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tut comments on Open Thread: February 2010 - Less Wrong
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People do to some extent vote based on what they agree with, and at least a few make no bones about that. But people also vote based on style. Based on if it feels like you are trying to learn and contribute to our learning or trying to appear superior and gain status. You look like the latter to me. And I think that you could be arguing the same things, in ways that are no less honest, and get positive karma if you just use different words.
I hear Socrates wasn't popular either.
I'm no Socrates, but focusing on style instead of essence is incorrect.
Some of the best lessons I've learned were from people who were using a very blunt style.
I am not trying to appear superior, nor to gain status. If I wanted that, I would not be using a style which I know is likely to antagonize. I use a blunt style at the expense of my status and for the benefit of the message, not the other way around.
You're saying some things which I've considered attempting to say but have self-censored to some extent due to expecting negative karma. You aren't necessarily saying them in exactly the way I would have tried to put it, and I don't necessarily agree with everything you've been saying but I broadly agree and have been upvoting most of your recent posts.
I agree with much of what he seems trying to convey. However, in many cases, the style is far too reminiscent of political talking points. Bluntness is useful insofar as it simplifies a message to its essential meaning. Talking points corrupt that process by injecting emotional appeals and loaded terms.
Perhaps I would know better to avoid that if I was more exposed to US culture, but I am originally from Europe and I tend to abhor political wars for their vacuousness, so perhaps I'm using words in ways that reminisce of politics inadvertently.
To remove the word "politics" from my description: You seem very sure of yourself, to the point where it seems you are not taking uncertainty into account where you should be. The views you express seem to be statements about the world, as if they were facts, when discussing things like utilitarian value of certain actions, when there are competing views on the topic, and you do a disservice to the discussion by failing to mention or explain why your opinions are better than the competing theories, or even acknowledging that they are opinions.
You don't provide the evidence; you provide a statement of "fact" in isolation, sometimes going so far as to claim special knowledge and ask the audience to do things you know very well are not going to make for an easy or quick discussion (like, "Go spend a few years in Africa.") I found that my alarms deactivated for your response to my comment that we think probabilistically, because the claims were testable and better labeled.
Points taken, thank you.
I was also moved by these concerns, and find comments sharing these general traits to degrade norms of discussion (e.g. clarity, use of evidence, distinguishing between normative and descriptive claims).
Perhaps we need a post setting out these norms clearly, so we can point newcomers to it?
I would very much welcome "a brief guide on how to get taken seriously by the LW community."
A wiki entry would probably be the appropriate solution.
As with most things, it should probably be a top-level article first and a wiki entry second...
Thanks Matt. I generally try to take this role because I'm aware that the character traits that allow me to do this are somewhat rare, and that the role is valuable in balance.
I'm also aware of the need to improve my skills of getting the message across, but this takes time to develop.