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SilasBarta comments on On Enjoying Disagreeable Company - Less Wrong
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ETA: Why haven't you applied this advice to me?
I hope you’ll all forgive the pedantry, but it seems clearly laying out the argument might be the best way to avoid a flame war that isn’t making anyone look good, or encouraging rationality particularly. If this post is downvoted, I'd suggest we leave the topic.
NB: I don’t know enough of the history to judge who is more/less right/wrong between Alicorn and SilasBarta, and even if I could, probably wouldn’t say. I solely intend to attempt to clarify what SilasBarta meant.
Summary of what I take to be SilasBarta's argument:
Possible counter-arguments:
Edit: list formatting.
Downvoted for needlessly snarky tone, especially when you already have a history of causing negative emotional reactions in Alicorn and from the tone it seems like you're trying to cause more. A neutral "why haven't you applied this advice to me?" would have been a reasonable query.
No, it wouldn't have been, but let's try that just so you're convinced.
ETA:
When someone, to the best of my knowledge, isn't practicing remotely close to what she preaches (and I've held silent on the first several times she preached this), and claims special insight on it, my obligation to point this out overrides most other obligations. That, and nothing else, motivates my comment.
ETA2: And before you suggest another brilliant idea like, "At least you should have kept this to PM": no, Alicorn's made pretty clear that's not an option either.
She's not necessarily failing to practice what she preaches.... after all, she never said that it's a good idea to like everyone, only that it's possible to like someone intentionally, and that this can be instrumentally useful in some circumstances. It's entirely possible, however, that she simply has no desire to like you - on purpose or otherwise.
EDIT: I've reconsidered this, and what I wrote here is unfair to SilasBarta. What really happened here, I think, is that Alicorn's actions inadvertantly set up a feedback loop, which no one understood well enough to shut down before it blew up here. In this post, I chided Silas for not recognizing and disarming that feedback loop - but the truth is, there were plenty of people, including both Alicorn and myself, who could've repaired the situation with a little more awareness, and this comment really didn't help.
And to clarify - what started this whole thing was Alicorn asking Silas not to respond to any of her comments, which was a strange and hostile thing to ask. In this comment, I interpreted that request by rounding it to the nearest non-strange request, which more than I thought. Unfortunately, when asked to clarify, Alicorn clarified it as literally "don't reply to comments", rather than "don't try to initiate conversations", as she should have.
Original comment below:
Ok, this has gotten painful to watch, and since no one has explained it properly, I feel I ought to overcome the bystander effect and step in. SilasBarta, you have dramatically misunderstood what is happening here. You are flagrantly violating a social norm that you do not seem to understand. Alicorn has acted in a way that is fully determined by your behavior towards her, and anyone else would do the same in her place.
When you speak someone's name and know that they can hear you, you are, in effect, attempting to summon them. It effectively forces them to listen; if in public, they may need to step in to defend their reputation, and if in private they know they're specifically being addressed. Attempts to initiate conversation are a social primitive; neurotypicals track a statistical overview of the nature, frequency, and response given to conversations with each person, and expect each other to do the same.
If you attempt to initiate conversation with someone, they give you a negative response, and you knew or should have known that they would give you a negative response, then you are pestering them. By "negative response", I mean visible irritation, anger, or an attempt to push you out of their sphere of attention without using a pretext. If you repeatedly pester someone who has specifically asked you not to, and you don't have a sufficiently suitable and important pretext, then you are harrassing them. Pestering someone is frowned upon. Harrassing someone is frowned upon, and can also be illegal if it either carries an implied threat or is sufficiently flagrant. Also, our culture assigns additional penalty points for this if you are male and the person you're harrassing is female.
So here is the story, as I understand it. After an interaction that did not go well, Alicorn asked you not to reply to her comments. This means "don't pester me" (or more succinctly, "go away"). This is one of a small number of standard messages which all neurotypicals expect each other to be able to recognize reliably and to pick out of subtext. You continued to participate in conversations Alicorn was involved in, by responding to other commenters, but every time you did so you spoke Alicorn's name, even when you had no pretext for doing so. You interpreted her request in a literal-minded but incorrect way; you failed to generalize from "don't respond to my comments" to "don't try to pull me into a conversation with you by any means".
I'm curious now about this community's perceptions of a person A's requests for a person B not to reply to A's comments. (Note: I'm using letters A and B because this isn't about the particular situation or the individuals in question, and I don't want the individuals' identities to distract from the issue here.)
I posted a comment stating that it wasn't reasonable to ask someone not to reply, which got downvoted. I'm assuming this got downvoted because people disagree.
One person replied stating that A's original request was not to avoid replying to any of A's comments, but to stop making comments that specifically single A out. However, this was not B's interpretation of the request. B seems to think, possibly incorrectly, that A asked B not to reply to any of A's comments on LW.
For people who think this is a reasonable request, here's a hypothetical: suppose C and D are enrolled in a philosophy class together. C and D have an unpleasant interaction, and C requests that D not raise her hand in class and participate in class discussion after C has made a comment. Do people agree that this would be an unreasonable request, unlike, say, "please don't call or email me"? If so, why is a request to not reply to someone's LW comments substantially different?
In a classroom setting, the right to ask people to leave or to not participate is reserved exlusively for the professor; a student could not ask another student to shut up without the teacher's express consent. On a blog, however, no such authority exists, so anyone can make such requests - but only in response to breaking certain social norms without a good excuse.
Well, blogs do have administrators, who hold a similar authority. I believe Eliezer has banned several people from LW for making only poor quality or trollish posts, for instance.
Well, yes, anyone can make such requests, just like I can request that LW commentors refrain from using the word "the" because I find it incredibly offensive. The point is that it isn't a reasonable request. If someone's violated enough of the community norms to be banned, that's a matter for the administrator, but that's different than an individual requesting "please don't reply to my comments in a public discussion forum" as if it were comparable to "please don't email or call me."
It depends on whether D's intention in responding to a comment of C is to contribute to the class discussion or to needle C.
No, the request we're talking about is "don't comment at all in reply to my comments."
Edited to fix link.
ETA: Also see here
Upvoted for the good explanation of the social norm of name-speaking; not necessarily because of the criticism of SilasBarta.
Ok, that's ridiculous. Comments on LW are part of a large group discussion. A person can tell someone else to stop bugging them or emailing them or calling them, but it is not reasonable to ask someone to not make public comments on LW. No one has the right to do that, any more than I have the right to say "stop using the Internet; it bugs me."
True, but that's not the request that was made. She asked him to stop making comments which specifically single her out.
Sorry, jimrandomh, but you are flatly wrong here, and this misunderstanding underpins your entire criticism. Alicorn has asked that I not post any comments as a reply to hers, even if they don't single her out, and even if they involve asking others not to mod her down because of the context of her comment! See here, and here.
Now, please revise your diplomatic comments in light of this new information.
(The funniest part is how Alicorn keeps appealing to her own non-neurotypicality, despite my being the only one accused of missing something due to non-NT. Go fig.)
The most accurate phrasing of the intended meaning of Alicorn's request is the one I wrote in my first post: "do not try to pull me into a conversation with you by any means". A direct reply does that; it singles out the author of the parent, to a degree that depends on how easily someone else could step in and take their place in the conversation. Non-reply comments also do that if they name her; she didn't explicitly say that wasn't allowed, but "leave me the fuck alone" should've covered it.
Except that I stated what I took the request to mean, and she agreed with that. And "do no try to pull me into a conversation ..." just ain't part of it. Take, for example, this comment and this one. Off limits? Well, Alicorn certainly reserves the right to make such comments on my top-level posts. And it doesn't obligate her to respond directly.
So you still appear very confused about the topic you're opining on so strongly and confidently.
