[HN Gopher] Arguing Without Warning
___________________________________________________________________
Arguing Without Warning
Author : Gadiguibou
Score : 71 points
Date : 2022-03-24 15:31 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (dynomight.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (dynomight.net)
| nathell wrote:
| > Here's one such case: Say someone wrote something. You think
| they're wrong, so you write a manifesto arguing that they're
| wrong.
|
| Whoa, whoa, hold your horses. Pause right there.
|
| How does that "so" conjunction work? Given that you think they're
| wrong, why would you want to write a manifesto arguing that
| they're wrong? What's your motivation behind it?
|
| There can be a plethora of possible motivations, all of them
| valid. Just to name a few:
|
| - The original statement is in direct conflict with your world
| view. Because it's being read and shared, you want to write a
| counterpiece because you, too, wish to be heard.
|
| - You believe that the original statement represents a belief
| that's factually incorrect, so you want to write a corrigendum
| because you believe that policies based on false premises are
| bound to lead astray.
|
| - The original statement is written in a way that touches you
| emotionally. Perhaps it disparages a part of the world that's
| important to you. You want to respond in defense of that part.
|
| - You don't find the matter particularly important, but you see
| an omission in the original statement's reasoning that you think
| you can amend. You write a supplementary response to improve your
| (and hopefully others') understanding of the problem at hand.
|
| - You just have that irresistible urge originating $GOD knows
| where, that you have no better name for than "xkcd #386".
|
| Depending on the circumstances, you may or may not want to follow
| the various norms that Dynomight mentions in their article. But I
| think it's of paramount importance to be self-aware of our own
| motivations. It also helps to be explicit about them.
| a_shovel wrote:
| > _We tend to criticize things that we think are_ almost _right,
| so close to right that we're worried other people will accept
| them._
|
| > _This is a compliment. If someone criticizes something you
| wrote, you should feel gratified that you were "right enough" to
| be worth arguing with._
|
| This is the logic of internet trolls. I'm right, and if you
| disagree, that proves I'm right, and if you fully debunk my
| argument, that means you're desperate to keep people from
| believing me, which, again, proves I'm right.
|
| I don't know if you've heard, but people will accept a lot of
| arguments that aren't anywhere near to right, because it appeals
| to their preconceptions, or it would be convenient to their goals
| if it were right, or their friend said it was good, or a million
| other reasons.
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| I personally never understood this logic of "trying to disprove
| me means I'm right". Where does it come from?
| paulpauper wrote:
| >Second, the critiques themselves often have serious flaws, and
| then those have serious flaws, and it sort of goes on forever. I
| find this aspect of reality very frustrating, but most
| discussions seem to be an infinite regress carried on until
| someone gets exhausted and leaves.
|
| There are two types of criticisms: criticism out of disagreement
| with the thesis, or a criticism that undermines the reasoning or
| conclusion of the thesis itself. The latter is much worse. Good
| journalists and writers try to keep the second to a minimum as it
| can come at a major cost to credibility.
| kqr wrote:
| Counter-argument, written without informing the author: the risk
| of arguing without talking to the thesisholder is that you don't
| work with the iron man version of the thesis.
|
| And straw man debate is a type of intellectual bullshit we have
| too much of already.
|
| (So why am I engaging in this type of intellectual bullshit by
| writing this comment? Sometimes when I'm very tired and don't
| have energy to do more useful things like read a book I get a
| little kick out of trying to state arguments concisely and get
| little tokens of appreciation in the form of upvotes from fellow
| hackers.
|
| These tokens are less likely in a drawn-out argument, even if it
| becomes intellectually more honest. So... I blame the system!)
| hirundo wrote:
| I made a comment here about a book the other day and the author
| responded. I found that I was more fair, thoughtful and neutral
| when I replied to him than when I made the original comment.
| This isn't always the case but I think that personal
| interaction with the creator tends to make criticism more
| measured and humane.
| civilized wrote:
| > Counter-argument, written without informing the author: the
| risk of arguing without talking to the thesisholder is that you
| don't work with the iron man version of the thesis.
|
| Or, you criticize the thesis as honestly as you can with the
| information the author provided, the author responds with their
| steel man version, and you publicly go back and forth until
| clarity is achieved.
|
| A public cycle of criticism based on a good-faith
| misunderstanding is itself useful, as it puts on display the
| disconnect between what an author thinks they are saying and
| what their words actually communicate to the public.
