You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

Lumifer comments on Open thread, July 28 - August 3, 2014 - Less Wrong Discussion

5 Post author: polymathwannabe 28 July 2014 08:27PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (241)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Lumifer 30 July 2014 05:16:37AM 2 points [-]

You're not substantially reinforcing their beliefs.

Well, yes, if we're talking about a single conversation, especially over the 'net, you are not going to affect much anything. Still, even if you do not reinforce then you confirm. And there are different ways to get mindkilled, entangling your identity with beliefs is only one of them...

On the other hand, sneaking new ideas into someone's internal memetic ecosystem tends to put stress on any totalizing identities they've adopted.

True, but the same caveat applies -- if we're talking about one or two conversations you're not going to produce much if any effect.

In any case, my line of thinking in this subthread wasn't concerned so much with the effectiveness of deconversion, but rather was more about the willingness to employ arguments that you don't believe but your discussion opponent might. I understand the need to talk to people in the language they understand, but there is a fine line to walk here.