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Wei_Dai comments on Logical Rudeness - Less Wrong
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This seems to be a variation on my pet peeve of people simply ignoring their opponents' arguments and walking away (virtually) from a debate. I guess you're seeing this version more often because of your higher status, and/or because you debate people more in real life, so your opponents can't afford to just act as if they didn't hear what you said, or as if your arguments aren't worth responding to.
I sometimes don't reply to counters to my arguments because I genuinely think they're good and I'm not sure what to say next. Empty comments are discouraged here, and it feels like saying "you could be right, I need to think about this more" would be one such.
If the LessWrong codebase were easier to hack on (it's that PostgreSQL-related bug that stops me from doing so) I'd add a facility so that comments could have a little sidebar that says "ciphergoth and Wei_Dai liked this".
That it most certainly isn't! It indicates Progress. There is nothing the least bit empty about it!
Yes, it's right up there with asking questions about the argument that you are uncertain about.
An aside; how often do you ask people to be quiet for a second so you can think about what they said? How many people are comfortable giving you that space?
It often happens to me that someone sees me stopped and staring into space thinking as a result of what they say, and conclude that what they said was a really strong argument for their position, where what's actually happening is that they've revealed such a depth of confusion that I'm briefly lost looking where to start unpicking it.
My technique is get time is to say "wait" about ten times or until they stop and give me time to think. This probably won't work for comment threads very well, but in reality not letting the person continue generally works. Probably slightly rude, but more honest and likely less logically rude, a trade-off I can often live with.
If it matters to anyone, I have a policy of upvoting all mind-changes.
I would really REALLY like to see more people editing their top comment in a thread to indicate their mind-change AND what in particular made them update.
If you need some help, reach out to me or wmoore. peerinfinity also got it running locally and submitted some code changes.
Thanks! Any advice on the easiest way to install the right version of PostgreSQL on an Ubuntu Karmic system? That's what stopped me last time.
Hi ciphergoth, I've made some changes this morning that make the Less Wrong code base compatible with PostgreSQL 8.3, which is available in the karmic repositories. The change is on the 'postgres-8.3' branch in git. I have run through and revised the Hacking on Less Wrong wiki page this morning on an Ubuntu 9.10 install and have confirmed that it works. It would be great if you could have another go at getting the code up and running and let me know how you go.
Wow, thanks! OK, will try tomorrow evening. Great work!
To get the LW server code running on my Ubuntu box, I just followed the instructions at http://wiki.github.com/tricycle/lesswrong/hacking-on-less-wrong
There were a few details that I needed to ask matt and wmoore for help with, but the instructions on that page were enough to get it basically up and running.
Please feel free to contact me for more information, my Skype ID is PeerInfinity.
I've just cleared a backlog of my belated replies. The reasons for not replying immediately: