DataPacRat comments on LW Women: LW Online - Less Wrong Discussion
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After reading this post, I wondered if there was anything I could do to improve the local marketplace-of-ideas, such as trying to encourage more members by being more respectful of comments. Then I recalled that one of my standard rules-of-thumb is 'stay classy', which covers trying to use an appropriate amount of respect; so I then wondered if adding even further politeness would actually reduce the signal-to-noise ratio.
At present, I'm wondering if it's at all possible to figure out, to even a single deciban of evidence, how I should update, based on what's been posted... and trying to look at myself on a meta level, all that seems to have resulted is a mild strengthening of my commitment to the 'stay classy' benchmark.
Anyone care to tell me if I'm doing this wrong, and if so, how?
It's probably the best possible start. "Am I being a dick?"
Taboo "being a dick".
In terms of how human minds have evolved to interact with other humans, I think it can usefully be treated as a primitive. Are you actually claiming not to understand what it means, or is this an exercise?
Different people have different ideas about what constitutes "being a dick" and I was wondering what you mean by it.
I do in fact mean running it past your inbuilt "actually, am I being a dick?" evaluator, as a start. (I'm assuming most people have something that does that job.)
This in no way guarantees anyone else will agree you're not being a dick, as you note, but I find this method useful in practice for screening off my bursts of dickishness - when I remember to apply it - and so I offer it as a simple thing that may work. I find it also makes my responses calmer in a heated argument.
I'm still not sure which inbuilt evaluator you're talking about.
If you are about to say or write a response to something, does "wait, am I actually being a dick here?" before you do so mean anything? Something like "I'm right of course, but can I be right without also coming across as a dick?"
Assume I'm not familiar with the meaning of the word. If I remember correctly where I was growing up 'dick' was little more than a generic insult, also I'm not a native English speaker.
Ah, OK. Does Don't be a dick get the idea across a bit?
DataPacRat is asking about going beyond not being a dick.
I haven't followed DPR's posts enough to have an opinion about whether it would be good for them to add more friendliness, but a community norm of saying more about what you like about what you've read is probably a good idea.