Social Pressure

http://firefly.yourjapan.jp/post/2/212

One of the very few people that seem to do exactly what they feel like without concern for Japanese social obligation, are the Yakuza. If you put more than one Japanese in a room, it seems to create a social expectancy - each Japanese watches the other Japanese, to make sure that they don't accidentally do something considered unbecoming for a Japanese. This effect seems to multiply the more people are around. There are only a few people who don't give a shit about this omnipotent social pressure - crazy people, foreigners, and Yakuza.

Social pressure is not as bad here in the U.S.A., but it certainly exists. This is a nice description of how powerful it can be. How much it can suppress people and make them all the same.

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (0)

Social Rules for Discussion

people don't argue whether to have an affair. to prevent one they shut down discussion. "you can't say that, we can't discuss that, i won't think about that, i'm so offended, go away."

if someone allows it to be a topic of discussion, and says no, that's a lot of the way to them giving in.

there are other social rules where you're not supposed to do something, and a lot of the social mechanism to stop you involves refusing to think about or discuss the issue in the first place.

once the ice is broken, once there is a foot in the door, it's much harder for ppl to resist the social sin. they don't have actual arguments to resist with, and the social rules don't give them much help cuz they focus on blocking things off at the start without considering the issue.

it's sorta like if you say something taboo, then if you aren't immediately shut down (e.g. told to STFU) then just having said it makes it less taboo. even if you're just like "i wonder if the taboo about X is a good idea" and then you consider some args on both sides and end up concluding it's a rational taboo, that still kinda messes up the social prohibition that makes it a taboo.

an example is sending an elderly parent to an old folks home. that's not exactly taboo but there's pressure not to do it or even consider it. it's hard to bring up. it could offend ppl. when you say it, ppl might react immediately negatively, like "oh we could never do that". if no one reacts immediately negatively, then it's just become socially acceptable to consider it, and that's already a bunch of the way to doing it (even if u merely wanted to consider it, u've now helped it happen, esp if you don't have all the relevant decision making authority).

or consider ppl who are shy about sex. if someone asks "do you want to have sex?" and the other person isn't immediately offended, and is actually willing to discuss the topic, then they're already a lot of the way to having sex. breaking the ice is one of the hardest parts – or in other words lots of the pressures are front-loaded.

or it's similar with sexual fetishes. if you ask your spouse to do one of those, then the way it works socially is s/he has to be like "no way" immediately without thinking about it. otherwise it gets significantly harder to resist and say "no". even if they think about it and discuss and say "no", now that the topic has brought up you can just keep asking and giving reasons or whatever and wear down their resistance. their resistance isn't as effective once past the initial reaction.

or doing an intervention for someone. that's really awkward. and if you suggest it, ppl might say immediately "no, that's too drastic and mean" and shut down the idea. but if no one shuts it down then it's become socially acceptable to your little group of friends who were talking, and it's got a good shot of happening.

or committing someone to a mental hospital against their will. this might be a thing some relatives are considering but no one wants to say. and if someone says it outloud too early, ppl will shoot it down like "no way". but if someone manages to suggest merely considering it, without getting the idea immediately shot down, then they are a bunch of the way to actually doing it.

another example: pulling the plug on a spouse in a coma at the hospital.

one that is NOT an example is atheism. maybe it was in the past? (or is now in some countries like Iran?) but now questioning God's existence in the West is so well known and socially acceptable that allowing it to be a discussion is not dangerous to God believers. believers have developed knowledge of how to deal with challenges from non believers. they don't just rely on avoiding the discussion or maintaining some sort of taboo.

or both capitalists and socialists can socially-safely treat the other side as legitimate to discuss. they don't rely on just refusing to discuss. they're used to debate and don't consider the other side's ideas taboo. their resistance to switching sides is not front-loaded. breaking the ice like mentioning capitalism could be false doesn't really matter.

environmentalism, like recycling or global warming, is more front-loaded. they try to shut up debate more than socialists or capitalists, though not entirely. there's a lot of effort currently going into trying to make environmental skepticism an unthinkable taboo.

what are other examples and non-examples?

btw this stuff doesn't just affect discussions outloud with other people. it works fairly similarly with self-discussion. like if the example is an affair, just making pro and con lists in your own head is damaging to your ability to say no to the affair. it stops feeling like a taboo or illegitimate non-option, and starts becoming more possible to think about, discuss, maybe even do. or like consider if you've made pro/con lists in your head and then the other person suggests an affair. now it's harder for you to be like "wtf? no way! don't ever ask that again. how dare you?" cuz if you say that you're lying. and the person might guess that (or just hope it on general principles – nothing to lose for trying this tactic even if mistaken) and be like "you've thought about it, i can tell, don't pretend this is just my own deviant idea that never crossed your mind". if that's true, it's much harder to just be like "omg you're a deviant, what a bad idea" and block discussion entirely.

The Fountainhead illustrates the affair example:

“Your wife has a lovely body, Mr. Keating. Her shoulders are too thin, but admirably in scale with the rest of her. Her legs are too long, but that gives her the elegance of line you’ll find in a good yacht. Her breasts are beautiful, don’t you think?”
“Architecture is a crude profession, Mr. Wynand,” Keating tried to laugh. “It doesn’t prepare one for the superior sort of sophistication.”
“You don’t understand me, Mr. Keating?”
“If I didn’t know you were a perfect gentleman, I might misunderstand it, but you can’t fool me.”
“That is just what I am trying not to do.”
“I appreciate compliments, Mr. Wynand, but I’m not conceited enough to think that we must talk about my wife.”
“Why not, Mr. Keating? It is considered good form to talk of the things one has—or will have—in common.”
“Mr. Wynand, I ... I don’t understand.”
“Shall I be more explicit?”
“No, I...”
“No? Shall we drop the subject of Stoneridge?”
“Oh, let’s talk about Stoneridge! I ...”
“But we are, Mr. Keating.”
Keating looked at the room about them. He thought that things like this could not be done in such a place; the fastidious magnificence made it monstrous; he wished it were a dank cellar. He thought: blood on paving stones—all right, but not blood on a drawing-room rug....
“Now I know this is a joke, Mr. Wynand,” he said.
“It is my turn to admire your sense of humor, Mr. Keating.”
“Things like ... like this aren’t being done ...”
“That’s not what you mean at all, Mr. Keating. You mean, they’re being done all the time, but not talked about.”
“I didn’t think ...”
“You thought it before you came here. You didn’t mind. I grant you I’m behaving abominably. I’m breaking all the rules of charity. It’s extremely cruel to be honest.”
“Please, Mr. Wynand, let’s ... drop it. I don’t know what ... I’m supposed to do.”
“That’s simple. You’re supposed to slap my face.” Keating giggled. “You were supposed to do that several minutes ago.”

Merely allowing a discussion of the topic is a large social concession. Slapping is the kind of action which can shut this down, socially.

If the discussion were more rational, with serious arguments, it wouldn't change the social meaning of being willing to consider the topic in a discussion.

merely treating a topic as discussable has social meaning.

the social rules block paths forward. you can choose: block the discussion or defy the social rules.

you may doubt that affair discussion is an important path forward, b/c you have a low opinion of affairs. but i bet you have a higher opinion of something else which involves similar social dynamics.

also even if no affair is ever a good idea (past or future), discussion of affairs would still be an important path forward. because sometimes people want to have affairs, or think it's a good idea. even if they are always wrong, discussing it is still good. they could learn they are wrong and why, and then be happy to not do the affair. (but the social game rules are incompatible with this approach.)

one question is: how do you have such discussions without the social meaning? if you just want to talk/think about it but not change the social landscape. can you? it could be impossible since social rules are flawed, so they may not be compatible with this; the only solution might involve rejecting some social rules stuff. but maybe there's other solutions. post your thoughts in the comments!

on tangent, what do you think of Ayn Rand's affair? one notable thing is it wasn't secret. on TV affairs are usually secrets. (one reason is if you ask your spouse if having an affair is OK, that's one of those things where the socially acceptable response is to freak out and immediately shut down discussion)

Rand's affair was secret from the public, but not from her husband. I wonder how common non-secret affairs actually are in real life. Or affairs where a spouse knows about it without being told but doesn't say anything.

another issue is Rand was mistaken about how good a thinker Nathaniel Brandon was. is that a coincidence? did lust play some role in this mistake? or was she not mistaken at the time, and he changed later? (btw just merely raising the possibility that lust played a role in the mistake – not a nice thing to consider – has social meaning. it's harder to bring up that unkind possibility initially than it is to discuss it afterwards. the resistance is somewhat front-loaded.)

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (2)

Social Memes and patio11

patio11 is a frequent commenter on Hacker News. I like some of his writing, e.g. about bitcoin and consulting. Sadly, he advocates irrational social memes. But it's still more interesting than usual because he understands them more clearly than others.

Regarding, WSJ: Can 'World of Warcraft' Game Skills Help Land a Job?, patio11 writes:

Running a WoW guild is pretty good preparation for having to manage a fairly large group of employees with wildly varying levels of skill, attention to detail, ability to follow-through on commitments, intrapersonal conflict resolution ability, and the like.

That said: it is almost crazy to have on a resume, 99.54% of the time. It doesn't by itself persuasively say "I'm going to make you more money" and unless you have a very good read of the cultural background of the person reading your essay has a high risk of reading "I have low status hobbies. Please judge me for them!"

This is about how to meet social expectations, and be socially effective, rather than be logical.

Regarding, Guide dogs and guns: America's blind gunmen, patio11 writes:

This is one way in which a large portion of America is culturally distinct from Britain in a way which many people do not appreciate white people being capable of being culturally distinct. In much of America, use and possession of firearms is a strong cultural marker, like ear piercing or playing football or driving cars. Perhaps it is not obvious at the BBC, where this looks like "Crikey, that's the only way to make guns MORE dangerous," but for people who are in that culture, it reads more like "Blind man triumphs over adversity to claim his rightful place in the civic life of his community."

This is about social groups. It treats them as very important, and understands how much work people will put into gaining social acceptance.

Regarding, Why are some people so much luckier than others?, patio11 writes:

I rather like the Techzing guys' take on this, called "luck surface area," because it tracks with my experience and is actually weaponizable in a way that "be more observant" is not.

http://www.codusoperandi.com/posts/increasing-your-luck-surface-area

If you for some reason want to get into a guild protected by a scouting system, then your priorities should be a) identifying what the scouts are looking for and getting good at it and b) getting in front of as many scouts as possible as often as possible.

There exist many opportunities which HNers want which resemble "a guild protected by a scouting system" if you squint at them, by the way.

This comment has good insight into the social systems surrounding many Hacker News type activities. patio11 is vague about what he means, but I think that's on purpose. (Perhaps to avoid avoid offending people by saying what they are doing clearly and truthfully?)

Social Advocate

In each case, patio11's advice advice is approximately: obey social rules. Understand social rules, act accordingly, and you'll get ahead in life.

He's a little vague about recommending this. I read this vagueness as him not considering any alternatives. I think he takes it for granted that this is how life works.

He assumes if he tells people how to follow social rules better, and what the rewards are, they will want to do it. It's unnecessary to persuade people to live this way. It's life, and the issue is merely skill at doing it. patio11 has more skill than most, and he's sharing some.

