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David_Gerard comments on Defecting by Accident - A Flaw Common to Analytical People - Less Wrong
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But people are used to blunt communication: it's what rude people do when attempting to dominate them by showing that social rules don't apply to the rude people.
And a list of reasons why blunt communication is more efficient does not mean that this effect does not happen.
And as I've noted, I've seen over and over people say they prefer unvarnished communication but mean they want to be free to send it; when they receive it, particularly when they receive it back, they tend to lash out.
My rough heuristic: A certain amount of wrapping is required for your message to be received. No-one said this would be easy, but it's still not optional. Hang out on a community for a bit before diving in. If you're a newbie, use a bit more politeness wrapper than you would when comfortable, because n00b questions get closer inspection. Etc., etc. Try not to be a dick, even if that's quite difficult.
(This reads back to me a bit like platitudes, but is actually bitterly-won heuristics.)
Yeah, unfortunately. That reads like "people are used to information: it's what officials manipulate and deceive you with when they attempt to dominate you." It's the wrong understanding. Of course, as much as I'd like to justify my desire to be blunt, simply being blunt isn't going to solve this problem.
I think that when one finds oneself writing this sentence, it is time to take a step back and think pretty hard about what one is saying.
We're not talking about a mathematical fact that can be proven or disproven as correct; we're not taking about people having the "wrong understanding" of, say, how Bayes's Theorem works. What we are doing is describing a culture in which behaving in x way signals y, to wit, being blunt and direct signals rudeness. This is hard to stomach for people who are part of a subculture where that is not the case, but being part of that subculture and having that preference does not make that particular meme in the larger culture "wrong." It's not even meaningful to give it a value; it's just an observation of the way it is. You can play along and be accepted/effective in that culture, or not. It's your choice.
It's the prescriptive/descriptive divide. When I say it's the wrong understanding, I mean that if I were to prescribe what understandings people ought to have of communication protocols, I would be in error if I prescribed this one. This understanding is worse than another understanding they could have. There doesn't seem to be any point being purely descriptive about anything.
False dilemma. I can agitate for change in that culture.
Oh hey, so it is. Well observed. (This is not sarcasm; I actually hadn't noticed.)
The meaningfulness of these words relies on sharing the relevant parts of a value system, and we haven't come anywhere near establishing that that's the case. If you mean that it's definitely more useful for people to behave in the way you prefer, you have not yet convinced me of that.
That depends on the goal, doesn't it? If you're a mapmaker, being purely descriptive rather than prescriptive is the whole point. When I'm setting about to choose my own behavior, I would like to have as good a descriptive map as possible of the way the world is now; if I find a part I dislike, I might then choose a behavior with which I intend to change it, but even while doing that I'm best served by having an accurate description in place.
Fair point, but as above, it's useful to have a very good understanding of what you're trying to go about changing; and even then, simply contradicting it or behaving as if social norms aren't what they are may not be sufficient to convince anyone of the rightness of your position.
Indeed, excellent counter-example. I was wrong to say there is no point in being descriptive.
I am not sure that it is more useful. There appears, to me, to be some correlation between intelligence and blunt communication (nerds speak bluntly, mundanes politely) but that could be intelligence and contrarianism, or any other of many potential factors. I am not giving it any weight. However, I do think it's the case that it is useful for "people who behave in this way" to congregate and continue to behave in this way with each other.
That is, when their value systems are sufficiently similar in relevant areas, I can say that being more polite is an error for them. And LessWrong is one place where the value systems sufficiently coincide.
My pet theory about this is that intelligence correlates with not fitting in socially, which then correlates with deliberately doing things differently to prove that not-fitting-in is a choice. If you hang out in any subcultures (goth, roleplaying, etc), you'll tend to see a lot of that kind of countersignalling. I guess that's a point in favour of your contrarianism argument.
Another alternative is that intelligence correlates with realising that communication styles are just styles and not the natural order, which then frees them up to switch between styles at will.
I'd really, really, really want to see any sort of numbers before presuming to make any such statement. You are talking about the nerd subculture, not about the world. I could just as well compare academics to stevedores and get the opposite plausible statement.
This comes across as wishful thinking on your part.
Since this dispute began, I have been trying to be more analytical in my reactions to comments - trying to determine what it is about them, in style or content, that I like.
I liked this comment, and upvoted it, partly because of its well-chosen counter-illustration, but also for reasons of style. It is relatively blunt, but the padding that it carries has a nice "rationalist" flavor. "I'd ... want to see ... numbers ... before presuming ...". "This comes across as ..." rather than simply "This is ...".
But in the course of making this analysis, it occurred to me that I am conducting the analysis as a bystander, rather than as the direct recipient of this feedback. I'm living in a forum where everything I write is perused by one recipient and ten bystanders. I know that the reaction of the recipient (and my reaction when I am in the recipient's role) will be witnessed by these ubiquitous bystanders. The bystanders will judge - vote responses up or down. One reason we communicate differently here is that we are playing to an audience - not just conducting one-to-one communication.
