bgrah449 comments on Help Roko become a better rationalist! - Less Wrong

-6 [deleted] 02 December 2009 08:23AM

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Comment author: bgrah449 03 December 2009 11:00:35PM 1 point [-]
  • What about only as a little helpful? Would that fail to prove you wrong?
  • Prove what wrong, exactly? That criticism would be good from people who know him better? Maybe those people are too close for objective criticism - maybe those people have too many good reasons not to provide honest criticism. Maybe Roko is looking for criticism of only how he behaves online.
  • Is Roko really proving you wrong by accepting the advice, or are you proving yourself wrong by offering advice you yourself believe to be relevant and worthwhile? How does Roko accepting the criticism make the criticism itself less accurate or helpful?
  • Finally, isn't the best way to prove you wrong to show a flaw in your reasoning?
Comment author: Jack 04 December 2009 12:40:27AM 0 points [-]

Lord. I was just chuckling at the circularity.

What about only as a little helpful? Would that fail to prove you wrong?

If my comments on this thread have been more enlightening to Roko than whatever he could have been studying instead of posting this then my argument is wrong. I sorely doubt that since my comments only conclude that Roko should have done something other than post this (Less wrong might be the only place on the internet where you can say this to someone). My comments weren't extremely helpful. At best they were marginally helpful and that is why I'm not actually contradicting myself.

Prove what wrong, exactly?

The criticism that this post wasn't worth the time.

Is Roko really proving you wrong by accepting the advice, or are you proving yourself wrong by offering advice you yourself believe to be relevant and worthwhile? How does Roko accepting the criticism make the criticism itself less accurate or helpful?

See the first answer. I don't think the criticism was extremely helpful. And the criticism's accuracy doesn't change. But the extent to which Roko gains from reading it is less objective.

Finally, isn't the best way to prove you wrong to show a flaw in your reasoning? No. It is a lot more fun to performatively render someone's point circular.