Irrational

It has never crossed patio11's mind that he's promoting irrationality. He's teaching people how to better conform the externally-determined rules for their lives. He's encouraging people to pay more attention to social issues, and develop more effective social skills, and live by them (which, like it or not, means less attention to reason, science, programming, etc)

He's encouraging people to be more social – and obedient to social expectations. He's encouraging them to learn how to deal with social issues more skillfully, like he does (rather than find a way of life in which one doesn't have to).

Social rules are not rational. Everyone knows this, but at the same time few people will admit it when they are on the defensive. They don't like the implication that their decision to learn and follow many social rules is irrational.

Let's look at the three examples above. The first rule is about not writing about "pretty good preparation" on one's resume. Instead of making the best rational case in one's resume, one is supposed to obey unwritten social rules about what to write or not write.

The second rule is about having to shoot guns for people to be more friendly with you. It's about pressuring people to share the same interests, instead of being happy for everyone to make their own decisions and choose their own interests. The gun shooting is a required social ritual, similar to prayer. You can tell because there's no flexibility to adjust it when it doesn't make much sense (as with a blind person). It's not about making rational sense, it's about social signaling.

The third rule is about guild systems. patio11 advises become skillful at what certain other people want, to please them, instead of figuring out what skills are the most rationally useful and pursuing those.

By learning and following social rules like these, patio11 has gotten ahead in life and received various rewards. At a cost to rationality. He's gotten better at pleasing others, but worse at figuring out what is an objectively good life and doing that. Instead of focusing on his own values, he's learned all kinds of ways to get along with people socially and please them.

Rather than openly acknowledge the tradeoffs, people view learning and meeting (and exceeding) social expectations as life effectiveness. They sacrifice their individual soul to the group, and don't even realize there is a question to consider about what to do.

Most people muddle through their life, including social life, without understanding what's going on very well, or why. patio11 understands how the social rules work more clearly, but still doesn't critically question them.

I find this all very sad. Smart people live bad lives, wasting so much potential. And even go around advising others to do the same. Well, I advise the opposite. Don't focus on pleasing others. Focus on pleasing yourself. No they aren't the same thing. Your personal preferences don't just happen to coincidentally match the intrusive preferences others have for you.

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (0)

All Authority is Social Authority

People think there's different types of authority. One guy might have high social status, be a leader of a social group. He has social authority. Another guy might be a "leading intellectual" with "intellectual authority".

But "intellectual authority" is a contradiction. Reason doesn't work by authority.

What's actually going on is that all authority is social authority.

That "leading intellectual" has a type of social status. It comes from his socially-accepted reputation, which comes from things like socially-accepted reputation-deciders. Like the people who are socially anointed as legitimately able to decide who is worthy of a Ph.D. or a (socially) prestigious award.

(Similarly, there is no intellectual prestige. All prestige is social prestige.)

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (0)

Social Dynamics: Cruz, Trump and PUA

Some knowledge about social dynamics from pick up artists applies to politics. Candidates aim to gain a social status advantage over their rivals. It's not the only factor in how people vote, but it's a big one.

Long-Time Leaders of Conservative Movement Unite in Support of Ted Cruz

“There are two big differences between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz that explain why I think Cruz will prevail,” Bozell says.

“First, in every other clash between a competing candidate and Trump it was that candidate picking a fight with Trump. In this case it was Trump picking a fight with Cruz out of necessity,” Bozell notes.

“Second, in this case it is Trump who sounds angry. Cruz is responding with humor,” he adds.

“The more this plays itself out, the more it is being established that Cruz is the real conservative and Donald Trump is a charlatan,” Bozell concludes on the Trump-Cruz matchup.

This analysis has some good points. It's a good start. But real social dynamics style ideas can add more. I'll talk about reactivity and the law of least effort.

Trump is the more reactive one. He's reacting to Cruz more than Cruz reacts to Trump. This is contrary to Trump's previous fights where he was the less reactive one.

The article says Cruz is in a good spot because Trump picked the fight with Cruz. That's less accurate. You can pick a fight with someone and get them to react more than you. If you poke them a little and they have a big reaction, now they look bad.

Initiating means you are reacting to them. But it doesn't mean that you react more to them overall. Whoever picks a fight is more often the more reactive person, but not always.

Another way to look at reactivity is: it's about who is living their own life with their own strong frame, and who is leaving their world to go visit the other person and give them attention on their terms. Going to pick a fight with someone is a disadvantage here. But it's not game over. If an attacked person gets defensive, that shows a weak frame and that they are reacting to the attacks, so then they can lose this social context.

Cruz has dealt with Trumps attacks with poise. He hasn't gotten overly defensive. He hasn't started accepting Trump's premises or framing of the issues. And he hasn't started reacting a lot. Cruz does react, but less than Trump is reacting to Cruz. Cruz is the more calm and chill person in their squabble.

Trump comes off as more interested in talking about Cruz, and interacting with Cruz, than vice versa. Trump is seeking out Cruz and reacting to what Cruz does (e.g. go up in the polls) more than vice versa.

Note that the media in general, which has attacked Trump so much, has been the more reactive and higher effort party there. That's helped Trump.

The law of least effort also provides some insight. In short, whoever appears to put less effort into an interaction has higher social status.

Trump is appearing to put more effort into going after Cruz than the effort Cruz is putting into doing anything about Trump. So Cruz looks better here.

Cruz has highlighted this pretty clearly. He's said some stuff about he's on Trump's mind and Trump is tweeting so much about him.

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (17)

Disney Movies Are Immoral Propaganda

i'm watching Frozen. i watched aladdin trilogy yesterday.

the messaging is really evil

like the let it go song, and the stuff about crazy.

and everythign about love

it's life ruiningly bad ideas

and the approach to emotions

aladdin is full of lying and forgiveness

all of them are full of non-communication problems

jasmine forgives aladdin's repeated lies b/c she FEELS GOOD when doing romance with him

iago reminds her of how she felt on a date with aladdin, from a couple days ago, and she'd like forgotten. then relives the feelings and forgives him with no problem solving.

the role of music and dancing and clothing in life is bad too in the movies

the movies have major evil like every other scene

like ana and cristof just jumped the ravine from the wolves

and he makes up a stupid lying excuse to still help her – she won't buy him a new sled if she dies.

he also makes an awful comment about not helping ANYONE in the future, b/c of this particular incident

and then she's like "oh u will [come]? i mean, i'll let you tag along"

which is a like intentionally blatant lie

like playing it off cool, but badly. which is a thing

ppl find it more defensible b/c it's not very clever or sneaky or something

being superficially socially uncalibrated IS CALIBRATED in certain ways, contexts, etc

similar to the stuff about "can i say something crazy?" she does with hans earlier

just acknowledging she (claims to) knows what she's saying is "crazy" makes it ok to say

if u want to do something crazy, but don't know it's crazy, that'd be bad

but if you know it's crazy and want to do it anyway, and it's the right kind of thing, now that's good

it's partly a massive dishonest exaggeration of their deviance

makes them more unique, rebelliious, non-comformist, quirky

but what was her "crazy" idea? a very old trope. love at first sight. a princess marrying a prince she doesn't know well.

it's convention masquerading as craziness

the movies are like this THROUGHOUT

evil after evil after evil

the world doesn't want the information that disney is evil propaganda that destroys their children. which isn't really accurate. it's just selling the kids on the same bad ideas their parents already have and are selling too.

ppl need to learn to see it themselves, not be told the points individually by me

a few demonstrations and examples are good. but i already have provided hundreds of those.

they meet the talking walking snowman and freak out. very very uncalm, rash, stupid.

disney portrays these large character flaws as fun normalcy for kids.

now olaf the snowman is singing a song about how he wants summer, like tanning at the beach and stuff. he's ignorant of melting. the whole song is teaching kids about how to make fun of people, and read between the lines, and not communicate directly, and how that's good and fun and normal.

cristof is like "i'm gonna tell him" and ana says "don't you dare" in a voice tone.

the message is telling ppl the truth is bad

positive emotions trump truth.

early on there was a really blatant attack on capitalism and trade. calling it exploitation. that's marxism!

ana climbing icy steep mountainside with no gear is like "i'm just gonna block u out cuz i gotta concentrate here"

their interactions are full of kinda mean and hostile and stupid banter presented as fun and good

after failing to climb, ana makes transparent, stupid, defensive excuses for her stupidity, and isn't contradicted

it's not presented that way. the voice tones, atmospheres, vibes, character reactions, etc, all lie about the underlying nature of the interactions.

these movies in general portray problems as solved by people being in the right emotional states, and caused by being in the wrong emotional states. elsa freezes stuff cuz fear. ana is positive and happy, so thinks elsa can unfreeze no problem. but elsa thinks she can't cuz she's being negative. says she doesn't know how. later she will unfreeze without learning how, just by changing mood.

they never have rational discussions about anything

that's just not a thing to even consider

elsa causing problems by literally trying not to feel emotions. her dialog is "don't feel. don't feel". the visual imagery shows she's having negative feelings.

she tries to suppress emotions by force of will, and this works out badly. lesson? embrace even "crazy" positive emotions, like ana. especially love.

the trolls are now embarrassing the fuck out of their FRIEND christoff. singing a song attacking various minor traits he has as flaws. this is portrayed as somehow friendly and just kinda over-enthusiastic. it's got the thinnest veneer of helping – they are asking why ana doesn't pursue love relationship with him, what's the blocker. so then they list lots of potential bad things about him.

it's very intrusive about relationship, and done on initial meeting.

lyrics include saying ppl make bad choices if mad or scared or stressed

which is like explicitly what i was saying the movie's messaging was about emotions

and they don't respect at all that she's already engaged.

the movies portray pets as humans a lot. they also have a ton of selective attention on the main characters.

olaf says "love is putting someone else's needs before yours". so: sacrifice, altruism.

elsa unthaws kingdom cuz she feels lovey

then ppl cheer for ana's petty violence and petty insult against hans.

oh look now kristoff is being super beta and getting affirmative consent to kiss ana

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Message (1)

Silly Song

What Makes You Beautiful Lyrics

You're turning heads when you walk through the door

song sings about girl turning heads when she walks thru door. but like they can’t see she’s hot BEFORE they turn their head. so it doesn’t actually make much sense. or if they could already see her, they don’t have to turn head, yaknow?

You don't know you're beautiful, oh oh,
That's what makes you beautiful

also the song says what makes her beautiful is ignorance of the beautiful face she spent 2 hours in front of a mirror designing before the party. blatant fucking lie? and is that ignorance what ppl r looking at when they turn their heads..?

Everyone else in the room can see it,
Everyone else but you

she'd have to be terribly naive and ignorant to have no clue how people see her. especially given lots of people have told her by hitting on her, singing love songs to her about her beauty, etc. do they want her to be naive about our society's thinking on sex so she's easier to fuck? sounds unrealistic. maybe they just want her to pretend to be naive about it so she seems more like a virgin. a lot of girls do that kinda thing. they put on an act about their sexual inexperience and then lots of guys like fucking them more. it's very silly.

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (6)

Moana Review

You will learn more if you watch the movie first and write down your own thoughts before reading mine, so you can compare.

Moana is better than Frozen but has some nasty stuff about identity ("who you are"), emotions, and not needing skill. Also, like Frozen, it doesn't have a serious evil bad guy. I don't think Disney wants to admit there's evil in the world anymore. There's no character anything like Scar from The Lion King or Jafar from Aladdin. Not even close.

Moana starts when she’s like 2yo and her dad disrupts her important activity, without knowing what she was doing or why, and ignores her protests. he drags her away from the magic powers, wonderland, etc. then he says she will grow up to be chief but first she needs to learn “where she belongs”. learn your place, don’t go to the ocean!

then it glorifies primitive life. “the island gives us what we need” (they should try watching the Alone TV show to see how realistic that is). primitive island tribe life seems to consist of way more dancing than manual labor. and "we share everything we make" is so anti-Objectivist and collectivist.

moana sings (paraphrasing): i try to be the perfect daughter, but no matter how hard i try i still disobey (b/c my dad is wrong)

moana's world sucks because her people forget their identity. but she magically suspected it from birth and has a quick little magic shamanic journey to find out.

moana goes out, alone, to face the scary unknown on the ocean without bothering to even learn how to sail a boat first. b/c her heart told her to.

Moana has a strong and powerful male lead so that's an improvement over Frozen. the man and the woman have to work together, using both of their different strengths, to succeed. it's not great or anything. but that tradition is way better than the modern radical attack on it for the purpose of destruction. it's hard to reform anything when it's under attack by enemies. i'm not an enemy of our culture's traditions, just a would-be reformer. i'd much rather have people stick to old ideas than make things worse. i try to make sure my criticism of society isn't aligned with radical leftist and SJW agendas. i try to clearly separate myself from them and point out how they are worse than the traditional aspects of society which i criticize.

Some lyrics

Moana go now

Moana don't stall

Don't worry 'bout how

Just answer the call of the sea

Not worrying about how, just proceeding, is stupid. Moana at least does some training after she's on her journey.

The overall meaning of the movie is as follows (notice this is basically good):

Society is stagnating and failing. It can't go on without any change. But it resists change. Moana is young and naive and willing to think outside the box. Her dad tells her to stop, but she does it anyway.

Change is scary, but Moana chooses to be heroic. She has setbacks and doubts, but keeps trying. It's hard, but she doesn't expect to be pampered. She isn't looking for a stress-free life on easy street. She succeeds at harnessing the power of the scary unknown and brings it back to her society which begins a new era of flourishing. By courageously facing and solving scary problems, Moana was a pioneer, and her individual actions changed the world while the bulk of her society did nothing.

For points of comparison, I'll summarize three more Disney movies. BTW, thanks to Jordan Peterson for his analysis of Lion King and Pinocchio which is great.

Lion King is about the danger to society from evil, and how heroic actions can defeat evil. Simba's father dies because society is blind to its evil side. Simba spends the middle of the movie being irresponsible, but then he realizes his error and decides to do better. Part of why he reforms is that he disappointed the girl. He's also aided by a shamanic journey, which basically means he does some introspection. Facing Scar is a stressful challenge, but Simba is able to succeed. This is pretty good.

Pinocchio is about a young boy growing up. He receives a lecture on morality which doesn't make any sense, because society is terrible at explaining morality logically, so that's a typical experience of children. Then he goes along with temptation which offers him rewards (fame and money) without the effort of education, even though his conscience (Jiminy Cricket) warns him. Pinocchio is generally passive and irresponsible, rather than taking charge of his own life. He gets a second chance and pursues temptation again (the easy fun of Pleasure Island). The excuse used is that he's sick and instant gratification will cure him. Pinocchio manages to escape before losing his humanity, but still has to face a difficult challenge (the whale) to put his life back together. He finally acts responsibly and heroically, and succeeds. This is pretty good.

In Frozen, Elsa nearly kills her sister Anna by not keeping herself under control. The danger is real. Nevertheless, the lesson she learns later is to "Let It Go", stop trying to control herself, and embrace her wild whims and arbitrary emotions. This doesn't make sense.

Anna is a contradictory mix of traits. She's helpless and feminine at times, strong and competent at other times. This fits with the modern lie that girls can be just like boys when they want, but also still be girls when they want. (Life roles don't just arbitrarily mix and match like that. It's hard enough to manage one lifestyle you focus on. Changing lifestyles like masks, at a moment's convenience, is ridiculous. It basically implies that everything people do in life is superficial and simple.)

Anna's love interest is a weak beta male with little to offer.

The theme of the movie is following your emotions. Very bad movie.

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (3)

Analyzing How Far I'll Go

Lyrics from How Far I'll Go, from Disney's Moana.

I've been staring at the edge of the water

The ocean water is a metaphor for the unknown, the Other, for thinking outside the box, for being a pioneer.

Long as I can remember, never really knowing why

People don't understand themselves very well.

I wish I could be the perfect daughter

But I come back to the water, no matter how hard I try

Moana tries to follow her society's rules and fit in like her dad wants her to. "Perfect" refers to perfect conformity.

But she can't do it. Many people are content to just go with the flow of their society, but Moana is an ambitious hero. And as as the movie plot indicates (Moana's actions are necessary and help her society), society needs some people who stand out, some explorers, pioneers and nonconformists.

Every turn I take, every trail I track

Every path I make, every road leads back

To the place I know where I cannot go

Where I long to be

Moana faces a conflict with her society. She tries to fit in, but there's friction. This is normal. Society tramples on the individual some. It may be pretty good, but it's not going to be a perfect fit for everyone. This is a common problem, especially for children, but most people accept their place as they grow up.

See the line where the sky meets the sea.
It calls me
And no one knows, how far it goes

Society doesn't understand the world outside the society.

The line is a boundary line. Crossing a line is similar to breaking a rule. Moana wants to cross lines.

If the wind in my sail on the sea stays behind me
One day I'll know

Moana wants to push boundaries. She wants to go beyond her society's current knowledge.

This isn't a challenge to her society. She isn't attacking her society. She isn't calling it oppressive. She doesn't think the new knowledge will harm her society. She thinks it will be good. And in the movie, it is good for everyone.

Notice the if. Her plan involves uncertainty. The unknown involves unpredictability.

If I go there's just no telling how far I'll go

When you're a pioneer, you never know where the journey will take you. Once you step outside society's boundaries, there's no more societal structure to guide your or limit how far you go.

I know everybody on this island seems so happy, on this island
Everything is by design

Society has reasons for how it's organized. And it makes people happy and works pretty well.

I know everybody on this island has a role, on this island
So maybe I can roll with mine

People have roles in society. People try to figure out a role which works both for them and for society. Moana has a role which is accessible to her (chieftain's daughter who will later be chief), and has been trying to make herself want it. But she wants to be a pioneer.

I can lead with pride, I can make us strong
I'll be satisfied if I play along

She sees good things about the life role her society is offering her. She can accomplish worthwhile things within the role. She thinks she should be able to play the role and be satisfied, like other people do. (Or at least appear to do. Many others have similar struggles like Moana. But they don't always talk about it, and they often become satisfied and play along as they grow up.)

But the voice inside sings a different song
What is wrong with me?

Moana thinks something is wrong with her because she doesn't fit into her place in society. She has put a lot of effort into fitting in, but it's still not working. She wants something different.

See the light as it shines on the sea.

Moana wants to explore the sea (the unknown beyond her society's little world). The light on the sea is positive symbolism. Light is holy, moral and illuminating. This is partly because light lets us see, and seeing lets us understand and deal with the world.

A dictionary definition of "illuminate" is "help to clarify or explain".

It's blinding

But the sea is difficult to deal with. Her society is blind to what the unknown is like. Moana can't currently see the world she wants to explore, but she believes it will be illuminating to go there.

But no one knows, how deep it goes

The unknown is scary and dangerous. You don't know how to control and organize it and put it in a safe, bounded structure.

And it seems like it's calling out to me, so come find me

And let me know

What's beyond that line, will I cross that line?

Moana wants to cross lines (explore outside boundaries, break rules). She's inspired to do this. She finds it appealing. She has an energetic, adventurous, heroic spirit.

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (8)

Frozen Comments

female "equality" is a type of feminist social justice, and is a major theme in Frozen.

let’s have 2 female leads and a weak man, and call it equality… uhhhhhhhh

another major social justice idea is that existing social structures are oppressive. which is also a main Frozen theme. it presents following your emotions as the solution to this oppression. the rules are mean, so ignore them and replace with whim and be free and empowered.

lion king says existing social structures can be oppressive or not. depends who’s in charge. Scar was oppressive but that was a solvable problem without getting rid of the structure.

but Frozen says you can’t reconcile existing social structures with your emotions, identity, etc

Moana sings about “who you are” and has some identity shit. and it says this causes some mild friction with society. but that fundamentally Moana is compatible with society and is even celebrated by her society without the society losing its nature or values.

in Lion King, when Simba accepts his societal role, function, duty and responsibilities, he makes things better. his responsibilities weren’t oppressing him, they were guiding him to do the right thing which was best for everyone.

in Pinocchio, when he acts responsibly, he saves his father from the whale and he becomes a real boy. first he acts contrary to his conscience, to society’s ideas, and makes his life a mess. then he acts more like how he knew he should (how society and his conscience say to) and that got his back life in order.

Moana is irresponsible in mild ways. a bit reckless. but what matters is: she decides to do something hard because it’s important for her society in a way that’s bigger than herself. it’s also personally fulfilling. that’s compatible. she decides to take on a burden, a responsibility, a difficult heroic quest.

and the Moana plague, Pinocchio whale and Scar tyrant are all like objective problems in the world. as opposed to Frozen where the primary problem is Elsa being emo, not the political plot. Simba being dumb in the middle is not the primary problem in the movie.

Pinocchio is dumb and is responsible for some of his own problems. but his emotion following is portrayed as bad. he wasn’t supposed to give in to temptation. (as opposed to Frozen where they are supposed to give in to their emotions). and then Pinocchio faces a major challenge in the world after.

Moana is never very dumb. at her worst, she thinks she’s failed and wants to give up. one scene later to give her some wisdom, she’s back at it.

in Moana, her semi-love-interest is an older man with a large power imbalance in his favor (he’s a demigod…). he’s cocky, funny and initially dismissive to Moana. he’s high status and knows it and is literally willing to say so. Moana is strong enough to push back and earn some respect.

http://www.metrolyrics.com/youre-welcome-lyrics-disney.html

I see what's happening yeah 
You're face to face with greatness and it's strange 
You don't even know how you feel 
It's adorable! 
Well, it's nice to see that humans never change 
Open your eyes, let's begin 
Yes, it's really me 
It's Maui, breathe it in 
I know its a lot; the hair, the bod 
When you're staring at a demigod 
What can I say except you're welcome 
For the tides, the sun, the sky 
Hey, it's okay, it's okay, you're welcome

that’s how his song begins when she meets him. and he shit tests her by sealing her in a cave with a giant boulder and stealing her boat and leaving

Anna doesn’t decide to be a hero. she doesn’t choose to face the dangers like wolves or giant snowman, they just happen to her. she never starts acting responsibly on purpose

she keeps gossiping. she’s super social. that’s not typical of adventure movies. but she spends her time talking and then like actually does things as a minor aside.

simba knows scar is dangerous and faces it anyway. same with pinocchio and sea+whale. same with Moana and maui, crab and fire boss

anna says elsa isn’t dangerous when she goes on journey

she isn’t setting out to face the scary unknown or slay a dragon. she’s just trying to talk with her sister like at home.

