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ChristianKl comments on Open thread, August 4 - 10, 2014 - Less Wrong Discussion

5 Post author: polymathwannabe 04 August 2014 12:20PM

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Comment author: ChristianKl 05 August 2014 09:11:35AM 3 points [-]

Yet it is extremely rare to see LW folk or other rationalists say things like this. Why is this so?

In my experience there are LW people who would in such cases simply declare that they won't be convinced of the topic at hand and suggest to change the subject.

I particularly remember a conversation at the LW community camp about geopolitics where a person simply declared that they aren't able to evaluate arguments on the matter and therefore won't be convinced.

Comment author: philh 06 August 2014 02:46:57PM 0 points [-]

That was probably me. I don't think I handled the situation particularly gracefully, but I really didn't want to continue that conversation, and I couldn't see whether the person in question was wearing a crocker's rules tag.

I don't remember my actual words, but I think I wasn't trying to go for "nothing could possibly convince me", so much as "nothing said in this conversation could convince me".

Comment author: ChristianKl 06 August 2014 03:22:09PM 0 points [-]

It's still more graceful than the "I think you are wrong based on my heuristics but I can't tell you where you are wrong" that Pablo Stafforini advocates.