= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
TheOtherDave comments on Defecting by Accident - A Flaw Common to Analytical People - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (420)
You make a good case for being polite in general, but one of the things I enjoy about this corner of the Internet is that it's not overflowing with the constant thanking and thanking-for-thanking and dancing around the point that most people apply in real life, and which in my opinion actually undermine attempts to communicate. (there's a top-level post in there that I'll make one of these days..)
To paraphrase something I read a while back: "Normal people apply tact to everything they say, while nerds apply tact to everything they hear."
As long as people are aware that this 10% is unlike the other 90%, I see no strong reason to change those percentages, since it means that here is one of the few places that I can get to the point fairly quickly rather than trying to work out which arcane rituals I need to perform today.
You may also want to link back to Alicorn's post about why it's useful to be nice
(nods) Agreed, what you describe is a perfectly fine attitude for a corner of the Internet that is willing to reinforce social habits that are inappropriate for dealing with the wider population.
It is, of course, a counterproductive attitude for a corner of the Internet that wishes to train its members to deal increasingly effectively with the wider population. An entry-level skill for that is complying with the communication protocol your listener is likely to use.
It's a matter of what this corner of the Internet conceives of its purpose as being, and what it is willing to do in support of that purpose.
Of course, it is possible to do both... to train fluency with the popular communications protocol in a specialized opt-in channel, for example, and allow interactions elsewhere to use "nerd-default" protocols.
My ideal would be that people be explicitly taught that social conventions are just that, and not a universal mode of interaction. We already have cached wisdom like "when in Rome" but we (both LW and society in general) can and should be doing much better. And part of that would be learning that politeness is a matter of context, with examples of places where default polite behaviour is perceived as rude.
Another such cached wisdom:
Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.
-- George Bernard Shaw