Anna’s most heroic moment is when she gets hit by a sword. b/c of self-sacrificing love, not courage. at least she knew she was stepping into danger (tho she was about to die anyway)

Moana sings about trying to choose a role in life (chief or explorer)

roles Ana plays include: clumsy-adorable girl, falling in romantic love girl, helpless girl who needs to be rescued, breadwinning provider, gossip, martyr, badguy puncher (in a comic way without strength), dismissive beta-orbiter-target

she doesn’t really play a princess role, but she does abuse her office to give Kristoff a job

she fakes confidence in a social way a couple times on journey

she never does anything to learn, grow, train, skill-up as is pretty standard in these movies.

the movie is about letting go of the structural organization of society, not having roles in life to guide you, and replacing it all with emotions – especially love.

Frozen also has no strong characters. the giant snowman/monster or random guards are the closest. the hero doesn’t even fight the monster. she just leaves and the bad guys fight it

the movie is so confused. changing the bad guy into the sister will do that, i guess.

the movie doesn’t even know if “cold” is good or bad. it can’t keep its metaphors straight b/c of the role change. she has cold powers. which are good, sorta. but Let It Go ends with “The cold never bothered me anyway.” besides a lie, this is a use of the regular meaning of cold (as bad)

and in Let It Go (all Frozen lyrics), Elsa sings:

And I'll rise like the break of dawn.

and

Here I stand, in the light of day.

But then when Anna shows up, Elsa sings:

Please go back home, your life awaits

Go enjoy the sun and open up the gates

It's contradictory about the sun. Elsa was singing how she gets to be in the sun now, but then she's like "nah you go be in the sun Anna".

later the trolls sing:

We’re not saying you can change her, ‘cuz people don’t really change  
We’re only saying that love of course is powerful and strange  
People make bad choices if they’re mad, or scared, or stressed  
Throw a little love their way and you’ll bring out their best  
True love brings out their best!

Frozen says Love is an Open Door (that's another song title)

Frozen replaces the hero’s journey with the lover’s journey.

in Frozen, you don’t pioneer by facing the unknown, you pioneer by falling in love... in regular movies you explore the scary unknown world and face challenges in the world. in Frozen, you explore your own emotions, and the challenges are your own emotions, and pretty much the whole world consists of emotions.

Frozen is a super social movie all about talking, relationships and emotions. it's heavy on romance, love, and dishonesty. Anna lies about her assertiveness with Kristoff and later lies about letting him tag along (faking non-needy high status even on a snowy mountain, because she thinks social reality always matters more than real reality). And Anna doesn't want Kristoff to tell the truth to Olaf about summer melting snowmen. And then there's what Elsa sings (emphasis added)

Don't let them in, don't let them see 
Be the good girl you always have to be 
Conceal, don't feel, put on a show 
Make one wrong move and everyone will know

Putting on a show means lying.

A "wrong move" consists of one that lets everyone know. She's trying to hide the truth from them. She wants them blind ("don't let them see"). She wants them not to have knowledge. She considers enlightening and illuminating wrong.

The cold never bothered me anyway.

The cold did bother her. This is such a standard, modern, social lie. People say they didn't care anyway about stuff they did care about. Like if they don't get invited to a party they lie that they didn't want to go anyway.

And what are Elsa's ice powers a metaphor for? They are something about she doesn't fit in, she's not normal, and when she's emotional she can hurt people. I think the movie is ambiguous and Elsa is meant to fit many types of not fitting in, rather than it being about a particular type. As an example, Elsa could be a lesbian and trying to hide it (the voice actors like the idea). That would fit the movie fine. But the movie is vague and it could easily be something else instead, like she's a nervous dork. Or she could think she's a C student working really hard to get A's, but she's not smart enough for the perfect student role and worries she'll be revealed as a fraud if she slips up. Or she could be a non-cheerleader who worries if she slips up with her makeup and lets them see a pimple then people will realize she's not the beautiful girl she tries to present as. There are lots of ways people get nervous, worried and stressed. They try to fit into a role in society, and especially early on they aren't perfect at it and worry people will recognize the mismatch. And then they sometimes lash out when the pressure and stress upsets them. The pressure is often more self-imposed than the realize, but there's also frequently some genuine, important external pressures which they resent.

What is Frozen's solution? if you don't fit in, blame society. do whatever you feel like and people should be happy to support you. Frozen has no respect for the reasons society is organized as it is, no understanding of the purposes of society's structural organization. Frozen seems to think people can change their place in the world about as fast as they can change emotions.

Read my previous comments on Frozen.

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (3)

The Intellectual Social Game

GISTE wrote:

how does this concept of knowledge being contextual connect to parenting?

if a parent sees a problem with something his child is doing, it’s crucial for the parent to consider the child’s reasons for doing it. without incorporating the child’s reasons in the knowledge creation process, the parent is ignoring the context of the knowledge the child is acting on. doing so would reliably have the effect of the child either dismissing the parent's idea, or obeying it. instead, parent should ask child why he’s doing what he’s doing (to the extent the child wants such discussion), in order to help the child, and himself, evolve their initial ideas towards mutual understanding and agreement.

GISTE is playing the intellectual social game. that's why he uses words like "crucial", "incorporating", "reliably" and "evolve". and it's why he wrote a long paragraph with overly complex structure. (btw he made it a bullet point list but it's the only thing on the list. i didn't just omit the other bullet points from the quote.)

i call it a social game because people learn to play this game from other people, and it involves interacting with other people.

people learn social games by observing what others do and then try to approximate it themselves. this is how they learn other social games like smalltalk, being in an audience, or parenting.

the "game" terminology is used by Thomas Szasz and Jordan Peterson. i don't know who originated it.

they are games because there's a set of rules people are following. and if you play well, you get rewards (e.g. people like you, think you're smart, and want to play with you again).

the rules for social games are mostly unwritten. (some people are trying to change that, e.g. the Girls Chase book writes down a bunch of social dynamics and dating rules).

how do you learn a game with unwritten rules? you watch what other people do and copy it. (and maybe you make some mistakes and get punished and learn to be conservative.) that's how people learn social interaction.

this is why people don't do intellectual discussion in a precise, rigorous way. because they're just copying approximately what they say other people do, rather than understanding how to think, how discussion can facilitate learning, etc.

part of the intellectual discussion game is writing big words and fancy sentences. so people do that. even if you tell them not to. they are bad at learning from and following written rules. it's not how most people deal with life at all. (some people are good at following written rules in a specific area, e.g. programmers. but they're still usually normal people outside of their speciality.)

science works (or doesn't work...) mostly by people trying to copy the science game from other scientists, not by them learning the scientific method from a book and then following it.

the science game as practiced by most scientists living today is primarily a social game. it involves popularity, social status in the field, people with more authority and more control over money and hiring, people who get published in more or less prestigious journals, people with or without tenure, etc

and books don't tell you how to play the science social game and succeed in your interactions with other people. how do you get a reputation as a genius, get invited to the best parties, get paid well, get to decide who else is paid well (give out rewards to friends and allies), etc? you look at other people who are succeeding at these games and try to understand how it works.

you actually should read some books, btw, to do well at those games. but not books about science. stuff more like How To Win Friends and Influence People. most people don't read much, though i think reading books like that is more common with the most successful people.

people even use words as a social game. words have written rules (the dictionary). but people don't primarily learn how to use words from the dictionary. they hear and read other people using words, then they try to use those words in similar ways. they just guess the meanings from real world usage. it's very informal and error-prone.

people commonly correct others on mistaken word use when they are playing the social game badly. some word uses make you look like a child, fool, or ignoramus. people punish those with social rebukes.

but people rarely correct others just because their word usage is wrong according to the dictionary. (most people don't even know what the dictionary says, anyway, so they can't correct those mistakes.) so people end up misunderstanding many words and using them wrong.

this leads to problems when they try to discuss with someone like me who knows what words actually mean and uses the dictionary regularly. we're playing different games. i think my way is correct and has major advantages for truth seeking, so i don't want to switch games. and the other people don't know how to switch games. so it's hard to discuss.

people's use of words is very imprecise because it's based on loose guesses from what other people say. they don't know precisely what words mean. they just know enough to communicate with normal people without being rebuked.

people's arguments are imprecise because they use words imprecisely. and because their approach to arguing is to learn it as a social game. the whole social game approach involves lots of approximation and doing things that are sorta in the right ballpark and hoping no one says anything bad about it.

GISTE's approach to philosophy discussion works like that. (and it's the same for most other people). he knows what kinds of things people say in the intellectual discussion social game, and he strongly resists talking in a different way (e.g. more simple, clear, and childlike).

the quote above isn't even very bad, btw. people write way worse stuff all the time.

some of the professionals even study Kant in order to learn to make their writing harder to understand. then it filters down. non-philosopher intellectuals copy intellectual game playing behavior from academic philosophers. then some lesser intellectuals copy them and write material for more sophisticated lay people who pass it on to typical lay people who pass it on to idiots.

this is why it's so hard to find serious truth-seeking discussion. who does that? everyone just learns the intellectual social game instead!

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (3)

Sucking In Your Gut

A few days ago, my female friend mentioned that most females suck in their gut, a lot of the time, in order to look thinner. Women are actually relieved that they don't have to do this while pregnant and say: The best part of being pregnant? You don't have to suck in your gut!

I didn't know women were sucking in their guts all the time. She said she would have told me sooner, but it's so common that she assumed I already knew...

After investigating online, we discovered that many men do it too. Lots of people write on Reddit about how they are so used to sucking in their gut that they don't even notice or think about it anymore. And many women were told to suck in their gut by a mother or grandmother. Samples:

I wanted to go on a diet at 13 and my mom yelled, "No! Just suck in your gut".

I've never stopped since.

When I was 12 years old, my grandmother saw me one day standing with my belly hanging forward. I was not necessarily fat, or bulky, just in my "childhood innocence" I had enough courage to walk around without tensing my gut or holding my abs.

My granny got extremely upset at me, and with one sentence of:

"Young woman should never look fat. Suck that belly in."

People even believe it's disrespectful not to suck in your gut:

I was always taught to suck in my belly and stick out my chest when I'm outside especially when I'm talking to people. Shows that you care about how you look and thus means respect to the person.

Many women claim they don't wear makeup, as if that meant they weren't shallow. But those women often dye their hair, blow dry, get stylish haircuts regularly, wear red lip gloss, use scented soaps, wear uncomfortable shoes and fashionable dresses, check their appearance in the mirror before going outside, and suck in their guts.

Why are there more male programmers than female programmers? Some people blame sexism and biased hiring, denying the fact that, today, fewer women are skilled programmers. (Those same people also complain that fewer women are computer science majors, which is an indication it's not actually a hiring bias since there are fewer women trained to do programming). Other people blame genetics and say women are biologically less suited to the kinds of intelligence used in programming, math, science, economics, etc.

I disagree. I think most women spend more time sucking in their gut and adjusting their makeup than thinking about programming or math. There are fewer women qualified to be programmers, but it's not due to genetics, it's due to what they pay attention to during their lives.

Why do women focus on social issues like sucking in their gut? Most of all, because their mothers told them to. Secondarily, yes, people are mean if you don't look and act how society expects you to. (For example, people make fun of shoes with individual toes. And in the recent past, and still somewhat today, many women didn't wear glasses because they cared more about their appearance than being able to see.)

Women also spend lots of time trying to get along with people in social situations. They try to be friendly and appealing, and avoid conflict. This takes a lot of attention away from topics like programming, which are unrelated to thinking about people and social dynamics.

Men suck in their gut too and also put effort into their appearance and pleasing others in social situations. But not as much as women. That's a very old cultural difference between the genders. Men are more encouraged to take risks and more allowed to be outliers. Women are more encouraged to conform and fit in. (BTW, women do the majority of parenting and school teaching. It's not the patriarchy which is oppressing little girls.)

