Steve_Rayhawk comments on An Intuitive Explanation of Solomonoff Induction - Less Wrong

53 Post author: Alex_Altair 11 July 2012 08:05AM

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Comment author: Steve_Rayhawk 10 July 2012 09:24:50AM *  17 points [-]

He identifies subtleties, but doesn't look very hard to see whether other people could have reasonably supposed that the subtleties resolve in a different way than he thinks they "obviously" do. Then he starts pre-emptively campaigning viciously for contempt for everyone who draws a different conclusion than the one from his analysis. Very trigger-happy.

This needlessly pollutes discussion... that is to say, "needless" in the moral perspective of everyone who doesn't already believe that most people who first appear wrong by that criterion that way in fact are wrong, and negligently and effectively incorrigibly so, such that there'd be nothing to lose by loosing broadside salvos before the discussion has even really started. (Incidentally, it also disincentivizes the people who could actually explain the alternative treatment of the subtleties from engaging with him, by demonstrating a disinclination to bother to suppose that their position might be reasonble.) This perception of needlessness, together with the usual assumption that he must already be on some level aware of other peoples' belief in that needlessness but is disregarding that belief, is where most of the negative affect toward him comes from.

Also, his occasional previous lack of concern for solid English grammar didn't help the picture of him as not really caring about the possibility that the people he was talking to might not deserve the contempt for them that third parties would inevitably come away with the impression that he was signaling.

(I wish LW had more people who were capable of explaining their objections understandably like this, instead of being stuck with a tangle of social intuitions which they aren't capable of unpacking in any more sophisticated way than by hitting the "retaliate" button.)

Comment author: TheOtherDave 10 July 2012 02:23:50PM 2 points [-]

Were capable of and bothered to, I suppose. I rarely bother to explain the reasons for my value judgments unless I'm specifically asked, and sometimes not even then. Especially not when it comes to value judgments of random people on the Internet. Low-value Internet interactions are fungible.