You (David_Gerard) keep pointing out that we LessWrong denizens can cheerfully "dish out" bluntness, but we are not so happy about receiving it. True enough, but also a rather shallow observation. Surely, the ability to receive criticism without taking offense is a life skill every bit as important as the ability to dispense criticism without giving offense. One virtue of the culture of observed blunt communication that we cultivate here is that we get plenty of practice at receiving criticism, plus plenty of negative feedback if we respond by taking offense.
This may sound like more rationalization, but it is not. This environment has helped me to improve my own ability to "take coaching", though I know I have a long way to go. Unfortunately, and this is the point you and Lionhearted have been consistently making, operating in this culture does not provide useful practice and feedback on the other important life-skill - offering criticism or correction without giving offense.
You have correctly reverse-engineered how I wrote it ;-)
I really don't see it as a very blunt culture. (I suppose I should stress this more.) A frequently difficult one, but not blunt. Most comments are thoughtful and the commenters take due care. Some are indeed blunt to the point of rudeness, and you'll see their good but blunt comments get lots of upvotes for content and downvotes for tone.
Hence why I said
Now.
Really? Can you give me some examples of groups that do share the same value systems? I feel like LessWrong is at the extreme end of 'well established value system', as it regards bluntness/politeness.
There are many places on the Internet that are less polite than here. For example, youtube comments.
Quick summary of some politeness protocols that most LW users employ:
Apart from 2, they seem more like being rational than being polite. Possibly there is some overlap between politeness protocols in normal experience and rationality protocols on LessWrong. Possibly there is also some overlap between rudeness indicators in normal experience and rationality protocols on LessWrong.
I'd say that that part (the bolded section) is bad if true, whether or not it is a "polite" thing to do. People should get used to being able to say "I was wrong" when they find out they were wrong. If someone's post is genuinely ambiguous, then it's fine to say "That sounds like you're saying X, if so then I think that's wrong, here's why", but if I say something that's actually wrong and not particularly open to misinterpretation, and someone corrects me, then I wouldn't consider them to be doing me a favour by giving me an out to allow me to change my mind while claiming that I didn't mean it that way in the first place.
I'm just realising that our scales aren't calibrated very similarly, and that you seem to think LessWrong is more "blunt"/less "nice" than I do.
My theory is that some folks here really value the perceived freedom to not spare people's feelings with their posts/comments. I assume these folks experience the implied obligation in other social contexts to spare people's feelings as onerous, though of course I don't know.
Of course, that doesn't mean they actually go around hurting people's feelings all the time, no matter how much they may value the fact that they are free to do so.
Meanwhile, other folks carry on being kind/attentive/polite. I assume they don't consider this an onerous obligation and behave here more or less as they do elsewhere along this axis.
And the sorts of folks who in most Internet channels create most of the emotional disturbance don't seem to post much at all... either because karma works, or because they haven't found the place, or because the admins are really good at filtering them out, or because the conversations here bore them, or some combination of those and other reasons.
The end result seems to be a "nice" level noticeably higher than most of the Internet, coupled with strong emotional support for not being "nice." I found the dichotomy a little bewildering at first, but I'm kind of used to it now.
On reflection, I don't think the blunt --- nice scale is serving us very well at all. You see me endorsing some elements of "blunt" styles that are definitely negative, and I see you endorsing some elements of "nice" styles that are definitely negative. Neither of us are actually endorsing the negative elements, we're just accidentally including them because our language is too imprecise. I think.
LessWrong has adopted some elements of bluntness because those elements serve the community well. Some of the elements would not serve us well in other social settings. When someone points out in a top-level post that this is the case, those who already know this instead see them suggesting that LessWrong should abandon these elements of bluntness.
For calibration purposes, where on that spectrum would you place the conversation we're having right now? :)
On an arbitrary scale of 1 to 10 where 1 is Crocker's Rules for everyone and 10 is horrifying, mincing politeness... 3. LessWrong on average is 3, but the good bits are 2.
Hmm. Getting an answer forced me to figure out exactly why I was asking. ;) I guess the followup question is, where on that scale would you put the threshold for everyday, out-in-public polite conversation between neurotypical adults? That is, the expected level, below which someone would come across as rude.
Between strangers, 7. Between acquaintances or friends, variation but it would congeal into two large groups hovering around 6 and 4.
If you want to see 9s and 10s you have to look for certain types of unstable power dynamics.
Basically, I like LessWrong's approach because it feels more like 'friendship group where politeness of 4-3 is okay' and less like 'strangers you should be polite to'.
Not enough information. Are the adults male, female or mixed? How much status do they have? What national background? Polite means a very different thing here (Australia) than it does in the US for example.