Some parents now try to avoid pushing a gender role on their child. But they make a mess of it. They don't know how. It isn't trivial! There are complicated intellectual issues here. In order to have much control over what effects you have on your child, you need a very sophisticated understanding of culture, tradition, communication, learning, authority, power imbalances, anti-rational memes, voluntary action, consent, and more. It takes lots of philosophical skill.

As one little example, parents may not realize that telling a little girl to "sit up straight" can encourage her to suck her gut in, and that they say that slightly more often to girls than to boys. Because, to their biased eyes, girls who aren't sucking in their gut look like they're slouching more than boys do. Because the girls are supposed to look thinner than that, so it stands out more when a girl doesn't sit in the socially-approved "proper" way.

So you have a choice to make. Would you rather spend your life sucking in your gut, and conforming in a million other ways? Or would you rather learn to think well?

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (7)

Real World Price Negotiation

context: i have a parking space with my apartment i'm not using and they no longer include spaces with apartments and instead rent them for $100 extra. my building manager just put me in touch with a guy who needed a space.

his texts are in yellow:

Hi Elliot. My name is XXXX I live in XXXXX. MANAGER told me that you have an available parking space. I'm interested in renting it out. How much do you want per month for it?

i'm in green:

hi! yeah it’s space XXX and i’m in #XXXX. MANAGER mentioned $80/month, would that work for you?

I was paying $55 for my previous space. Can we get closer to there?

ok let’s meet at 70, alright? i heard the full price is 100 now.

Can we do $65? I can send the money to you today. I can PayPal or Venmo you.

i think 70 is fair since that’s $30 off, ok? my paypal is curi@curi.us or there’s a link: https://www.paypal.me/ElliotTemple

Done.

great, thanks. enjoy the space.

my notes on the negotiation:

i was friendly and positive. i didn't communicate being an adversary. same with him.
i didn't let on that i know anything about negotiating and presented as potentially incompetent, which is fine. he was more direct about negotiating.
i knew going in that by saying 80 i might not get it and i'd be happy with 75 or 70. i intentionally used question marks b/c i didn't want to fuck things up if he didn't know he could negotiate.
after he said 55 i guessed we had mutual benefit from the entire range from 55 to 80 (and actually probably both higher and lower than that!)
he might be dishonest b/c my building manager told me he'd been paying 60 to rent a space previously (the guy he was renting a space from moved out). he mentioned that b/c he thought it was low and hadn't been updated for a long time. alternatively it could easily be the manager getting the number wrong rather than this guy lying. best not to mention it anyway.
i considered saying 75 instead of 70, especially in case he wanted to meet in the middle after the 70. like counter 60 and then ask to meet in middle. i decided to put some framing to discourage iterative negotiating and specifically rule out the meet in the middle reply. many ppl interpret iterative negotiating as unpleasant, cold, and mean. so i gave enough ground immediately to limit negotiation and not offend a potentially economically illiterate anti-capitalist person with penny pinching who might not actually want to negotiate beyond his initial comment.
i could have saved the $100 fact in case of pushback, but again chose to front load things rather than have more iteration
he was clever by treating his offer to pay today and with paypal as a forward progress concession or reason for saying 65. one needs an excuse to keep things friendly. the first time he had a good excuse for pushback of bringing up the previous rate, and the second time he used that.
when i pushed back on his 65 i was going to immediately accept 65 if he pushed back on 70 a second time. i hesitated before doing it, but decided that even if he still didn't want 70 it wouldn't ruin the deal. (and yeah realistically i could have gotten more since his alternative is to pay 100, but i didn't think it was worth trying to really minmax overall).
i used a non-reason reason which is a standard, good negotiating tactic but also hilarious and stupid. i had already mathematically told him i was giving him $30 off. but i just stated the discount as if it was a reason (possibly coming off dumb in the process) and it worked... also i called my offer fair which isn't an argument about what number is fair.
i have read about similar non-reason reasons like if you want to cut in line people will supposedly let you do it more if you say "because [anything]". although i haven't checked the study methodology, the actual reasoning and psychology makes sense to me. see e.g. http://lifehacker.com/5824481/how-to-convince-people-to-let-you-cut-in-line it's kinda funny. mine was more of a reason than that crap (can i cut in line for the xerox b/c i have to make some copies? lol)
i decided pushing back to keep the 70 once was worthwhile since it's a recurring payment.
i didn't think trying to aggressively get a higher value (only an option earlier on) was worthwhile though.
on TV shows like Pawn Stars or Comic Book Men where you see people negotiate, the professional (e.g. store employee) often does a pretty limited amount of iterating and will hold firm (or slip just one more time a little ways) after doing a fair, serious offer early on. people will try to give small increments and they are often willing to not reciprocate repeatedly and just hold firm. this is mildly socially hostile and difficult, but they are good at it, and it's easier b/c of their position: they are making a business decision for a store that has to make a profit, and they have expert knowledge of the actual value of the item, and they also can present their offers as being according to standard store negotiation policies that treat all customers fairly – it's hard to accuse them of trying to take advantage of you individually (and they aren't that i've ever seen).
presenting as someone who might dislike negotiation, be irrational about money, care about social graces, etc, made it harder for him to aggressively push me for a lower rate.

negotiation is fun and interesting!

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (0)

Social Dynamics & Mailchimp Broke A Link

In my newsletter today (sign up!), I wrote:

I enjoyed reading a different perspective on social dynamics. It is broadly reasonable and reaches lots of my conclusions in different ways than the ones I'm more familiar with.

Unfortunately, Mailchimp (the big email sending service I'm using) modified the URL and broke it. And this link currently has more than double the clicks of the second most popular link. So hopefully some people will see this post and be able to view a working link (above). And here's a separate backup link.

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (0)

DJ Khaled is Awful

(Typed in real time while watching DJ Khaled's show at the Overwatch League Finals. Twitch video link, Khaled comes up 45min in.)

jfc watching DJ Khaled at overwatch finals

he comes on stage and starts telling DHV story about the celebs he hangs out with and how busy he is with other concerts

then starts doing really bland, basic audience interaction games

kinda like basic flirty touch games u play with a 19yo girl u wanna fuck (KEEP IT SIMPLE)

the audience is rather passive but he just pretends they are doing a lot

you see that kinda lying a lot. e.g. b4 that there was an OK play – nothing very special – being hyped up as an INSANE play at LENGTH

they just figure if they SAY things are great, ppl will believe it without checking

just keeping saying it and never break frame

anyway Khaled is so basic and transparent and no one would be impressed by anything he did so far if he was low status.

and i’m thinking why is he on stage, getting paid the big bucks? and the audience, will kinda passive about the interactions, i think mostly does like him and a lot of them did some halfhearted, belated participation (he just kept doing it for minutes)

answer: THEY ARE BLUE PILL. they would never think of his story as a DHV story, they just take it at … not face value, but the value assigned to it by the social rules they utterly obey but never speak of

earlier the overwatch league commissioner was on for a bit and he said some bullshit about how great the audience and fans are. then he said: [but i’m not just saying that to pander, it’s true]. and they fucking cheered him for doubling down on his lying so blatantly

saying forms of “i’m not just lying” is common. and ppl believe it or something, even tho it’s only said when one would normally be suspected of lying, and it has no substance and any scumbag liar can easily say it.

they rarely use the word “lying” tho. mentioning lying would make it seem like they were lying. he didn’t say “pandering” either. i forget what he actually said

they just say something that means “u might assume i’m lying but i’m not lying”

and somehow that is socially calibrated and impresses ppl. what a culture…

it expresses awareness that most of the OTHER ppl saying similar things are liars

and then both sides just pretend THIS interaction is a special snowflake exception

NAWALT. and not all announcers are like that, either? he’s not. he said so!

Khaled is spending more time promoting himself than anything else

and ppl r impressed. cuz he promoted himself. so they see him as high status.

the promotion is working on them. he’s doing it to their faces, as part of the show

omg he’s now saying “family first always” and “i represent families” and doing some of the most generic bullshit shout outs i’ve ever heard to families in general

i’m pro-family!

he’s worse than a fucking politician

he said he’s pro-God too

then he says he’s gonna be exciting and hype to intro starting some music again

his music doesn’t speak for itself. he spends a large portion of his stage time SAYING he’s exciting.

now he’s pro New York. the show is in new york. then himself again.

he has ppl’s hands ALREADY in the sky then says: if ur NYer, raise hands. (are the non NY-ers gonna LOWER their hands now?)

then says if ur a fan of him, raise hands

so everyone sees other ppl’s hands up and thinks they are fans

it’s such fucking blatant manipulation and everyone is a blind blue piller

a few are red pill, but say nothing. they’d be shouted down and hated. so it adds to the apparent popularity

the venue doesn’t allow for dissent, so you never see how many ppl ACTUALLY are fans

this isn’t even a fucking Khaled concert with his own fans, it’s overwatch fans and some of them cheer and he just pretends they are all his fans. strong frame but jeez it’s so obvious

the actual music parts are quite short. lots of DHV talking breaks.

the camera ppl find whatever sections of the crowd are most into it and put those on TV

but u can see in wider shots that plenty of ppl are not into it

they are noticeably reusing some of the most enthusiastic ppl in the crowd

they dim the lights most of the time to make it way harder to see ppl who aren’t doing anything

they have shin stuff everywhere that sparkles in the dim lights and gives an impression the whole audience is into it everywhere, when actually the ppl aren’t doing anything

they just handed out some glowing dot things or put them on the seats or something

that’s another manipulative, fake trick. concerts try to make it look like the fans are super into it but they will pass out glow sticks or stuff cuz it’s self-serving.

he doesn’t try very hard in his dancing and only dances occassionally.

now he says he’s anti “player hating”. he has such bland causes that everyone can agree with

he said SHAME ON THEM about player haters

jfc

what a scape goat lol

not an actual well-defined group. not a group anyone self-identifies as. it just means “ppl i don’t like”

and everyone is like “yeah, i also don’t like the ppl i don’t like”

and assumes he means the same ppl they mean

lol now he’s bragging about his record sales

interrupting the music to tell us how popular his new record is on itunes and in 35 countries

lol he ends bragging with “my records are #1 b/c of you” as if he’s praising the fans, not DHVing himself

and blue pillers eat it up and feel like they helped something important

like when Awesome Games Done Quick raises $1,000,000 and says “we couldn’t have done it without you, viewers” and viewers who donated $5 feel like they were part of a $1,000,000 project and they matter. hell, viewers who didn’t donate feel like they helped too cuz it needs viewers.

i’ve watched other concerts b4 and they were way better, with more music and more dancing. this is so boring.

i’d skip it if i wasn’t commenting

typing while it plays

he’s so repetitive. he just said again that his new record is out, and that you can go buy it at itunes

are these ppl too fucking stupid to know where to buy it? is he calling them retarded? why doesn’t anyone interpret it that way?

how much do u wanna bet half the audience would say they hate advertising?

probably more

fuck advertising, fuck commercialism, fuck big business … but DJ Khaled, bragging again about how he does (commercial) shows with JayZ and Beyonce … he’s cool and real?

he did like 5 advertisements, and some pandering that was worse than stereotypes of politicians, and that’s a music show? that ppl who say they hate politicians cheer for?

