There's more than one affordance. For example, the one of being able to go out without having to think all the time about safe routes and sticking to brightly lit public spaces.
Would you avoid making yourself better at thinking because you might start winning arguments by bamboozling your opponent?
Would you avoid making yourself better at thinking because you might start winning arguments by bamboozling your opponent?
I do avoid making myself better at arguing for this reason. Thinking is another story.
Then I realized that a version of me that had advanced martial arts knowledge would be more inclined to fight people, while a version of me that did not have advanced martial arts knowledge would be more inclined to avoid conflict.
Why? Especially:
Given that fighting someone-- even with advanced/superior skill-- is likely much more dangerous than avoiding conflict
Affordances; men with hammers and all that.
I am not skilled at storytelling in casual conversation (telling personal anecdotes). How can I improve this? In particular, what is a good environment to practice while limiting the social cost of telling lame stories?
I'm considered pretty good in this respect. I think the #1 thing that helps is just paying attention to things a lot and having a high degree of situational awareness, which causes you to observe more interesting things and thus have more good stories to share. Reading quickly also helps.
When it comes to actually telling the stories, the most important thing is probably to pay attention to people's faces and see what sorts of reactions they're having. If people seem bored, pick up the pace (or simply withdraw). If they seem overexcited, calm it down.
One good environment to practice the skill of telling stories is tabletop role-playing games, especially as the DM/storyteller/whatever. In general, I think standards in this field are usually fairly low and you get a good amount of time to practice telling (very unusual) stories in any given session.
Please stop making comments like this.
shminux is right here, this is not a helpful attitude on your part. While it's important to avoid encouraging political debates on LessWrong, exercising virtues such as moderation and tolerance when such issues do come up is even more important.
While it's important to avoid encouraging political debates on LessWrong, exercising virtues such as moderation and tolerance when such issues do come up is even more important.
I agree. That's why I looked at advancedatheist's comment history before replying. If this were the only such comment, I would not have called it out-- but this user has a history of posting similar comments.
Now, advancedatheist has also posted comments that advocate neoreactionary positions in ways that I consider totally appropriate for LessWrong-- this one, for example. But IMO there's a clear difference in tone and tenor between that and this.
tend to basic principles
Re-read that post carefully :-) It doesn't say not to discuss politics, it says don't be an ass about it.
in order to better reach as many people as possible
I am unaware that this is a goal of LW. If, by any chance, it is, LW is spectacularly unsuccessful at it :-D
I think it's better to move it off-site
Well, we disagree about that. In a fairly civilized fashion, so far :-)
P.S. And most discussion here is actually about political philosophy, not politics themselves. Notice how today's US elections which flipped the Senate got zero posts on LW.
Politics is an important domain to which we should individually apply our rationality—but it's a terrible domain in which to learn rationality, or discuss rationality, unless all the discussants are already rational.
The purpose of LessWrong is to discuss and learn rationality, so I think politics are almost never appropriate here. But even if we think that civilized discussion of political matters is appropriate, the post I was critiquing was not, IMO, up to our standards of civility and polite discussion.
LessWrong should not allow itself to be a venue for this sort of behavior
For discussion of political matters? A bit late for that, I think. This train has left the station.
In order for the LessWrong community to flourish, I think it is critical that it be divorced from bickering over political matters.
I disagree. "Bickering", of course, is a word with negative connotations, but I see no reason to taboo political discussions here. Politics of all sorts are important in real life and having a giant blind spot doesn't look too useful for that winning thing that rationality is supposed to be about :-/
So far on LW people have shown their ability to have civilized discussions even while disagreeing about politics. That's a good thing.
For discussion of political matters? A bit late for that, I think. This train has left the station.
Has it? Insofar as it has, that's been thanks to our own failure to tend to basic principles. I think that in order to better reach as many people as possible, it's critical that LW avoid politics and the potential biases that can result.
I do agree that having civilized discussions even while disagreeing about politics is important. But there are other venues for that, like Slate Star Codex, and if we indeed need more of this I think it's better to move it off-site.
I don't particularly care about whether the points are valid.
Ah. You did mention something about "mindkilled", right?
Yes, ha ha. This is a serious matter, though. I believe that it really truly doesn't matter whether someone's political points are good or not. LessWrong should not allow itself to be a venue for this sort of behavior, especially when it's accompanied by this sort of tone.
In order for the LessWrong community to flourish, I think it is critical that it be divorced from bickering over political matters. So when it comes to posts like this one, I really truly don't care whether their arguments are valid or not-- either way, they shouldn't be on LessWrong
I agree that the tone sucks. However, some of the points are valid. For example, the large chunk of opposition to (online) feminism is now from the mens rights crowd, not from traditional-gender-roles crowd. And this pattern should be expected to continue in the future.
For example, the main opposition to assisted suicide in the US is currently religion-motivated. However, in Canada and elsewhere where religion is only a minor player, the main opposition is from the secular disability rights movements. The advocates of the right to die with dignity will find themselves opposing similarly "progressive", kind and compassionate people, once the issue is no longer about faith.
You can probably name another issue or two where overcoming one obstacle only leaves you bashing against a different, unexpected one, without having made much progress.
I don't particularly care about whether the points are valid. This kind of discussion isn't what LessWrong is for, especially when it's being posted with this sort of tone.
This request is likely to be ineffectual without something more concrete. The OP makes several rambling points, it's not clear which you disagree with.
I disagree with the general concept that LW is an appropriate place to post bizarre, mindkilled political rants.
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Great post! I'd love to see this in the Main section.