Not even close: see here, another major example of Alicorn saying what is and is not okay. The comment I made, though nested under her comment, does not in any way draw her into a conversation, because it is a remark about someone else. It is not addressed to her, but to the group in general, regarding a different poster. Still off limits, for some reason.
Is it starting to dawn on you how you've misinterpreted Alicorn's past demands, and why you should maybe withdraw your misconception -rounded, "noble" criticism of me from earlier?
I see two problems with your selected case.
First, you appeared to violate the stated version of the rule. You need a better reason just to create that appearance than wanting to make a jocular remark.
Second, jocular remarks are drawing people into conversations - they're probably the number-one way to draw someone into a conversation. People joke around with people that they like, and Alicorn does not like you.
No, everyone else who's voiced an opinion on this has said that they would never ask someone what Alicorn has asked of me: that I never post a reply to her comments, even if it's not directed at her.
I think that's a large part of why I didn't do any of that in the original comment, just in the version that Kaj asked me to post instead! Who should I listen to here, you or Kaj? Which is the real neurotypical standard that I violated?
No, as I said in my other reply to you, this isn't Alicorn's request at all. It's:
-Don't post any comments nested under Alicorn's, irrespective of content or who the comment is directed at.
-Don't PM Alicorn, even and especially if it's something she would want to know but prefer not be said publicly. (?)
-But posting comments in reply to top-level posts is okay, because Alicorn wants to do so on my top-level posts.
Which comments are you talking about? Be specific. I don't recall violating what Alicorn's request actually was until this conversation, and even then, it wasn't until I substituted my comment for what Kaj asked me to say, and I warned of this at the time!
That's certainly the narrative you want to put on it, sure, but if you actually look at the history of what exactly she asked for (including the very specific clarificaitons), your interpretation is mistaken.
And while I'm believably non-NT, I think I can safely guess there wasn't a lot of nobility in your intent to reply to this comment -- not when anything I could have done would have given you a pretense to build yourself up by pointing out the "obvious" error on my part.
For the record: I wasn't fully aware of the history and magnitude of this conflict, and I didn't realize Alicorn had specifically asked for you to not reply to her at all.
Regardless, as I remember, both versions of the comment were (are) addressed to Alicorn. It was just more implicit in the first one ("I know someone this advice hasn't been applied to" or something along those lines, I think), but it was still pointing out that Alicorn hadn't applied the technique to you. Therefore it was referencing her, just as strongly as if you'd mentioned her.
To be fair, I'm not a neurotypical and have advertised this on the Internet.
I think jimrandomh may be mistaken in selecting "neurotypical" as the relevant criterion - the correlated criterion of "well-socialized" may be nearer the mark.
Good point; that terminology would do a better job of hiding the dissonance in scolding me for my autistic errors, even as Alicorn alone gets the sympathy for being non-NT. Make sure to tell Jim!
"Well-socialized", like "real number", is a perniciously misleading term.
Why?
Because society is not particularly well optimized, the implication of goodness in the modifier "well" is deceptive - a well-socialized person is quite likely to be tribalistic and repressed, for example.
I think the point was that Silas is and he should have responded appropriately. Personally I think NT issue is irrelevant here unless the person receiving the message is not NT, in which case not getting it is a somewhat valid excuse.
Since you advertised it, which "bucket" are you in? My son is on the spectrum, somewhat high functioning, so potential development branches are of personal interest.
I have an Asperger's diagnosis. People who know me in person and know the details of autism symptoms find it entirely credible. People who wouldn't know an autie from any other neuroatypicality are surprised when I tell them (I'm high functioning and have decent social heuristics, and in the minds of the completely uninformed, autism = retardation plus rocking and hand flapping).
Show of hands: who thinks I'm neurotypical?
My hand is horizontal; I think Jim's assumption is that you are. If you are credibly not, and feel you did not get Alicorn's signal due to this you should say so - I think it will create an good case to smoke some peace pipes. Personally, I like you both and wish to see this settled.