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (6)

Analyzing How Culture Manipulates You by Pulling Your Puppet Strings

I watched the first few minutes of How to Train Your Dragon 2 and saved two interesting clips, the opening narration and a social interaction from a few seconds later. This post is only about these clips. Note that this movie is extremely popular. People paid over half a billion dollars to watch it in theaters, like they did for the first movie too. Six seasons of a TV spinoff have been created. A third movie is coming out soon (Feb 22, 2019). Take a look at the clips:

When you watched the clips, did you notice anything? Did you have any opinions? What was good? What was bad? Did you stop to think about them? If you think about it now, can you come up with much without rewatching?

I'm going to guide you through some analysis, instead of just handing you all the answers, so that you can learn more. I want you to think instead of just read what I say and nod your head. Do you want to think?

Write down your comments on the clips (don't watch the clips again, just use your memory). Don't write things you wouldn't normally say. Don't stop being yourself to do analysis. Don't write a bunch of dumb stuff just to have more written down. Don't write what you think I would say. Only write points you think matter: reasons stuff is good or bad that you care about and genuinely, in your own opinion, think is important. Only write things that make sense to you. Don't write down picky criticism you don't care about but you think might be what a pedantic philosopher is looking for. Write your actual beliefs. If you don't see anything wrong with the clips, don't write anything negative. Writing about what you liked is a good idea too.

Writing things down lets you see if your thinking changes at any stage in the process. Don't rely on your memory of what you thought of the clips at first. Put it in writing so you can compare later.

Now that you've written down your initial thoughts, go ahead and rewatch the clips as much as you want and check out these transcripts. After the transcripts are some things to look for and questions to consider, which you can look at immediately, or after considering it more yourself (it's your decision).

Clip 1 transcript

This is Berk. The best kept secret this side of, well, anywhere. Granted it may not look like much, but this wet heap of rock packs more than a few surprises. Life here is amazing, just not for the faint of heart. You see, where most folks enjoy hobbies like whittling or needlepoint, we Berkians prefer a little something we like to call dragon racing.

Clip 2 transcript

Astrid: What are you doing, Snotlout?! They're going to win now!

Snotlout: She's my princess! Whatever she wants, she gets!

Astrid: Ruffnut?! Didn't she try to bury you alive?!

Snotlout: Only for a few hours!

(Full movie transcript link.)

Things to look for

Cliches.
Statements which aren’t (literally) true.
Misleading information or lies.
Meanness, cruelty, and violence.
Manipulation.
Signals of high or low social status.
Claims or conclusions given without arguments, reasoning or evidence.
What does the narrator do to try to be persuasive or credible?
Are you being given unbiased or useful information?
Every time someone says something, who is he speaking to and what does he want his audience to think? Why does he say it?

Write down additional thoughts now that you've looked more closely. Keep the first and second batches of thoughts separate and clearly labelled.

When you're done, look at what you missed the first time that you can see now. I haven't told you anything about the clips yet. Did you miss much that you could have seen without learning anything new, just by looking closer yourself? Some people will have missed a lot that they could have caught if they gave more thought to what they were doing, but for other people it won't make much difference to look closer because they don't know anything to look for. It's good to know which situation you're in. Would it help much if you did things more thoughtfully using your existing ideas, or should you focus more on learning what kinds of thoughts you can have? Or maybe you think you have a ton of great answers and didn't miss much, and you can compare what you wrote to my commentary later in this post.

The Cultural Situation

I thought the first clip was bad enough to stop watching the movie and do critical analysis. It's full of the kind of manipulation which turns people into puppets and controls their lives. (This movie has only a minor role in making people into puppets; it primarily just pulls their strings. That's because the strings are attached by parents, family, friends, teachers and culture in general, mostly at a younger age. And there's so much stuff to influence people that any one movie doesn't make a big difference. The movie is one little piece of culture.)

If you're blind to this situation – that people are manipulated like puppets having their strings pulled, and that the movie clips are crammed full of that kind of manipulation – then you factually don't have much control over your life. You're not an effective, independent thinker. Our culture is dangerous and these clips are prime examples of huge, life-threatening dangers. If you see no danger, that means you are a victim, a puppet, a naive, gullible dupe. Note that disliking this particular movie (because of e.g. the genre or target viewer age) is no protection, and similar manipulations are everywhere in our culture.

These clips are typical, standard examples of evil and irrationality. They're good to analyze because they don't stand out. They're representative. They're not special.

You can't defend yourself if you can't see the danger. You need some idea of what your enemy is before you even start combatting it. No, Muslim terrorists aren't the biggest danger to civilization. It's not MS-13 gang members crossing the wall-less border either. Philosophical corruption and intellectual error are much more important. If people were better thinkers, and thought for themselves more instead of being manipulated by static memes and George Soros, then our current political problems would be pretty easy to solve.

The first clip has over 20 flaws. And the main issues are dishonesty and social manipulation, not just poor literary qualities (which it's also guilty of). There's no need to catch even half the flaws on your first viewing; I didn't. But you should catch some flaws on your first viewing and notice something's wrong. Then you ought to care enough to look more closely at what you're watching (or stop watching), and ought to be able to identify many flaws. Don't just swallow a movie like this uncritically. And don't think I couldn't do a similar analysis with some other popular movie that you like more than this one. And don't think that you know it's not very good, so it's not affecting you: you're not immune to things you spend time on uncritically or inadequately critically. (Like the people who read the New York Times and say they know it's left-biased, but it's not affecting them since they know that. Those people are consistently lied to in big ways, correct for 10% of the bias, and are duped.)

In order to live in today's irrational culture and not be a pawn of manipulators, you require the following skills:

Able to see something major is wrong on your first pass through clips like these.
Able to identify and explain many large flaws when you review them.
Remember, notice and care about those kinds of flaws during your daily life, not just when analyzing.
Able to connect these flaws to an understanding of how they control people's lives and use men as puppets.
Be able to handle subtler stuff. This movie is aimed at the masses and doesn't try to manipulate people who aren't easy targets. And it emphasizes things extra for the young audience. Lots of manipulation is way harder to spot.

And even those skills won't make it safe for you to have a conversation. You need more than that to safely have a conversation without being manipulated! Your puppet strings can be pulled during the conversation, before you get a chance to analyze it, even if you have an audio recording or chat log available later (and how often do you go back through the details of your chats?). Real time conversations pressure people to respond quickly without enough thought, while people are emotional and facing social pressure. And it's easier to treat a fictional movie as something separate from your life to analyze. It's hard to do that with your friends, family, or even someone you just met.

The point of the opening scene is the narrator is telling you what to think. The topic isn't very important (his mythical village, dragon racing), but the issue of thinking for yourself is important. And the narrator isn't doing it honestly, directly or clearly. Instead he's following certain cultural game rules for how to pull people's puppet strings.

You may think that if you didn't see what was going on, it just wasn't affecting you. I'm overanalyzing and you don't analyze it like that. If you missed what was going on, how could it control you when you were unaware of it? The answer for a person with that reaction is: you do understand what he's saying, just not in a clear, conscious way. The script is highly understandable to virtually everyone in our culture. People know what it means. They just don't realize how much it's telling them what to think, and using intellectual trickery, instead of giving them information that they can use to think for themselves. People interpret it as simple, straightforward information when it's not.

This stuff is in a popular movie because it works on so many people. And if you don't know exactly what's going on – if you couldn't be writing this blog post yourself – then you are in danger.

Poker players say that if you can’t see who the sucker is, you’re the sucker. If you can't see who is being taken advantage of, and how, then you aren't skilled enough to play poker with those players, and you are being taken advantage of without realizing it. That's how life is too. If you can't see who are the puppet masters, and who are the puppets/suckers, and what the manipulations are, then you're one of the puppets/suckers.

This movie isn't notable. These clips aren't special. This stuff is everywhere. The movie is evil, but it isn't more evil than other popular stuff. I'm using these clips as examples, but my goal is to point out things which apply broadly. A person who is blind to the flaws in these clips would also be blind to the flaws in most of our culture.

Clip 1 Analysis

You may have noticed the narration is formulaic and unoriginal. I want to begin by pointing out just how cliche it is. Cliches are in alternating italics and bold:

This is Berk. The best kept secret this side of, well, anywhere. Granted it may not look like much, but this wet heap of rock packs more than a few surprises. Life here is amazing, just not for the faint of heart. You see, where most folks enjoy hobbies like whittling or needlepoint, we Berkians prefer a little something we like to call dragon racing.

It's all standard, but 48% of it is actually recognizable cliches. There are six cliches in five sentences. That's an amazing density of cliches. Why? This is a big budget movie with talented script writers. This is intentional. It's not incompetence. They do it because people already know what cliches mean. They take an especially small amount of thought to understand because thinking about them was already done in the past. People like cliches because they're familiar and easy to deal with. Also things became cliches in the first place because they worked well in some way, e.g. did a good job of pulling people's strings.

Audiences like the cliches but aren't honest about what's going on. They aren't consciously aware of how cliche it is, and they don't recognize how much the movie is designed for them not to think. The cliches feel familiar and natural to people, in a good way. (Many adults would prefer something more subtle. But did you catch all six cliches in your analysis?) After the movie, many people would admit it had some cliches, but they wouldn't know how much, and they wouldn't be honest about how much they liked them. Another movie with fewer cliches wouldn't sell so many millions of tickets.

Cliches pull people's "they speak my language, we have stuff in common" string to create rapport and communicate being part of the same group. Pulling people's puppet strings manipulates them. Pulling a lot of strings, in the right ways, can get big results.

Note that your puppet strings are complex. When I talk about what strings are pulled, I'm approximating. Each thing actually pulls dozens of different strings, and pulls each with a different amount of strength. The strings aren't defined in English and no one knows every detail about them.

Textual Analysis

This is Berk.

This pulls people's "introduction" string. They don't think about whether the clip really is an introduction to Berk. It's not. It's not a tour. It doesn't give you an overview of Berk. It doesn't tell you about Berk. There are only 5 words to convey significant information out of 65 words (8%): "dragon racing", "wet", "rock" and "Berk".

But it's worse than that. "Wet" isn't really providing information. It doesn't say whether the water comes from rain, snow, fog, the ocean, or what – you have to learn that by looking at the visuals. The word "wet" is there to sound negative, as I'll discuss later, not to give you useful information about Berk.

The word "rock" is also there to sound bad, not to help you understand that Berk isn't a swamp (which you can see at a glance, anyway). And "rock" is misleading given all the grass and trees.

"Berk" doesn't tell you about Berk, it's just the name. Except, not even that. Watching the clip, I thought that Berk was the name of the town. It's not. Berk is the island and the town is "Hooligan Village". I learned that from the wiki. (All my information comes from the clips unless I specifically mention otherwise.)

“Dragon racing" is misleading. It's a sheep-catching competition involving riding dragons. The winner is determined by points, not by racing across a finish line first. Don't feel bad if you didn't catch that, I found that out from the wiki, not the clip.

The narration doesn't really introduce Berk. If you muted it and just watched the visuals, you wouldn't miss anything but a name that doesn't actually specify what it's naming. But people accept that they were introduced to Berk because the formulaic wording ("This is [name]") framed it as an introduction in ways they respond to (are manipulated by, have their strings pulled by). People are gullible and they don't actually think about it, they just believe what they're told (when told in the right way with standard puppet string pulling, and nothing they're told triggers doubts, e.g. by being offensive, taboo, unconventional, weird, etc.).

