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Kialo -- an online discussion platform that attempts to support reasonable debates

Well, the purpose of my comment was to clarify my views as the author of the link. Do I understand correctly that you disagree that the discussion format can influence the quality of the discussion?

Kialo -- an online discussion platform that attempts to support reasonable debates

mirefek7y30

I came across this site and it seems quite interesting to me. I believe that the discussion format can influence the discussion itself a lot. Not sure whether exactly the Kialo format is optimal but I consider Kialo as at least a promising attempt.

1Tehuti7y

"I consider Kialo as at least a promising attempt." This problem hasn't been tackled afaik and it's nice to see someone working on it!

-8Thomas7y

Politics is the Mind-Killer

mirefek8y10

Discussions about religion seems to me to be equally unproductive in general.

In the global society? I agree.

Yes, in the global society.

The subtext I'm picking up from our exchange is that you object to the site's endorsement of atheism, but are reluctant to challenge it overtly for fear of social sanction (downvotes, critical comments, etc.). So instead of challenging it, you are raising the overt topic of the site's unwillingness to endorse a specific political ideology, and taking opportunities as they arise to implicitly establish equivalences b

... (read more)

Politics is the Mind-Killer

mirefek8y00

Thank you for clarifying a history of the site and the community. I expected something of that.

But I wasn't sure how much the local community is resistant to biases (and how it is confident in that), so the original question was perhaps a bit indirect.

mentioning religion without directly saying it is false or bad would almost always be heavily downvoted, even if you did not assert that it was true

So I am glad that I haven't been heavily downvoted yet. Religion is false, of course :-)

0entirelyuseless8y

That doesn't really happen much anymore, if at all, for a number of reasons, the most important one being that everyone has stopped reading this site at this point.

Politics is the Mind-Killer

mirefek8y00

I find it extremely unlikely. It certainly hasn't in the past.

You mean that it didn't happen here or in the global society? Discussions about religion seems to me to be equally unproductive in general.

I can imagine that if the site endorsed a political ideology its readers would may become biased forward it (even if just by selection of readers). Surely, it is not the intent of the site. But there is a possibility that that happened with the religion issue...

1TheOtherDave8y

I mean that it's unlikely that "the site [would] end up with a similar "rational" political consensus if political discussion went through". In the global society? I agree. Sure, that's possible. Sure, that's possible. Also, let me cut to the chase a little bit, here. The subtext I'm picking up from our exchange is that you object to the site's endorsement of atheism, but are reluctant to challenge it overtly for fear of social sanction (downvotes, critical comments, etc.). So instead of challenging it, you are raising the overt topic of the site's unwillingness to endorse a specific political ideology, and taking opportunities as they arise to implicitly establish equivalences between religion and politics, with the intention of implicitly arguing that the site's willingness to endorse a specific religious ideology (atheism) is inconsistent. Have I correctly understood your subtext?

1entirelyuseless8y

As you pointed out yourself, most people involved with the site at the beginning were atheists. That is because of association with a group of people who were mainly atheists from the beginning. But they did not all agree on politics. As a consequence, discussion of politics was discouraged because it would lead to contention and disagreement among those original people. Discussion of religion, in the sense of disparagement of religion, was not discouraged, since it would not lead to contention and disagreement, given that the original group was atheist. But in the early years, mentioning religion without directly saying it is false or bad would almost always be heavily downvoted, even if you did not assert that it was true. That happened without there being an official norm that you could not do that, simply because of the large proportion of atheists. The only exceptions (in the early years that is) were for people who favored religion but presented themselves as having basically something like a dhimmi status in relation to atheism. That of course got rid of most people interested in discussing religion, but a norm like the politics one was unnecessary, because of the presumed agreement on atheism. But you are right that the difference was accidental, and based on the original group characteristics. If the original group had contained a mix of religious people with diverse religious views, the site would likely be that way to this day, and direct discussion of religious topics would be discouraged in the same way that politics currently is. It has nothing to do with what views are reasonable. Some views on religion are more reasonable than others, and some views on politics are more reasonable than others, but for most people, the views that they hold on these topics are not principally motivated by reason. That applies to both religion and politics, and it applies to people on Less Wrong almost as much as to ordinary people.

Politics is the Mind-Killer

mirefek8y20

Hi,

I am a bit surprised that contemporary politics is kind of suppressed here (by FAQ). Well, I understand the reason that it is a controversial topic in society. I get that people tend to be biased in it. This is just because it is such a wide topic and lot of people have a political standpoint. I agree that it is probably better to train rationality on less known topics.

So, what is confusing me?