| titzer wrote:
| > A public cycle of criticism
|
| Sure. But conversations take time, and always require shared
| background understanding. A some point, you can't let every
| conversation devolve into rebuilding the foundations of
| mathematics from axioms.
|
| Authors have a responsibility to explain their ideas to a
| reader with a "reasonable" background of shared knowledge. If
| a long dialog ensues that reveals that reasonable shared
| background is neither reasonable nor shared, then great. But
| if the dialog devolves into a back-and-forth with obstinate
| readers who both refuse to enter into shared background
| understanding (e.g. not putting in any work, by not doing
| suggested background research or flat out disagreeing on
| basic premises like matter is made of atoms, etc) and
| simultaneously have really strong opinions, then _everything_
| gets derailed.
|
| So critics do have some responsibility to know what they are
| talking about as well.
| civilized wrote:
| This is true whether or not the conversation is public, so
| somewhat orthogonal to the topic at hand.
| incomingpain wrote:
| >There's just isn't enough checking and counter-arguing, full
| stop.
|
| Sure but why? Lets focus on politics as it's at the centre of all
| this.
|
| The usual or normal stake in society is virtually no discussion
| about politics. Once every few years you pick a representative
| and then you can ignore politics because you can't change
| anything. You ought to be talking about that local sports team or
| that new tv show. This changed in recent years, I'm not really
| familiar with this ever happening before. Politics is beyond
| represented in common discussion today but you CANNOT argue. Dont
| dare take a side or else you get labelled an *ist.
|
| You will also notice that all thought commanders in the field of
| politics are either comedians or lawyers; while the actual
| politicians tend to be lawyers or celebrities. None of those 3
| groups are allowed to speak their mind or argue.
|
| The battlefield of thought is where this isn't true. You can find
| this battleground where the comedians and lawyers interview.
|
| The prevailing theory also has the blame on the "STEM" movement
| in that highly qualified people left social sciences toward STEM
| leaving a huge talent gap in the social sciences. In addition to
| the reality of social media utterly destroying mainstream media.
| Just look at the fall of CNN to political activists.
|
| What does matter is that we have a new hyper awareness of
| politics. The left wing right wing false dichotomy has collapsed.
| Why is it the universities used to be for free speech and are now
| certainly not?
|
| It's also super important to notice how unsuccessful major
| protests have been. BLM, who literally represent something
| clearly broken, very clearly the USA should fix their objective
| racist and brutal police force. The USA absolutely needs to fix
| the multitude of problems along these lines. However they have
| received absolutely no fix. They have had major protests and
| riots all over and nobody at all in government is willing to fix
| it. You're not allowed to argue or even discuss this.
|
| However, if you try to argue or point any of this out. You become
| a nazi or racist or whatever ist they decide upon.
|
| Hopefully you can see why arguing has become impossible. It's not
| just politics, but politics is the center. Race, Gender, Drugs,
| environmentalism, guns, etc. Tons of things you are simply not
| allowed to argue about.
|
| OP knows this as well which is why he discusses Watermelons. He
| actively goes out of his way to discuss something that nobody
| discusses because it's the only way to avoid hitting a subject
| you're not allowed to discuss. He could have discussed how
| everyone in Toronto lives in an igloo.
|
| Why is this happening? One side of politics has decided that
| society is on the brink of collapse if not extinction. This is a
| matter of life or death.
|
| Unfortunately, I made a huge mistake in this post. I argued.
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| > The usual or normal stake in society is virtually no
| discussion about politics. Once every few years you pick a
| representative and then you can ignore politics because you
| can't change anything. You ought to be talking about that local
| sports team or that new tv show. This changed in recent years,
| I'm not really familiar with this ever happening before.
|
| I don't know at what point your depiction of "virtually no
| discussion about politics" ever "usual or normal". In my
| parents' lifetime we had political fights around interracial
| marriage, AIDS, and racial integration-- and that's just in the
| country I was born in. In the country they were born in, there
| was so much politics it became a massive civil conflict and
| they had to flee for their lives. In their grandparents' time
| there was already civil war and one of my grandparents was a
| POW, so I bet that was plenty of discussion too.
| incomingpain wrote:
| >I don't know at what point your depiction of "virtually no
| discussion about politics" ever "usual or normal"
|
| The average person does not talk politics in normal
| conversation. The conversation ought to be how terrible the
| toronto maple laughs are doing. Or book of boba fett or new
| obiwan mini series. So many different subjects, politics
| rarely become a subject let alone dominate like it is doing
| today.
