wgd comments on Defecting by Accident - A Flaw Common to Analytical People - Less Wrong

86 Post author: lionhearted 01 December 2010 08:25AM

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Comment author: trlkly 25 April 2012 01:35:43AM *  1 point [-]

The problem is that your examples already go overboard. You describe a good upper bound of how nice to be, but you can usually get away with less, and not have to constantly be constructing bullshit in your brain. This is what I think causes people to object.

For example, is this comment really going to upset you? I seriously doubt it. There would be no reason for me to write, say, "You have made a really good point, but I wonder if you perhaps went a tiny bit overboard in your examples, and thus this decreased your effectiveness."

The basic message, and the one I agree with, is to not be quite so combative when you criticize, and to make sure your criticism would cause more good than harm.

Also, you didn't need to spend so much time explaining, either. That probably also led to the idea that your methodology has a low signal-to-noise ratio. I mean, I personally skipped most of the middle, as you were just repeating yourself. I think you'd be more convincing if you learned about brevity.

Comment author: wgd 25 April 2012 02:22:26AM *  4 points [-]

Since the topic of this post is on sub-optimal communication, I thought I'd point out that

I think you'd be more convincing if you learned about brevity.

reads as rather more condescending than I think you intended from the tone of the rest of your comment. Specifically, it implies not just that he needs to practice revising for brevity, but that he doesn't even know what it is.