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TeMPOraL comments on Rationality Quotes June 2013 - Less Wrong
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Comments (778)
-- HN's Vivtek in discussion about nationalism.
The author may "have a point" as they say, but it doesn't qualify as a rationality quote by my lights; more of a rhetoric quote. One red flag is
Who denies their existence?
Principle of charity: "Denial of existence" is to taken as meaning "Don't think about, don't care about, don't act based on, don't know how many there were" and not "When explicitly asked if drone strikes have victims, say 'no'."
There is already a word for "don't think about, don't care about, don't act based on, don't know how many there were". That word is "disregarding", which is used in the original quote. It then adds, a fortiori, "and in many cases outright denying the existence of victims of drone strikes". In that context, it cannot mean anything but "explicitly say that there are no victims", and in addition, that this has actually happened in "many" cases.
Hm, good point. I still suspect it's metaphorical. Then again, in a world where Fox News is currently saying how Edward Snowden may be a Chinese double agent, it may also be literal and truthful.
By "in many cases outright denying the existence of victims of drone strikes", I think that the author meant "in many cases (i.e., many strikes), outright denying that some of the victims are in fact victims."
The author is probably referring to the reported policy of considering all military-age males in a strike-zone to be militants (and hence not innocent victims). I take the author to be claiming that (1) non-militant military-age male victims of drone strikes exist in many cases, and (2) the reported policy amounts to "outright denying the existence" of those victims.
That's how I read it. The claim isn't that no one was killed by drone strikes, it's that no one innocent was killed, so there are no victims.
Yes. Furthermore, the "many cases" doesn't refer to many people who think that there has never been an innocent victim of a drone strike. Rather, the "many cases" refers to the (allegedly) many innocent victims killed whose existence (as innocents) was denied by reclassifying them as militants.
Giving charity is fine. However the principle of charity does not extend to obliging that we applaud, share and propose as inspirational guidelines those things that require such charity in order to not be nonsense.
Doesn't that depend on the amount of work the reader needs to find a charitable reading? And whether the author would completely endorse the charitable reading?
One could probably charitably read a rationalist-friendly message into the public speeches of Napoleon on the nobility of dying in battle, but it likely would require a lot of intellectual contortions, and Napoleon almost certainly would not endorse the result. So we shouldn't applaud that charitable reading.
But I think the charitable reading of the quote from the OP is straightforward enough that the need to apply the principle of charity is not an independent reason to reject the quote. Simplicio's rejection could be complete and coherent even if he had applied the principle of charity - essentially, drawing a distinction between "rhetoric" and "rationality principle."
It might be that the distinction often makes reference to usage of the principle of charity, but that is different from refusing to apply the principle to a rationality quote.
Yes.
A little bit.
It is the case that when I see a quote that is being defended by appeal to the principle of charity I will be more inclined to downvote said quote than if I had not seen such a justification. As best as I can tell this is in accord with the evidence that such statements provide and my preferences about what kind of quotes I encounter in the 'rationalist quotes' thread. This is not the same thing as 'refusing to apply the principle of charity'.
Fair enough. I think the nub of our disagreement is whether the author must endorse the interpretation for it to be considered a "charitable" reading. I think the answer is yes.
If the interpretation is an improvement but the author wouldn't endorse, I think it is analytically clearer to avoid calling that a "charitable" reading, and instead directly call it steelmanning. There's no reason to upvote a rationality quote that requires steelmanning (and many, many reasons not to). But if we all know what the author "really meant," it seems reasonable to upvote based on that meaning.
That said, I recognize that it is very easy to mistakenly identify a charitable reading as the consensus reading (i.e. to steelman when you meant to read charitably).
I agree.
That's a good distinction and a sufficient (albeit not necessary) cause to call it steelmanning.
In this case "in many cases outright denying the existence of victims of drone strikes" is rather strong and unambiguous language. It is clear that the author is just exaggerating his claims to enhance emotional emphasis but we have to also acknowledge that he went out of his way to say 'outright denying' when he could have said something true instead. He 'really meant' to speak a falsehood for persuasive effect.
What Eliezer did was translate from the language of political rhetoric into what someone might say if they were making a rationalist quote instead. That's an excellent thing to do to such rhetoric but if that is required then the quote shouldn't be in this thread in the first place. Maybe we can have a separate thread for "rationalist translations of inspirational or impressive quotes". (Given the standard of what people tend to post as rationalist quotes we possibly need one.)
After considering RichardKennaway's point, I'm coming to realize that Eliezer's interpretation is not "charitable" because it isn't clear that the original speaker would endorse Eliezer's reading.
Since this is what Rationality Quotes has apparently turned into, I'm not sure that the thread type is worth trying to save.
I get the impression from the analysis we have done that I am likely to essentially agree with most of your judgements regarding charitability.
This seems accurate. The quote is a bunch of applause lights and appeals to identity strung together support a political agenda. Sure, I entirely support the particular political agenda in question but just because it is 'my team' being supported doesn't make the process of shouting slogans noteworthy rationality material.
If the religion based shaming line and the "in many cases outright denying the existence of victims of drone strikes" hyperbole were removed or replaced then the quote could have potential.
I'm pretty sure that what was meant is "innocent victims". While still a stretch, it would then shift to discussing the meaning of "innocent" vs insinuating that the US military is so inept, it cannot shoot straight and makes up stuff to cover it.