|
| >In my parents' lifetime we had political fights around
| interracial marriage, AIDS, and racial integration-- and
| that's just in the country I was born in.
|
| Sure you are always going to have hot topics.
|
| I'm curious, in normal conversation do you always talk about
| the political hot topics? You dont particularly care about
| $localsportsteam or whatever?
|
| >In the country they were born in, there was so much politics
| it became a massive civil conflict and they had to flee for
| their lives.
|
| Oh yes, that's precisely what's coming. Kind of the point I
| was alluding to.
|
| > In their grandparents' time there was already civil war and
| one of my grandparents was a POW, so I bet that was plenty of
| discussion too.
|
| Totally agree. I think we are in agreement here. Obviously I
| didn't spell it out to this extent.
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| > I'm curious, in normal conversation do you always talk
| about the political hot topics?
|
| Actually yeah, I keep track of my parents' immigration
| process, which is a political hot topic because they come
| from a non-european country and therefore their immigration
| status is always at risk here.
| fleddr wrote:
| From a European perspective: clearly, the US has a polarization
| problem. It has always had it due to the two party system but
| it's been getting exponentially worse. Or, alternatively, maybe
| the silent majority isn't necessarily more divided, instead the
| extreme ends are disproportionately promoted in media and
| social media, since outrage sells and reasonable people are
| boring. Reasonable people have nowhere to go, they have to pick
| one of the two types of crazy.
|
| It's a terrible thing to watch as both people and issues are
| reduced down to binary options.
|
| For example, I'd argue that the "Trumpist" white working class
| person in the Midwest has a lot in common with the black
| suburban working class person. These are now worlds apart, at
| times enemies even, but they share a lot of issues. Both
| groups, which I argue to be a single group, struggle to get a
| livable wage, access to education and healthcare, and so on.
| Somehow, society has sorted these groups into good and bad
| people, where good and bad change based on perspective.
|
| Same for complicated divisive issues. Most people, yes even
| conservatives, would agree that racism is bad. But that doesn't
| necessarily mean that they support every method to combat it,
| like "defund the police", reparations, equity policy, and many
| other policies not at all related to the original problem. But
| you can't discuss any of the points or plans intelligently.
| You're all-in with every idea, including bad ones, or you're
| out, and thus a racist.
|
| A system like this leaves only one option: silence.
|
| In contrast, the political system in my country, the
| Netherlands. It's a coalition country where the ruling
| government consists of 3-4 parties to form a majority. So that
| means that the norm is that everything is multi-partisan. You
| are forced to work together or you will not rule. Likewise, you
| can't destroy or smear the other in a campaign because you'll
| meet them again at the formation table.
|
| In a system like this, consensus is the norm, and extremism has
| no chance, they will never rule. This has its effect on people,
| as most people are centrists with a notch to the left or right.
|
| My group of friends is politically all over the map. Nobody
| takes issue with deviations in opinions, there's no hard or
| clear line to sort people into. There's also no left-right
| consistency. I know progressive people that are conservative
| regarding immigration and I know conservative people that are
| progressive environmentalists.
|
| Sorting people into left-right, good-bad, conservative-democrat
| is a crime. An insult to humanity. Because the really sad thing
| is most political needs are universal. The split is entirely
| artificial.
| ineptech wrote:
| There's more than one kind of argument and the author's elision
| of that makes this kind of muddled:
|
| * "You vs Me" vs "Us vs the problem". In the latter, there's an
| objective Correct answer and each party would prefer to find it
| than to "win" the debate; in the former, the parties would rather
| "win" than discover new information that would change their mind.
| The article assumes that internet debates are of the latter
| variety, while in my experience they are 99% the former.
|
| * With/without audience. Without an audience, you are trying to
| convince the person you're arguing with, which forces you to
| address their strongest points; with an audience, you (usually)
| have no real hope of budging the person you're talking to, and
| are only interested in persuading some hypothetical listener, so
| you are incentivized to ignore their strongest points and pounce
| on the weakest ones. Again, the essay is written as if internet
| debaters are speaking to each other, when in reality they are
| overwhelmingly talking past each other and hoping to persuade the
| audience.
|
| Overall this reads like someone pontificating on whether it is
| politer in a bar fight to sucker-punch with the right or left
| hand. Perhaps of interest but not likely to affect any actual bar
| fights.
