RomeoStevens comments on Open Thread, July 1-15, 2013 - Less Wrong

4 Post author: Vaniver 01 July 2013 05:10PM

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Comment author: [deleted] 05 July 2013 01:37:30PM *  1 point [-]

I was reading http://slatestarcodex.com/ and I found myself surprised again, by Yvain persuasively steelmanning an argument that he doesn't himself believe in at http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/06/22/social-psychology-is-a-flamethrower/

It's particularly ironic because in that very post, he mentions:

I can’t find the link for this, but negatively phrased information can sometimes reinforce the positive version of that information.

Which seems to be what I am falling for. He outright says:

I think some of the arguments below will be completely correct, others correct only in certain senses and situations, and still others intriguing but wrong. I think that modern pop social psychology probably contains the same three categories in about the same breakdown, so I don’t feel too bad about this.

So to sum up, here is my experience:

1: Yvain: "Here are some arguments. I don't fully believe most of them."

2: I start reading.

3: Michaelos: "Huh. All of these seem to be somewhat well reasoned arguments, there are links, and I can follow the logic on most of them."

4: At some point, I forget the "Yvain doesn't believe this." Tag.

5: I then read his summary which points out that these also have entirely opposite summaries which are also justified.

6: I find myself flabbergasted that I've made the same mistake about Yvain's writing again.

Based on this, I get the feeling I should be doing something differently when I read Yvain's articles, but I'm not even sure what that something is.

Comment author: RomeoStevens 06 July 2013 10:25:43AM 7 points [-]

you should probably update towards "being convincing to me is not sufficient evidence of truth." Everything got easier once I stopped believing I was competent to judge claims about X by people who investigate X professionally. I find it better to investigate their epistemic hygiene rather than their claims. If their epistemic hygiene seems good (can be domain specific) I update towards their conclusions on X.