I think that there is another topic with a similar controversy level in society: Religion. I can see the analogy. In my view, arguing with a religious person is s... (read more)

4TheOtherDave8y

Yeah, there's a communally endorsed position on which religion(s) is/are correct ("none of them are correct"), but there is no similar communally endorsed position on which political ideology(ies) is/are correct. There's also no similar communally endorsed position on which brand of car is best, but there's no ban on discussion of cars, because in our experience discussions of car brands, unlike discussions of political ideologies, tend to stay relatively civil and productive. I find it extremely unlilkely. It certainly hasn't in the past.

Your Truth Is Not My Truth

mirefek8y20

I expect that "truth" in this context just mean "opinion what the truth is" which can not be easily verified nor refuted and despite of it both debaters are pretty confident in their opinions. In this case a response can be something like "I would prefer word "opinion" but I hope we understand each other ;-)"

For more accurate response I need some examples. I don't realize coming across this phrase in a discussion.

How to Convince Me That 2 + 2 = 3

mirefek8y00

To be honest, your comments confuse me. I knew about the link but I didn't see a connection between the link and experimental method and where the citations in the link came from. I am not sure what you mean by "anything like that" in your last comment and I am not very interested in it.

But I prefer to keep the original problem: If looking up a result in a math book could count as an experiment what is the (broader) definition of an experiment, then?

How to Convince Me That 2 + 2 = 3

mirefek8y00

Please, be more specific. I am not sure exactly what are you responding to. Do you mean that a math proof (or knowledge of it) can be considered as experimental method in some sense?

0hairyfigment8y

I don't think you've responded to my linked comment. But OK, looking up a result in a math book could count as an experiment, as could any method by which you might learn about dyslexia or whatever you suspect might be confusing you. If you don't believe anything like that could happen to you, either you made that judgement based on experience and science or you are very badly misguided.

How to Convince Me That 2 + 2 = 3

mirefek8y20

I see. It seemed to me that it was about the experimental method which did not fit to a mathematical statement. I understand the possibility of being mistaken. I was mistaken many times, I am not sure with some proofs and I know some persuasive fake proofs... Despite this, I am not very convinced that I should do such things with my probability estimates. After all, it is just an estimate. Moreover it is a bit self-referencing when the estimate uses a more complicated formula then the statement itself. If I say that I am 1-sure, that 1 is not 1/2, it is safe, isn't it? :-D Well, it does not matter :-) I think that I got the point, "I know that I know nothing" is a well known quote.

0hairyfigment8y

Ahem. I can think of many ways that some broadly defined "experimental method" could come into play there.

0Raemon8y

It's actually a somewhat different point he's trying to make (it's spaced out over several blogposts) - the idea is not to say "all knowledge is fallible." You should be very confident in math proofs that have been well vetted. It's useful to have a sense of how certain your knowledge is. (like, could you make 100 similar statements without being wrong once? 1,000? 10,000?) (i.e. "the sun will rise tomorrow" is a probability, not a certainty, and "Ghosts could be real" is a probability, not a certainty, but they are very different probabilities.) If you're interested, I do recommend the sequences in more detail - a lot of their points build on each other. (For example, there are multiple other posts that argue about what it's useful to think in probabilities, and how to apply that to other things).

How to Convince Me That 2 + 2 = 3

mirefek8y30

Hi, I am a mathematician and I guess most mathematicians would not agree with this. I am quite new here and I am looking forward to reactions of rationalists :-)

I, personally, distinguish "real world" and "mathematical world". In real world, I could be persuaded that 2+2=3 by experience. There is no way to persuade me that 2+2=3 in mathematical world unless somebody shows me a proof of it. But I already have a proof of 2+2=4, so it would lead into great reform of mathematics, similar to the reform after Russel paradox. Just empirical ex... (read more)

0Raemon8y

The point was less about the physical world applications of 2+2=4, and more about the fact that any belief you have is ultimately based on the evidence you've encountered. In the case of purely theoretical proofs, it's still based on your subjective experience of having read and understood the proofs. Humans are sometimes literally insane (for example, not being able to tell that they're missing an arm). Also, even the best of us sometimes misunderstand or misremember things. So you need to leave probability mass for having misunderstood the proof in the first place. (The followup to this post is this one: http://lesswrong.com/lw/mo/infinite_certainty/ which addresses this in some more detail)

Fermi paradox of human past, and corresponding x-risks

mirefek8y00

I agree with you, I think that I have the same problem with the article. Probability theory can not be used in such a way.

Every planet with some civilizations have a first one. People of the first civilization always wonder why they are first.

It does not mean anything for the future. Especially, it does not imply whether there will be other civilizations afterward.

LESSWRONG
LW

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