| rilezg wrote:
| The blogger does say the norms they propose are for 'the
| genteel corridors of long-form internet writing', which, as you
| say, make up a tiny portion of all 'internet debates'. This
| sort of writing is always 'with audience', and it is telling
| that the word 'glory' appears twice in the blog-post.
|
| I think the blogger's missing forest is that it is nigh
| impossible to have an 'us vs the problem' debate unless 'you
| and me' both agree on the assumptions that frame the problem.
| If we do not first root out and address incongruous
| assumptions, we will forever talk past each other, no matter
| how many brass tacks we jump on, even if it seems to bystanders
| that we both speak the same language.
|
| As an aside, I believe that a person's assumptions/beliefs are
| inseparable from who that person is (you are what you eat). For
| me, it is silly to critique an idea without much consideration
| about what person/people communicated that idea and why they
| believe it (assuming they do). I often find that the truth is
| not as cut and dry as I assumed. If your goal is 'internet
| glory', then sure, that is a waste of time. You are better off
| gaming engagement algorithms. But, if I may ride a high horse,
| mutual understanding is a sweeter nectar.
| stickfigure wrote:
| The rationalist community[1] has a pattern for this. Make a
| public post with the title _Contra <PersonX> on <Subject PersonX
| Has Written About>_. Write out your debate arguments in public,
| but be generous around the uncertain boundaries of the argument.
| Invite the original author (or others) to steelman the position:
| "X is arguing for Y, but that seems to contradict Z. If I've
| misunderstood, please correct me." Always link to good rebuttals
| from your original post.
|
| From good-natured participants, the dueling blog posts format can
| be delightful to read.
|
| [1] - I first noticed it in Scott Alexander's Slate Star Codex,
| but I've seen many others use this pattern since.
| paulpauper wrote:
| Afik, only Scott any maybe one of two other bloggers does this.
| It's so rare. Most bloggers write for major publications and do
| not see incoming traffic stats, nor do they care all that much
| what others say.
| jimbokun wrote:
| Andrew Sullivan always publishes dissents responding to his
| previous arguments on his Substack. And sometimes makes
| clarifying comments or counter arguments engaging with the
| criticism. Or sometimes just accepts the correction.
|
| It's always one of the best parts of what he publishes.
| khafra wrote:
| The trouble is that disagreeing with someone always has at least
| two effects: Changing viewers' confidence in the original claims,
| and taking some of the status of the original claimant as a
| person who makes correct claims.
|
| It would be nice if human communication had some sort of
| predicate whereby you could remove the second effect from your
| argument. But AFAIK it depends almost entirely on trusting the
| audience to decouple the argument from the arguer, which only a
| very few audiences can be trusted to do.
| titzer wrote:
| I feel like this entire article was written without the ability
| to conceive of another way of thinking or that there are _other
| people_ who think differently than you. They are _entirely_
| optimizing for their own ability to mouth off an opinion without
| doing any hard work. For the author, _maybe it 's great_ if
| people go off with half-cocked, poorly-researched, and
| fundamentally misguided criticisms that stem from complete
| misunderstandings. But for me, it annoys me when people write
| long missives about some stuff they barely understand but feel
| good to them. They usually aren't trying to understand, they
| aren't trying to help other people understand, and certainly
| aren't helping out the authors whom they are criticizing.
|
| Instead, people who do this are just shoveling more confusion,
| reinforcing tribal lines in some cases, and frankly, muddying the
| waters.
|
| I'll give an example. Relativity. There is absolutely no doubt in
| the physics community that Relativity is a.) a thing b.) well-
| understood mathematically c.) explains physical reality
| remarkably well, being supported by vast amounts of evidence.
| _And yet_ general relativity is not yet unified with quantum
| theory.
|
| Do we need more cranks who a.) do not understand the underlying
| mathematics and b.) do not understand what the fundamental
| shortcoming is, _in detail_ , firing off articles "criticizing"
| it? Hells no. These types of things should be debated by
| physicists and mathematicians who _do_ actually thoroughly
| understand these things. Physics journals won 't suffer amateur
| hour, and they shouldn't. Physics journals, and all scientific
| publishing venues, subject articles to review that try to elevate
| the level of discourse by checking and re-checking claims.
|
| But the internet is not journals, sure. It's a free-for-all. It
| has elevated so many random voices to a level of authority that
| it is not possible to weed through claims at speed; cranks make
| themselves look like experts. An experts understate their own
| confidence. The internet is a massive Dunning-Krueger melting
| pot.
