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All of borismus's Comments + Replies

Open thread, June 5 - June 11, 2017
borismus00

My analysis is more focused on the situation we have in the US today, with a still narrow (in the grand scheme) Overton window. I agree with you that in general there are failure modes, and the specific examples you bring (soviet collapse in '90, tankies, etc). I'll revise to make the claims sound less universal.

I agree that the "unable" / "too dumb" camp is problematic, but I think it's a relatively small fraction compared to the "unwilling" camp, which just has no real incentive to be informed.

And I've dropped the account requirement on the quiz since you're probably right. 100 data points at the moment, so pretty anecdotal but I'll start looking at the data soon.

Reply
0Lumifer
Ah, an excellent word -- "incentive". I agree that there are large swathes of people who use "hurray us, boo them" rhetoric purely to signal virtue and allegiance to their tribe. The issue is that they do this precisely because they have appropriate incentives -- and providing them with additional information without changing the incentives is unlikely to do much. In fact, stopping reciting the "our enemies are spawn of darkness" narrative is likely to be interpreted as a signal of disloyalty to the tribe with potentially dire social consequences. By the way, are you familiar with the Ideological Turing Test? It's a related idea.
Open thread, June 5 - June 11, 2017
borismus00

Can you point out the axiomatic assumptions I'm making? I explain why thinking "Those that disagree with me must be stupid, evil, or both." is bad: "It prevents finding common ground and encourages wild policy swings as power is transferred from one uncompromising faction to the next. The same facts can generate different viewpoints, each deserving of a spot in the marketplace of ideas, even if we personally disagree with them."

The quiz requires login only because I don't want the same person answering the quiz multiple times. Google account isn't visible to me unless you leave your email at the end.

Reply
0Lumifer
Basically I'm trying to point out that things which you take as self-evident (e.g. finding common ground is good, wild policy swings are bad) are not necessarily so and the whole situation is quite complicated in reality. Consider, for example, whether you want to find common ground with tankies or, say, suicide bombers. Or take Eastern Europe around 1990 -- were the "policy swings" too wild? You're making claims which sound universal, but which look to me to have much more restricted applicability (say, in stable Western-style democracies with respect to large groups the views of which fall within the Overton window). Also, one of the big issues is that not an insignificant number of people are unable to understand more complicated theories and approaches. In crude terms, they are too dumb for that. What should they do? As to the quiz, I expect that "too few people took it" is likely to be a bigger problem for you than "someone took it multiple times".
2Lumifer
Well, that link doesn't explain, since you start with these claims as axioms (that is, you assert them as self-evident and I'm not quite willing to assume that). And I still don't know what it the metric by which you measure the goodness of the political shape. As an aside, your quiz requires me to log into Google. Any particular reason for that?
Open thread, June 5 - June 11, 2017
borismus00

Ceasing political conflict is a ridiculously ambitious, unrealistic, maybe even undesirable goal. I'm talking about a slight decrease here.

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0Lumifer
Right, you claimed that "we'd be in better political shape". Any evidence to back up that belief? Oh, and which political shape is "better"?
Open thread, June 5 - June 11, 2017
borismus00

Interesting perspective. So you think that both parties have an accurate understanding of one another's viewpoints? Can you provide any evidence for that?

Reply
1Lumifer
I didn't say they have. I said that if they were to acquire such an accurate understanding, political conflict would not cease.
Open thread, June 5 - June 11, 2017
borismus00

The nuance you articulate in the last sentence is kind of the point I'm trying to make. I think many on the fringes would disagree with you.

Further, if such metaquizzes can suggest that in this case "some" is more like "very few", and not "actually quite a lot", I think we'd be in better political shape!

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1Lumifer
Clearly they must be both stupid and evil :-D I see no reason to believe so. Political adversity is NOT driven by misunderstandings.
Open thread, June 5 - June 11, 2017
borismus20

Wanted to share this concept of a metaquiz with this community.

The primary goal is that participants do poorly on the “other side” section. Underestimating the other side’s knowledge raises the questions “maybe they’re not all stupid?”. Incorrectly stereotyping their beliefs raises the question “maybe they’re not all evil?”. As a secondary goal, if participants do poorly on the quiz itself, they may learn something about climate change. Any feedback on this idea? Links to related concepts?

Here’s an example metaquiz on climate change: https://goo.gl/forms/ZqNQs3y1L1kpMPtF2

Reply
0Lumifer
You may want to re-formulate this sentence :-) The obvious problem is that the "other side" is rarely uniform. You typically get a mix of smart and honest people (but with different values), people who are in there for power and money, the not-too-smart ones duped by propaganda, the edgelords who want attention (and/or the lulz), the social conformists, etc. Some, but not all are stupid. Some, but not all, are evil.
Open thread, Dec. 19 - Dec. 25, 2016
borismus00

I was hoping that the 1-on-1 nature of the service would deter trolls. Their efforts won't scale very well. Valid?

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2ChristianKl
Have you done research into other 1-on-1 chats services for anonymous participants and see whether those services have a problem with trolls?
2Dagon
Doubtful. Troll efforts scale better than thoughtful discussion efforts. One troll can easily open multiple windows and surf for the easiest targets, and can get a lot of attention from a low-effort interaction.
Open thread, Dec. 19 - Dec. 25, 2016
borismus40

(If I had two karma points, I'd start its own thread on the topic, but I'm a lurker and I don't.)

I'm working (on the side) on a website that enables 1-on-1 conversations on a controversial topic, with someone of the opposing view. You are shown a list of topics, and asked what your opinion is on them ("I don't know" is an option). Then you are matched to another party that answered differently. You then start a text-based chat with them. Everything is anonymous (your name and avatar are auto-generated).

I am hoping that this could be a tool to red... (read more)

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2Lumifer
As Dagon said, this is troll heaven. From straight shock trolling to concern trolling. If you launch and 4chan hears about it, it would have a field day with it :-/
2ChristianKl
When creating a new website like this the goal should be to release a minimal viable product. The assumption that those three categories of people are rare doesn't mean that you can't find them for your minimum viable product. The YC advice is to focus on creating a great product for a small audience instead of creating an okay product for a large audience.
9Dagon
I think you missed out * Trolls. Those who want to torment or infuriate people who take a topic seriously.