Sorry, that ship has already sailed. Alicorn's not interested until first I follow a divaesque list of demands, including "justifying the [probably fake] psychological stress" of having to deal with me, the same stress that somehow manages to disappear when higher-status members do the exact same things she doesn't like.
Actually, my assumption was that he isn't, although this was not based on any strong evidence.
Whoa, when was evidence a pre-requisite for you to post strongly about something? Since two minutes ago?
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you put full credence in Alicorn's self-serving, unverifiable claim to having been diagnosed with Asberger's, despite her infamous, "Why not just meet women on the internet?" line ... am I right?
And yet the very basis for your criticism of me was that I'm making a non-NT-characteristic mistake in interpreting a social situation? Did your arguments come before or after your conclusion?
Much better, thank you. Changed my downvote to an upvote.
Thanks, but keep in mind I can't even reply to this comment, where she tries to explain herself, as she will consider it an atrocity (much like terrorism is an atrocity), simply because she categorically demands that I not post a reply to any of her comments.
Considering that we talk about things other than "the history of Alicorn and Silas" on LW, and that I occasionally have good reason to reply to her comments, this gets to be very inconvenient, very quickly.
I hope it's starting to become obvious why refusal to apply her own advice seems rather inconsistent and unbecoming of someone who would offer such advice.
Can you substantiate this claim about what she considers to be morally equivalent better than you did in this conversation?
Re-read my comment above and note what it does and does not allege; and if "Alicorn deems violation of her demands to be an atrocity" is a reasonable characterization of where she stands.
The narrowest way that I can read your comment is as follows:
"There is badness level x such that Alicorn calls any act with badness level at least x an 'atrocity'. Alicorn thinks that responding to her would have badness level at least x and that terrorism also meets or surpasses this level."
Is that, and no more, all that you meant to imply? You intended no implication that Alicorn considers responding to her and terrorism to be anything remotely close to morally equivalent? Do you believe that terrorism is a representative example of the kinds of acts that Alicorn believes are worse than x? If not, why did you choose that example?
And did she actually use the word "atrocity" to describe your responding to her?
1) When paraphrasing others' views, it's not necessary that they have used the exact words before that you use in the paraphrase. That's what makes it a paraphrase.
The question that matters is: are her actions consistent with classifying my (unapproved) replies to her as an atrocity? I say yes. For one thing, she brooks no excuse whatsoever for violating her demands, even when it goes against her interests. One time:
-She says it's okay to post replies to her top level comments, but not by PM.
-I realize that one such "okay" comment would cause her to lose face, so I say it by PM.
-She accepts that it would cause her to lose face, but that PMing her was just as bad, but would have been okay if I said it publicly.
2) I invoke terrorism to emphasize her over-the-top responses to minor offenses (as she ignores them in others). (And also to remove the sting from the word, but that's a different story.)
Then it sounds like "atrocity" is a prime candidate for tabooing. You made a step towards unpacking "atrocity" by saying that "she brooks no excuse whatsoever for violating her demands".
But your evidence does not show that she brooks no excuse. It shows only that saving her face is an insufficient excuse. Saving her face sounds like a pretty small payoff for getting a PM, at least on a scale that includes terrorism. Therefore, the fact that saving face is an insufficient excuse is weak evidence for the claim that all excuses are insufficient. (Suppose you knew that there was a carbon monoxide leak in her room, and you could only tell her by PM. Do you really think that she would be upset with you if you did?)
But, I gather, you did not mean to imply that her moral evaluation of these "minor offenses" is actually equivalent to her moral evaluation to terrorism. Is that right?
Once again, how is it that she's failing to apply her own advice? Several people now have offered a retort to this claim - either rebut it, or stop making the claim.
I did rebut those retorts. Now, respond to those rebuttals, or stop making the same claim (and starting an information cascade).
No, you just explained why it would be instrumentally useful to YOU for her to intentionally like you.