|
| I will absolutely push back on the idea that the problem we have
| right now is that the expectations are too high. You mean you
| have to understand what a person is saying, _maybe even talking
| to the person first_ , before you launch a volley of utter
| nonsense at them? The humanity.
| deadbeeves wrote:
| >You mean you have to understand what a person is saying, maybe
| even talking to the person first, before you launch a volley of
| utter nonsense at them?
|
| But you yourself recognize that the cranks have no qualms doing
| that, while the experts understate their expertise. The cranks
| are cranks; they're not going to take the effort to understand
| something thoroughly before responding to it, because then they
| wouldn't be cranks anymore. The only alternative is for
| _everyone_ to shout as loud as they can about what an idiot
| Steve is for saying that stupid thing he did. Modesty has no
| place on the Internet. Fire on all cylinders and let Steve
| defend himself if he wants to.
| paulpauper wrote:
| >But for me, it annoys me when people write long missives about
| some stuff they barely understand but feel good to them. They
| usually aren't trying to understand, they aren't trying to help
| other people understand, and certainly aren't helping out the
| authors whom they are criticizing.
|
| This usually happens when people make a snap judgment based off
| the title and maybe the first few sentences of an article
| without reading further.
| rcoveson wrote:
| The author seems to want more of this[0] kind of high-quality
| refutation. Here's another, this time a blog post[1] and a
| rebuttal[2]. Very different examples, one in medical science
| and the other just blogosphere musings, but both are public
| counters to public originals, rather than direct communications
| with the original's authors.
|
| That said, I'm not clear on why the author thinks that we're at
| a "turning point" in deciding whether it's socially acceptable
| to just publish an argument against something else that was
| published. Maybe in the scientific community that's a strict
| norm? It certainly doesn't seem to be in the blogging
| community.
|
| Maybe the author is worried that good arguments are lost in the
| semi-private twitter scuffle with the original authors of
| papers and articles? Maybe they hope that people will respond
| to broadcasted arguments intended for the general public with
| counter-arguments that are also broadcasted, instead of
| directed? I don't know. It feels like I'm missing the article's
| "prompt".
|
| 0. https://kylesheldrick.blogspot.com/2022/03/evidence-of-
| fabri...
|
| 1. https://erikhoel.substack.com/p/why-we-stopped-making-
| einste...
|
| 2. https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/contra-hoel-on-
| aristoc...
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| I generally favour the Rogerian approach of always looking for
| the most generous interpretation of common goals and values that
| night be separated by language, assumptions or unfortunate
| experiences that have become crystalised into generalised
| anecdotes. Other thinkers who've suggested similar manners to
| Rogers are Jurgen Habermas and Paulo Freire. These boil down to:
|
| - Be truthful
|
| - Use pragmatic epistemology, don't over-intellectualise
|
| - Expect and offer sincerity
|
| - Aim for universalisation/inclusive and non-self-contradiction
|
| - Always assume good faith
|
| - Use concrete rather than abstract statements
|
| - Good, careful humour, but don't soften hard truths
|
| - Make contributions relevant and timely
|
| - Beware self-deception and rationalisation
|
| - Use the minimum facts necessary to make any point
|
| I think if one keeps these in mind, it's always okay to offer
| arguments without warning, seeking permission, treading on
| eggshells or feeling the need to credentialise or excessively
| qualify a response.
| [deleted]
| JadeNB wrote:
| > Go find any popular article that makes factual claims. Then,
| read comments about it on some high-quality forum. Almost always,
| you will see comments that are deeply problematic for the
| original thesis.
|
| > How much should these comments decrease your confidence in the
| original article? I claim: Not much, at least on average.
|
| > First, if everything you read has devastating criticisms, you
| should expect them to exist.
|
| Without explicitly commenting on the world in which we live, it
| seems to me that all the hypotheses are consistent with a world
| of low-quality discourse, in which many of the factual claims we
| encounter in popular articles are wrong (in possibly minor, but
| possibly major, ways). You should always evaluate your sources,
| to be sure--and the value of an anonymous comment on even a high-
| quality forum is fairly low--but a factual refutation of a
| factual claim should, I think, be given very _high_ weight, even
| if most such claims have such refutations.
|
| (The author seems further on to be pointing out perhaps the
| futility of refuting a 'headline point' when the headline will be
| fleshed out in the body. With that I can more easily agree. Of
| course, as is the way of such things, I was more eager to make my
| slightly contrary point than to finish reading the essay.)
