Kawoomba comments on LessWrong podcasts - Less Wrong

38 Post author: Louie 03 December 2012 08:44AM

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Comment author: wedrifid 20 December 2012 07:51:21AM 0 points [-]

Most of the world does not speak in the same way that LessWrong does, but they still have valuable things to say. Recognizing that and adapting to it would be beneficial.

Your intended influence is not in the direction of making it more easy for the rest of the world to communicate effectively on lesswrong---in fact it is the reverse. DaFranker is already far more willing than most to attempt to communicate with you despite your manner and without reciprocating your debate tactics. The presumption you made is that DaFranker should be expected to push himself to implausible extremes of tolerance, patience and rational thinking so that he is somehow able to resurrect the possibility of communicating with you. This kind of expectation is the opposite of what it takes to adapt to communicating with normal people.

Most of the world cares about belligerent tone. Your argument undermines your position.

Comment author: Kawoomba 20 December 2012 08:09:33AM 1 point [-]

The presumption you made is that DaFranker should be expected to push himself to implausible extremes of tolerance, patience and rational thinking so that he is somehow able to resurrect the possibility of communicating with you. This kind of expectation is the opposite of what it takes to adapt to communicating with normal people.

That a belligerent tone precludes/hinders most people from parsing the actual content and limits them in their immediate rational thinking capacity is - to me - a clear failure mode which, as you say, is unfortunately characteristic for "normal people".

A belligerent tone does obviously in itself convey certain information, mostly relative to status squabbles, and should be filed away for future reference, not ignored. However, it shouldn't impede the reader's capacity to engage with the argument beyond that tone, and the simple fact that it does constitutes a bias - a cognitive impediment - to be overcome.

Engaging on important topics is hard enough and shouldn't be a training ground for "learning to deal with belligerently presented arguments on the content-level", however it's a useful skill that should be acquired. Otherwise we'd let emotions continue to cloud our judgement, as the Jedi would say.

Comment author: wedrifid 20 December 2012 08:29:14AM 2 points [-]

I agree with all these points. (So it took me a while to conclude that it was not intended as a refutation of the grandparent and instead something that actually supports it then explores the tangent.)