No, she clearly gains from being able to post impersonal replies nested under my comments -- just as she gains from making posts replying to my top-level posts, even though I could revoke this privilege, and she would be obligated, by symmetry, to honor it.
So, even if she really, truly doesn't care about having to avoid my comments, and even she doesn't get "peripheral psychological" damage from seeing the existence of my comments (which, truth be told, she probably doesn't), then this state only exists because of diplomacy on my part -- not from following the advice in this article.
Evidently, she doesn't think that it would be instrumentally useful to like you. Perhaps you can sympathize, since you don't seem to think that it would be instrumentally useful to like her.
Yes, but at least I want to lift off the albatross of having to avoid replying her comments (and her mine) even when it adds to the discussion and is not specifically directed at her. The advice she's given in this article (and past ones) show she believes herself to be an expert on this, but won't take even this reasonable step.
In my opinion, you are a poor judge of when a reply to Alicorn's comments will add to a discussion. Your judgment seems to me to be biased strongly in favor of deciding to reply to Alicorn's comments so as to highlight what you see as their shortcomings, possibly because you wish to lower her status. Thus, what you see as a useful contribution might be seen by others as the latest in a series of unwarranted snarky put-downs.
Therefore, if your primary desire is to discuss general issues that Alicorn also contributes to, you should take great pains to make it clear that you are not attempting to interact with Alicorn, much less disparage her. Concretely, this means that you would:
(1) not address Alicorn in the second person (2) not state or imply that Alicorn's posts are worthless or nearly worthless (3) not ask, directly or indirectly, what Alicorn's opinion on a subject is
but would instead
(4) make assertions about an abstract topic, using the third person (5) use polite phrases like "no offense," "nothing personal," or "in my opinion" (6) ask for the opinion of other LW commenters in general or for the opinion of specific named LWers who you get along with.
Minor note- the phrases "nothing personal" and "no offense" can often have the exact opposite of the intended result. Tthey can come across as condescending and very often when people use them they really are trying to be offensive, although they may not realize it. (A relevant quote from me from about 10 years ago "No offense, but the only thing saving that argument from being completely stupid is that sections of it are incoherent." (Yes, I'd like to think I don't say things like that now)). And "in my opinion" is very rarely useful unless the point being made is that one is a subject matter expert. It also personalizes things unnecessarily in the same way that the 2nd person does, just to a lesser extent.
It probably appears that way because in all the cases since ~Nov '09 when I have a substantive reply to an Alicorn comment, I just don't make it because of this ban. So all the remaining ones you see will be less engaging and productive. Hey -- maybe we should lift that ban ... oh, wait.
I feel I have already demonstrated mastery of this in such comments as these. I don't see how any reasonable person would find those offensive, even as they violate your extensive standards.
As for your (1) to (4) -- yeah, that's an inconvenient, ridiculous set of hoops to jump through, which is why I want to get to the root of our disagreement, and eliminate the need to have to walk through a minefield to exchange ideas. Why doesn't Alicorn want the same? You tell me.
I am not going to vote on or address the content of this post because, in my opinion, it engages in doublespeak and straw-manning. I have a blanket policy of not responding to such tactics on an Internet forum. I am extremely unlikely to make further public comments on the Alicorn-SilasBarta dispute(s).
She is not claiming to be an expert on recognizing when it would be good to like someone. Here is her claim of knowledge:
There is really no contradiction or hypocrisy here unless you are someone whom she wants to like deliberately.
It's not necessary that I be someone she wants to like; the advice is just as relevant for canceling out dislike. And the extensive demands she makes out of that dislike suggest she doesn't actually use this advise in at least one clear case where the dislike is having severe consequences.
Seriously, if the mere sight of a comment of mine replying to her -- no matter what it says, no matter how impersonal -- causes "undesirable peripheral psychological effects", effects that must be elaborately justified by others in order for her to consider enduring them ... you fill in the blank.