And the visuals aren't representative of Berk, either. The visuals let you see the town some and then focus on scared sheep. They aren't meant to give much information, they're meant to impress you with the landscape, let you see the setting is medieval, and then look at sheep (for reasons discussed later). Based on the initial visuals, you'd expect Hooligan Village to be a tiny town – there aren't many houses. But then there's a huge crowd cheering for the dragon races. Why? Because a larger and louder crowd raises the social status of the racers more. It presents them as more popular and signals that dragon racing itself is popular. This pulls your "like what other people like" or "popularity contest" string, which is a major string even in people who deny having it. For second-handed viewers to want to be dragon racers, or to like dragon racers, they need to see dragon racers gaining the approval of others. Most people don’t want to be involved with weird, niche hobbies, and they don't know how to judge things other than by looking at what others approve of.

The movie producers don't care about making a logically-consistent setting and getting factual details right, they just jump straight from pulling one string to pulling the next, and they do it in a way that's convenient at that moment. And that's what their audience wants – string pulling, not consistency. String pulling is what people find meaningful and enjoyable. People want symbols, cliches and other things they understand. If the movie didn't pull people's strings, they wouldn't know what to do. They're used to being passive and having their strings pulled, rather than taking the initiative to think about things for themselves.

The best kept secret this side of, well, anywhere.

This is dishonest. Berk isn't a secret. No one is keeping the secret. "Secret" is pulling a string to mean good. It's one of many ways the narrator says one thing while meaning another.

Even if it were a secret, it wouldn't be the best kept one. That's a lie, too. That’d be false even if it was claimed about a small region rather than about the entire universe.

If you say "Berk is good", people won't trust you. It pulls their "bragging" string, which is bad. So people brag in other ways that pull other strings. People seem to (unreasonably) assume that if you show you’re a normal person who fits in to society – by knowing you’re not supposed to openly brag, and knowing what to say instead – then you wouldn't lie to them. Except it's not really that logical and people don't really have reasons, that's just how their strings work. This makes people easy to manipulate.

"Well" pulls a string indicating the speaker is being honest. How? It indicates he's pausing to think about what's true instead of thoughtlessly reciting a script or boasting. (Can't a boaster stop to think about the best way to continue his boast? Logically, yes. Don't blame me for people's puppet strings not making sense.) But the narrator is not actually being thoughtful. Savvy people insert stuff like this, on purpose, when they aren't stopping to think, in order to manipulate others. (It's common in scripted acts by comedians.)

The "this side of [location]" cliche is poorly used. The script writers couldn't think of a location to name or didn't want to name one, but used that cliche anyway. But it doesn't matter because people interpret that cliche to mean "a lot". The point is to claim something is big or good in a large region. People don't pay much attention to what region is named.

So the text means, "It's good, a lot, and I'm saying this thoughtfully." And people understand that and hear it that way. Even if they don't do analysis, it still communicates that message to them. And it follows the communication rules of our culture so that it sounds good to people instead of setting off their "bragging" or "liar" triggers.

And the next sentence helps defend against accusations of bragging:

Granted it may not look like much, but this wet heap of rock packs more than a few surprises.

To try to sound honest, the narrator tells you the good and bad about Berk, not just the good. This pulls people's "people saying negative things are telling the truth, because no one would admit to anything bad if they didn't have to" string. Except the narrator is lying because the movie wants everyone to love Berk and isn't willing to say anything actually bad about it. Puppet masters give fake negatives in order to sound honest without the risk of a real negative turning someone away.

"Granted" sounds defensive, like the narrator knows you aren't impressed by Berk and he has to answer your accusations that Berk sucks. This tries to sound reasonable and like he's giving real information to address the issues. It's not. Berk looks like a lot. The opening of a high-budget movie is visuals of Berk. It's impressive and picturesque!

And saying Berk doesn't look like much is like saying the cover of a book isn't impressive, but the inside is. That isn't a real downside. A book doesn't need an impressive cover to be a great book. Everyone knows that. Actually, by invoking the "don't judge a book by its cover" string, the narrator is basically (unfairly) accusing you of irrationally judging Berk overly negatively based on appearances, and he's telling you to correct your judgment to be more positive. That's manipulation.

Saying Berk is "wet", a "heap", and "rock" is meant to sound bad, like he's admitting what isn't great about Berk. But those aren’t what people care about, they aren’t about social interaction. They're just in the background. It's like saying my city is good because it's amazing, but bad because it has concrete, and trying to make that sound like a two-sided analysis instead of a one-sided analysis. Also, lots of people like mountains, islands and oceans, which are the actual things being talked about with a biased, negative framing.

"Surprises" pulls people's "surprises are good, fun and exciting" string. It's another disguised brag. And it's nonsense. Surprises make it harder to plan your life well. Surprises mean not knowing what's going to happen, being ignorant, being caught off guard. Surprises were dangerous in the past, but now our civilization is advanced enough that we're less scared since we're able to deal with lots of problems ... but Berk has medieval technology so surprise often would mean death.

Surprises appeal to the kind of people who like dance parties, beer, drugs and casual sex, not reason, technology or freedom. Surprises aren't intellectual stimulation. They're for people who are bored at school or work and want something to disrupt the drudgery of their lives – and they want the disruption to come from the external world because they aren't going to take the initiative to change their own life. People with good lives don't want disruptions.

And I doubt Berk has a lot of surprises. I don't think Hiccup (the person doing the introduction to Berk) is giving much thought to what he's saying or whether it's true. I don't think he means what he's saying: he's not paying attention to the meaning of what he's talking about because his focus is on pulling people's strings so that they think Berk is good. Each time he chooses words, he thinks about what will pull a string (how to manipulate people), not about reality and how to make his words correspond to reality.

The script writers didn't want a whole sentence of fake negativity, so they went back to being positive at the end of the sentence. They couldn't wait for the next sentence to turn it around. What if someone worried the movie would be bad before hearing the next words?

Saying Berk has surprises reinforces the "don't judge a book by its cover" theme. It's saying a book with a boring cover can have surprises inside. It's saying anyone who isn't a bigot will recognize how amazing Berk is, right now, immediately, whether Berk looks amazing or not. Judging stuff by outward appearances is like racism, in the sense of judging human beings by skin color. This is manipulative pressure to pull people's strings.

Throughout, the narration doesn't give people room to think for themselves or form their own opinions. It's constantly pulling strings to tell them what to think. It doesn't give information about Berk for you to evaluate, it gives conclusions about Berk without any information to allow you to evaluate. If you had any information, you might use it to reach a different conclusion than the script writers want you to. They want you to be their puppet.

This is an example of pseudo-persuasion. It's not rational arguments. It's not giving you evidence for you to evaluate with your own judgment. But it's getting people to believe and accept stuff anyway, and not to feel irrational or gullible. The string pulling takes the place of reasoning. Our culture has a bunch of rules for how this works, the rules of pseudo-logic and social manipulation, which are an alternative to the rules of truth-seeking. They specify how much you can brag, when to equivocate or be humble, how to be charismatic, how to be perceived as honest, etc. The movie follows standard rules for what people want to hear, what they are gullible about, and they eat it up. That’s what they want – manipulation according to irrational social status game rules – instead of actual reasons and information for them to think through. Being told what to think is preferred to thinking. Having your strings pulled so that you know what conclusion to reach is preferred than judging for yourself. That's what our culture is like.

Also, by switching from negative to positive, I think some people feel like that's learning because they are following along and changing their mind (from negative to positive) while listening. So it feels like engagement and thinking to them. And they don't consider that the narrator knew his conclusion in advance, he's not actually figuring it out as he goes along. So when his tone changes back and forth, that's intentional, dishonest manipulation, not uncertainty about what he's going to say. When he sounded negative about Berk, temporarily, he was lying to pull your strings.

Life here is amazing, just not for the faint of heart.

This pulls people's "fair and balanced" string. People trust this because it's not fully positive. People think that something which is only good is too good to be true. But if you give pros and cons, then people think it's an objective, unbiased analysis. This is easy to take advantage of. (It also results in lots of negative reactions when I try to explain why my philosophy is thoroughly right, not just two-thirds right. People are hostile to the goal of actually getting things right.)

But the movie wants to be all upsides and no downsides – it wants the opener to energize and excite, not leave people concerned they won't like the bad things – so the downside here is done dishonestly, it's not a real downside. The pros and cons they give don't make a fair comparison.

Saying it's not for the faint of heart means it's not for everyone, there is something bad and limiting. That sounds like a downside of Berk. But that's actually bragging about how exciting it is. It means, "This is too exciting for people who hate fun." That fake downside – not being boring – is what pulls people’s puppet strings to balance out the bragging about how amazing Berk is.

Yes, that's ridiculous. Our culture is ridiculous. But this isn't a joke, it's real life. People are this bad at thinking. And there's something very evil which makes people irrational and gullible enough to be manipulated this way (a big piece of the evil is punishing children and other ways parents use authority instead of reason).

And life isn't amazing in Berk. That falsehood is being said to people who have far more amazing lives, but don't appreciate it. Skyscrapers, iPhones, cars and electric lights are amazing. We have hospitals and science. Living in Berk would mean dying young, never being clean, eating poorly, being tired all the time from doing far more manual labor, and many other things that modern civilization has dramatically improved.

You see, where most folks enjoy hobbies like whittling or needlepoint, we Berkians prefer a little something we like to call dragon racing.

"You see" is telling you what to see. The phrase signals to people that you're going to explain something now. But then instead of getting an explanation, we get propaganda. So using that introduction was maniuplative instead of accurate.

He's lying about what hobbies most folks prefer. His claim is false. Why? By comparing dragon racing to particularly boring hobbies, it looks extra exciting by comparison. Apparently dragon racing isn't exciting enough, so manipulation is required to hype it up extra.

It pulls people's "comparing things" string. People recognize comparisons as a good intellectual tool, so it makes the narration more credible. In general, people judge claims by how many credibility strings are pulled, not by the reasoning used in arguments (which they don't actually understand).

“We Berkians prefer" is dishonest. He's presenting something he believes everyone prefers. It's meant to have broad, popular appeal. It's not a preference peculiar to Berkians.

“We Berkians prefer" is speaking for a group as if everyone in the group is the same, like diversity and dissent have never entered the narrator's mind as things that exist. It's basically like racism to assume that everyone with one shared trait therefore has a lot in common. And people who aren't aware of dissent, and assume it doesn't exist, are going to be intolerant of dissent. And consider what you'd think if someone said, "We white people prefer" or "We men prefer"! (But you're allowed to do it with people from a particular city, and sometimes with minority groups, because our culture is inconsistent and these things aren't decided by logic.) This shows that the mainstream of our culture is lying about loving diversity and tolerance, and about being intolerant of racist attitudes – otherwise a movie like this wouldn't be so popular. (Also, the many articles from "liberal" activists who thought the movie was pretty good, or complain about the wrong things, indicate they are frauds.)

“Little" is a dishonest way to say "big". Yet it pulls people's "negativity is honest" string, even though everyone knows it means the opposite of what it said. And saying something negative shows confidence (I'm so great that people will see it even if I don't show myself only in the best possible light). And by calling it "little" and relying on the audience to figure out it's not little, it's big, he's tricking people into thinking they are using their own judgment instead of being told what to think. And, at the same time, he's implying it's so obviously big that he knows everyone will figure it out, he isn't concerned anyone would think it's little – so that's more implied bragging.

