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siduri comments on Defecting by Accident - A Flaw Common to Analytical People - Less Wrong
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Honestly, that surprises me. I could see disagreeing for signal:noise ratio reasons, or not having time - actually, I spent time addressing those in my post since I knew they'd be common objections.
But I'm surprised it actually results in a strong negative emotion from you - "sets your teeth on edge."
Honestly, I'm not sure why. For the record, I'd advocate you do this sincerely, and never insincerely. Me, if I don't like anything someone is saying and all the points are dumb, I just ignore it. I'll only venture to give feedback if I see some merit, and then I highlight that merit.
But seriously, I want to get to the bottom of this. Eliezer writes about how when he was fundraising, lots of people wrote in to criticize, but no one was comfortable publicly announcing and praising the cause and expressing their donation.
This can't be the best way, can it? If it is, much less analytical groups that are comfortable being cohesive, complimentary, and encouraging will out-recruit us, out-perform us in charity, and cooperate more than us.
At least, that's how I see it... anyway, I'd like to explore this more. In the comments and/or via PM's or email, if you like. I wrote this post because I'd like to see our kind of people, groups, and areas of concern be more effective. The fact that there's a very strong negative emotion from a prolific contributor to the community is surprising to me, and I'd like to find out why and reconcile our points of view to some extent if possible.
I don't want to beat a dead horse, but I think I can explain this for you.
It sets her teeth on edge because it's condescending and dismissive. Specifically, with the line "So, are you surprised that it's commonly offered advice" you're adopting a professorial tone--purporting to teach Alicorn something she may find surprising about the expert consensus on the subject, with which she is presumed to be unfamiliar. So right from the beginning she's going to react by feeling insulted, because you're "talking down" to her.
A way of making the exact same point without adopting the condescending tone would have been simply to say, "I offered that advice because I read it in How to Win Friends and Influence People and in [a few other sources]." If you proceeded to give direct quotes, that would be even better, because then Alicorn could judge for herself whether you're accurately representing what you judge to be expert consensus (and whether or not she accepts your sources as expert). By asserting yourself as the expert you're making a subtle attack on Alicorn's status, whether you mean to or not.
You compound this insult when you dismiss Alicorn's criticism as "guessing" and when you suggest that your advice will change her life--because you're implying that she's struggling with social interactions now. In fact Alicorn's writings would indicate that her experience in mastering social niceties is at least equal to yours, and you should be addressing her as a peer rather than adopting this tone of superior wisdom.
The above is much more a matter of tone rather than substance, but your reply is also annoying because you're only re-iterating your initial claims rather than engaging with the specifics of Alicorn's criticism. As it happens, an example of a better reply is this one, from you, which addresses what Alicorn actually said in a perfectly nice and reasonable way.
Again, I'm sorry if this seems to be just "piling on." You expressed a confusion (that I assume to be sincere) about why your writing provoked a strong negative emotion from Alicorn, and even though I'm not Alicorn I thought I could explain it to you. I hope she'll correct me if she disagrees with my analysis.
You did a fine job :)