Granted, her advice is also relevant to canceling out dislike of someone whom you've already decided that you don't want to dislike. But since she evidently has not made that decision with regard to you, it wouldn't be appropriate for her to use her advice in this case. The relationship that you two have is not in a state where her advice is relevant. If Alicorn started writing posts about when one ought to like someone, then your criticisms would be relevant.
But her advice here is just not relevant to cases where one has decided that one really ought to dislike the other person.
Look, I don't claim to know the entire history of Silas v Alicorn... but I think you would have a much easier time making your case if the comments you made in this very thread hadn't been so unnecessarily antagonistic.
Alright, so having been convinced I have something important to add, you decide that whatever I did to get you to that point was inappropriate. Fair enough.
But tell me, where would be the appropriate place to point out that this Alicorn is completely different from the one I've come to know? As far as possible from where she promotes her deep wisdom? Or near?
I honestly have no idea what you're trying to say here.
Rhetorical question: Is here the best place to bring up the failures of her advice?
Non-rhetorical question.If I have evidence that suggests Alicorn acts completely differently than implied by this article, what is the best way to go about it, that would have (potentially) convinced you of its merit?
I'm not sure how this question is rhetorical, since it seems to have a perfectly straightforward answer: here would be a perfectly suitable place to bring up failures of her advice, if such failures actually existed.
We've made this point so many times now I feel silly even typing it again, but maybe one more time will do it: her advice has not failed. She wrote an article about how to go about intentionally liking someone. The fact that she's chosen not to intentionally like you is not evidence that she is incapable of doing so in other cases, nor that the advice may not be useful to others.
Since she makes no claims about when or under what circumstances she makes use of the described method, the only thing I read the article to imply about her behavior is that she has had, on at least one occasion, some success in applying this method. So convincing me of the merit of the proposition that this is false would require documentary evidence of her entire life, exhaustively showing a complete absence of any instance of success with this method. Yes, that's a tall order, but you're the one who's trying to prove a negative.
Actually, there's one more important thing I should add: I have conclusive evidence that Alicorn has much to gain from getting over this dislike, by her very own standards. I can prove this by showing that she enjoys my posting, and wishes to reply to -- and even provoke -- my posting, just so long as she knows it's not me. That shows a critical failure to apply her advice when could actually do some good, or at least a failure to recognize a set of heuristics that correctly indicate when the advice should be used.
So why is Alicorn's advice particularly insightful on this subject?
I do not know you and I do not know Alicorn. I do not know who I would have the most sympathy for if I did know both of you. I find this whole discussion off topic. Alicorn gave some advice and I find the advice interesting whether she follows it or not, whether she even believes it or not.
It is very good advice (if and only if you may want from time to time to like someone that you have come to dislike). I personally have tried to develop ways to not start to dislike people in the first place and not worry about whether liking them is to my advantage. However, it has not always been the case that I could like someone and it was sometimes to my disadvantage - so I appreciate the advice.
I suggest that you judge the advice and not the person who gave it. The 'others of us' are not interested in this fight.
One possible reason Alicorn hasn't applied her technique to you is that it simply isn't powerful enough to overcome your unpleasantness. FWIW, I perceive you as a lot less civil than the LW norm, you seem possessed of a snarky combativeness. You also appear to have a tendency of fixating on personal annoyances and justifying your focus with concerns and observations that pop out of nowhere, context-wise.
In this case, your supposed insight into what would really be best for Alicorn plays that role. And then, having established this "lemma", you carry through to the conclusion that... Alicorn's behavior is inconsistent. Take a step back, and look at what you're saying. You're basically claiming to have reverse-engineered someone else's utility function, as the premise of an argument which concludes that they're being a hypocrite.
I hope you'll come to see this sort of behavior as embarrassing.
"FWIW" == "For What It's Worth," to save a few person-minutes for other passive readers here.
Again, because she's not giving advice on knowing when you ought to like someone. She's giving advice on what to do after you have decided that you ought to like someone, even though you don't like them automatically.