| paulpauper wrote:
| _Why? Caplan suggests it's because no one believes quantitative
| social science is meaningful. Maybe, but I suspect the
| explanation is simpler: There's not much glory in checking
| someone else's work._
|
| This is probably wrong. There is tons of glory in checking
| someone's work and finding a mistake. Look at all the controversy
| and major media coverage over the the Reinhart and Rogoff paper,
| which was undermined by some majors data collection errors that
| were later pointed out. This was a major deal at the time.
|
| Most people probably already expected Caplan's thesis to be true
| or took it for granted as true, so there was no compelling need
| to check. People will only check if the the conclusion goes
| against their assumptions or something commonly accepted to be
| true. So a paper which claims to refute the premise of
| Keynesianism is something that economists are probably going to
| be be more inclined to check than a conclusion that affirms the
| orthodoxy.
| morelisp wrote:
| > Look at all the controversy and major media coverage over the
| the Reinhart and Rogoff paper, which was undermined by some
| majors data collection errors that were later pointed out. This
| was a major deal at the time.
|
| HAP made a ton of noise (in specialist circles) certainly. But
| was it a "major deal"? Was RR really "undermined"?
|
| I see no major change in policy as a result, and popular wisdom
| among the intelligent-but-lagging public, seems to _still_ that
| public debt drags on growth. (RR has been near the front of my
| mind this week as a CEO I know mentioned it and was totally
| unaware it had been so completely "undermined" a decade
| prior.)
| paulpauper wrote:
| It does not need to see a policy change. Refuting a major
| study and getting a lot of coverage for doing so, is a boost
| one one's brand/CV.
| avivo wrote:
| A few issues with this:
|
| > The mistake here is seeing a counter-argument as being against
| a person, rather than as against a particular artifact. What
| matters is what's out there.
|
| This is not how it works in most of real life. There are
| political impacts within a community or organization depending on
| how an argument goes down. Potentially permanent schisms.
|
| > So, if the critiques of an article find only "moderately bad
| flaws", that often increases my trust because my prior was that
| the flaws would be even worse. If the claim that some types of
| watermelon taste bad to certain people at some times of the year
| survives the skeptics, then that might be an above-average
| outcome.
|
| This is empirically not how most people operate.
|
| > We need to design our norms around the unfortunate reality that
| most people are not helpful when criticized.
|
| No, design norms around getting the best possible world. That
| unfortunate reality is only one of many factors to take into
| account.
|
| ---
|
| I'll hold judgement on the conclusion overall; I think it may
| make sense for arguments when nothing political is on the line
| and everyone is a psuedorationlist. Beyond that...unsure.
| teekert wrote:
| "Say that for most articles you read, you go through this
| process:
|
| * You read it.
|
| * You're convinced that it's true.
|
| * You search for criticisms.
|
| * They are devastating, so you no longer think the article is
| true."
|
| 9/10 times on HN and I love you all for it. (Well maybe a bit
| less but I certainly have shared articles and read the HN
| comments afterwards and come to regret sharing)
| kqr wrote:
| Be careful about stopping there. You can often find devastating
| criticism of the criticism too!
|
| I don't remember who -- maybe Scott Alexander -- brought this
| up in the context of saying that maybe intelligent people don't
| suffer enough from confirmation bias.
|
| Intelligent people are so ready to drop their pre-existing
| beliefs in the face of good arguments that what determines
| their opinion in the end is not necessarily truth, but at which
| point they stopped reading criticisms of criticisms of
| criticisms of criticisms of the original thesis.
|
| With a tiny bit more confirmation bias, intelligent people
| might be slightly more inclined to stick with popular opinion,
| and their accuracy might improve as a result.
| teekert wrote:
| Hmm, and what effect does being aware of this have?
| zwegner wrote:
| This maybe isn't what you're referring to, but here's an old
| Scott Alexander post on this topic, "Epistemic Learned
| Helplessness": https://web.archive.org/web/20170329000721/htt
| p://squid314.l...
|
| (using a web archive link since the current page tries to
| force a login)
| ashildr wrote:
| 1) have a look at the beautiful dicussion on the "Mold effect".
| Here's a pointer to begin:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hx2LEqTQT4E
|
| 2) altruism exists
|
| 3) if you briefly try to talk to the author you _may_ avoid
| misunderstanding their idea and thus less time is wasted.
|
| 3) being proven wrong is great. Being right is boring.
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