regulations overboard with trying to ensure that there will always be more handicapped spots than there are people who need them, there’s a point at which adding spots becomes net negative. As for the point about injuries, you’re right—I wasn’t thinking clearly there and it doesn’t apply, at least not in the current US implementation of handicapped parking.

Michael Cohn Sep 18, 2024, 6:20 AM
4 points
2
in reply to: Viliam’s comment on: Not every accommodation is a Curb Cut Effect: The Handicapped Parking Effect, the Clapper Effect, and more
I couldn’t bite through a plastic straw if I tried. I’d have to gnaw on it for quite a while. I don’t think this is a crux or anything but if you are able to bite through a plastic straw, and the straws you get are the same as the ones I’m used to, then I’m impressed.

Michael Cohn Sep 18, 2024, 5:55 AM
3 points
0
in reply to: Said Achmiz’s comment on: Not every accommodation is a Curb Cut Effect: The Handicapped Parking Effect, the Clapper Effect, and more
From the tone of your text I feel like you’re expressing disagreement, but as far as I can tell we’re in agreement that not every accommodation is a win-win curb cut effect. I’m a lot more enthusiastic about the good outcomes of many accommodations than you are but I fervently agree that 1) sometimes there are negative tradeoffs and 2) it’s harmful and dogmatic, not to mention infuriating, when people insist that this never happens or that negative consequences to non-users are unimportant. Am I missing someplace where my post dismisses the issues you’re talking about?

Michael Cohn Sep 16, 2024, 6:26 AM
2 points
0
in reply to: Said Achmiz’s comment on: Not every accommodation is a Curb Cut Effect: The Handicapped Parking Effect, the Clapper Effect, and more
I only know the very basics of design for screen readers so I’ll stick to talking about your first example. I agree this isn’t a case of the curb cut effect, because the curb cut effect by definition refers to an accommodation creating benefits for a broader set of people than it was originally intended for. Part of my goal was to make it clear that we can’t always expect that to happen. If an accommodation makes life worse for non-users then it’s at best what I’d call a handicapped parking effect, meaning that designers have to make a hard tradeoff. It’s also possible that the people working on your bridge just didn’t think about it or didn’t try very hard, in which case it’s not any kind of cleverly-named effect, it’s just bad design. (but I also don’t know anything about civil engineering, so I wouldn’t jump to that conclusion in any particular case.)
As for financial cost: This post was meant to be about usage patterns around the accommodations themselves, so it doesn’t go into decisions about whether to invest in any particular accommodation in the first place (except for the aside about curb cut effects increasing the total benefits). But I agree that financial cost is real and important. If someone believes that accessibility either is a fundamental moral imperative or has diffuse benefits to all of society, that should lead them to argue that it’s worth paying high costs to make things more accessible, but it shouldn’t let them get away with ignoring cost/benefit thinking entirely.

Michael Cohn 16 Sep 2024 5:52 UTC
6 points
0
in reply to: gwern’s comment on: Not every accommodation is a Curb Cut Effect: The Handicapped Parking Effect, the Clapper Effect, and more
I’ve only ever read a little bit about this but my understanding is:
1. Much of what you say is right, and braille signage is not a perfect and comprehensive solution to accessibility for all blind people, but
2. It’s still useful because public spaces are designed with a lot of regularities that make it not-that-hard to predict where signage will be, especially given that
3. Many blind people are unbelievably good at exploring unfamiliar spaces, relative to what a sighted person might imagine.

Michael Cohn 15 Sep 2024 23:21 UTC
1 point
0
in reply to: Viliam’s comment on: Not every accommodation is a Curb Cut Effect: The Handicapped Parking Effect, the Clapper Effect, and more
Good point that building for accessibility is often much cheaper than retrofitting for it!
For every plastic straw alternative, I’ve read a harrowing explanation of why it’s awful for some particular kind of person. eg, this article
But paper straws and similar biodegradable options often fall apart too quickly or are easy for people with limited jaw control to bite through. Silicone straws are often not flexible — one of the most important features for people with mobility challenges. Reusable straws need to be washed, which not all people with disabilities can do easily. And metal straws, which conduct heat and cold in addition to being hard and inflexible, can pose a safety risk.
It’s worth coming up with piecemeal solutions to each of these problems. But I think for this and many other cases we still need a universal fallback of, “if someone says they need [specific low-cost accommodation] in order to function normally, let them have it and don’t give them shit about it.”