“We like to call" is a weird phrase. It's not true. They like to dragon race, not to call dragon racing "dragon racing". It's a cultural string for some reason that's hard to pinpoint. I think it's partly saying that it's so great that you can tell its great just from the name, even the name is impressive (contrary to the "don't judge a book by its cover" stuff from earlier).

Visuals and Audio

The voice tones and music communicate that what you're seeing is exciting and good. They emphasize the messages that are in the words. The visuals do this some too, e.g. the opening makes Berk look epic. If you didn't speak English, you could figure out a lot of the meaning just from looking at it and listening to how it sounded. (If this interests you, listen to some music in a foreign language, or watch a foreign film without subtitles, and see what you can understand. It's a way to see how much information is in voice tones, music, body language, visuals, and other non-words.)

Lots of the visuals are about sheep. Why? First, because people mostly only care about people (and these sheep are more like emotional people than like animals). Anything besides social interaction is boring. Even dragon racing needs an approving audience for viewers to care. Being good at an unpopular sport isn't impressive, it's lame. People don't want to see buildings much, even though that's where people live. They also don't want to see the insides of factories or lots of other interesting things. And when they visit nature, they're always bragging to other people about how beautiful it was and posting photos on Instagram – they're just doing what other people approve of and then seeking actual approval for having done it (like kids getting gold stars or high grades from their teacher – that whole school dynamic teaches kids to base their life on doing things to get approval and accepting the judgment of others instead of making their own judgments of what they did). So the movie needs to quickly get away from the landscape and get to some people or an adequate substitute, something that viewers care about. We already saw enough of the landscape for some Instagram photos, now it's time to move on.

What do the sheep do? They're scared of the dragons. Scared sheep is less of a negative thing than scared people, so that allows the movie to present dragons as impressively scary without the negative of scared human beings. Sheep matter less than people so they make a better victim.

And there's a social interaction between the sheep. Four sheep push one sheep into the open to get snatched. That's bullying. Literally this mainstream movie is teaching people to form groups and gang up on individuals or smaller groups and bully them. And the bullying can include physical force like shoving. The movie legitimizes and normalizes bullying, and shows kids how to do it. What about all the anti-bullying propaganda our culture also has? Lies and lip service. Bullying continues to be a problem because our culture likes and accepts it.

While on the subject: the second clip also shows bullying. Astrid hits Snotlout at the start. And it speaks of Ruffnut burying Snotlout alive, which is also bullying. The bullying in the second clip is more like domestic abuse than like a bully on a school playground. Snotlout is being abused by females he is romantically interested in. Most people in our culture do not seriously think a woman can domestically abuse a man, and are scornful of men who aren't strong enough to deal with attacks from women. This movie reinforces that evil, pro-violence attitude and the "men should be strong" and "women are weak" gender roles behind it. What about all the anti-gender-role propaganda, feminism, etc? Lies and lip service. Those activists have other agendas which have nothing to do with having men be treated better or domestically abused less, or freeing men from social pressures to be strong, masculine, etc. Many SJW women say it's fine to be a weak man, but most of them are romantically and sexually interested in strong men, and don't respect weak men.

Clip 2 Analysis

I'm going to go into less detail on this clip since I've already said a lot. I included it because of its attitude to romantic relationships, which are full of pulling each other's strings.

Astrid hits Snotlout at the start. That should be appalling violence but doesn't trigger the anti-violence reactions of most people in our culture. It's telling viewers that hitting people is a good way to express disapproval (as long as it's a female hitting a male, who is unreasonably assumed to be too strong to actually get hurt). Then there's the dialog:

Astrid: What are you doing, Snotlout?! They're going to win now!

Snotlout took an action contrary to winning. It doesn't really matter what it was. When people play games and have competitions, usually they care more about social interactions than winning. This is typical.

Snotlout: She's my princess! Whatever she wants, she gets!

“Princess" means romantic interest. Snotlout is dating her or wants to date her. His approach to courtship is to put Ruffnut on a pedestal and be subservient to her. This is blue pill, beta-male behavior. There is a massive propaganda campaign advocating this kind of attitude and rejecting masculinity, but there is no corresponding campaign to change women's sexual preferences (from strong men to weak men), so men who behave this way are unattractive to most women.

Giving people what they want, even though it’s inconvenient for you, shows weakness and desperation – you’re going out of your way to please them. Snotlout does this by giving Ruffnut a gift while sacrificing his own chances to win. As is typical, Ruffnut has been taking advantage of the ongoing power imbalance by mistreating Snotlout (trying to bury him alive). But he continues trying to suck up to her anyway because that’s what our culture currently tells men to do.

Sucking up to women is a very bad plan for Snotlout. He should make his own life good so that she chases after him, instead of him chasing her favor. He's acting like he has low social status, which means he does (people's perception of social status is social status). He acts like she's better than him (he has to do favors to try to be worthwhile to her), which isn't how to win over a woman, because women want to date and marry up not down. Men are more focused on career and changing the world; women are more focused on social interactions and social climbing, including by impressing people with their beauty and behavior. If you want a woman, you need to be able to help her with her life goals, not make it harder for her by looking like a loser. A lot of her proof of social status, beauty, desirability, attractiveness, etc., comes from how high quality of a mate she can attract. For Snotlout to succeed, he needs to be a man she could date to make other women jealous, not a man who would get her teased by her friends.

The social dynamics of dating are a big topic. I can't explain it all here, so I'll instead link you to a great book about it: How to Make Girls Chase by Chase Amante. It presents the law of least effort, which Snotlout is egregiously violating: whoever appears to be putting less effort in (trying less hard) is higher social status. (If you're high status, like a famous actor or a CEO, then more people will want to date you. For most people, who don't have such big accomplishments and are more average, their social status is mostly judged by their behavior, by how they act in social situations.)

Astrid: Ruffnut?! Didn't she try to bury you alive?!

Women being extremely mean to men is not funny and shouldn't be acceptable. Attempts at romantic courtship don't always work out and sometimes people's feelings are going to get hurt accidentally. But this is intentional, extreme cruelty. This movie is part of a widespread attempt to normalize this and generally give women all the power and make men into scared, helpless victims.

It may not be a coincidence that Astrid is putting down a rival young girl suitable for courtship (and she's not doing it in a way Snotlout likes, so it's hard to excuse it by saying she's being helpful). Girls commonly attack and sabotage each other, usually in more subtle ways than rival men compete with each other. I know from the wiki that Astrid is romantically interested in another character (Hiccup, who's also the narrator from the first clip). But women often compete unnecessarily. They want interest from extra males, that they can reject, in order to get attention, gifts, and appear desirable (and to have a backup plan if they get dumped). The wiki says Snotlout was romantically interested in Astrid in the past, and she may not want another girl to have him even though she is rejecting him. I mention these possibilities about Astrid being a passive-aggressive bitch because they're common, they're reasonable guesses from the clips, and they cause a lot of suffering in our society.

Astrid appears to be a hypocrite because she’s suggesting that Ruffnut shouldn’t mistreat Snotlout, and Snotlout shouldn’t pursue someone who mistreats him, but Astrid hit Snotlout earlier in this scene. That was mean and violent. Astrid implies Snotlout should avoid another woman who treats him abusively, which actually helps normalize her own abuse of Snotlout, because it suggests she understands the issue and knows what the correct boundaries are. When you suggest to someone that they shouldn’t accept violent, abusive treatment, and you violently abuse them, the message is that lots of violent abuse is acceptable and somehow doesn’t count, and only the more extreme varieties are objectionable (or, alternatively, the lesson they may take away is that whether abuse is objectionable depends on who has the power and social status to get away with it or object to it).

Snotlout: Only for a few hours!

Snotlout was glad to get any attention at all from a female (listen to his happy, almost condescending, voice tone, as he rejects Astrid's concern). This is teaching viewers the evil lesson that men should be grateful for the slightest bit of attention from a woman, even negative attention. That hurts women who learn to be cruel, and it hurts men who put up with the abuse. And it creates hostilities between the sexes.

Consider also the total rejection of reality. Being buried alive would kill you after a few minutes. A few hours isn't short and doesn't make it OK. I assume the characters are exaggerating or joking in some way (or else they're magical enough to survive such things), but whatever happened they're not talking about it using clear, fact-and-reality-oriented statements. People should try to communicate truthfully. It's hard enough to get things right if you try. The dialog is teaching a callous disregard for the truth and for what reality is like. The meaning is: ignore reality and focus only on social dynamics.

Conclusions

I don't expect you to understand everything I said. I can't fully explain everything in one article. If you think you understand it all, I think you're dishonest. You should have questions, confusions, parts you disagree with, parts you think you can improve, and parts you're curious to learn more about. Post some of these things in the comments below instead of making excuses to try to rationalize why you don't do that but you really do value learning. If you're busy, put it on your calendar and follow up later (this isn't time sensitive on a scale of days or even weeks, but it's bad to spend years being a puppet). If you won't do that, consider why not. If you put it on your calendar and you're busy when it comes up, move it to a later date. If you keep putting it off for months, the issue isn't temporarily being busy, it's e.g. that you're making excuses or you haven't prioritized setting up your life to include time for thinking. (Or do you have other reason-related activities that you think are better and more important? If you found something great, please share it, myself and many other people here would like more of that kinda stuff! Or are you scared of criticism of its value?)

Now look at what you wrote down at the beginning and see how it compares to what I've pointed out. How much did you miss? Then consider: adults are more experienced and knowledgeable about their culture than children. Material aimed at adults is more subtle and expects them to understand more with fewer hints. The string pulling is harder to see and more indirect.

That means that, in your life, your strings are being pulled all the time. Unless you have the skill to be far above the string pulling in these clips, which is literally kid's stuff, then you're getting manipulated many times per day. You need to be skilled enough that this kind of analysis is easy for you, or you don't have much of a chance in the adult world.

Rewatch the clips now and see if you can see them differently. Then try to apply this stuff to the next movie you watch, and the one after that, and the one after that. To learn and improve in a way that matters, you need to not only get better ideas, you also have to use them on a regular basis in your life. You need to learn things well enough that it's natural and intuitive for you. You need to practice to get to that point. Just understanding something once, while trying your best, isn't good enough. You need to be skilled enough to get it right while tired, distracted and rushed – and dealing with something with a bunch of differences from the examples you've thought about before.

If you want to be rational, it's something you have to put work into in order to achieve. It's not automatic. It's not the default. Our culture creates irrational people who dishonestly fool themselves into thinking they're rational. If you want to change, you'll have to do a lot. Go to ElliotTemple.com and start studying the material and discussing it as you go along. Or share what your other, better plan is and listen to criticism and objections.

In the comments below, please post your analysis of the clips (both parts from the beginning), and your further thoughts after reading my analysis. You'll never cut your puppet strings by yourself without help, though you might be able to paint them rose colored and wear rose colored glasses so that you can no longer see them. Take action to change yourself by learning, so that you can stop being a puppet.

Update: Justin Mallone pointed out to me that calling Berk the "best kept secret" is a brag by the narrator, who is claiming to know well-kept secrets. Being privy to secrets is a status symbol, it shows you mingle with high quality people (not the masses – if the masses know something then it's not a secret) and have their trust.

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (78)

Social "Intellectuals"

The primary qualification for being regarded as an intellectual is to develop a reputation and convince people to regard you as an intellectual.

Being widely regarded as “intellectual” is a social status. It is achieved through specific types of social climbing.

Social climbing and reason are enemies. They’re incompatible. Someone really good at reason would reject social climbing. So we should expect to find that most “intellectuals” are bad at reason. And, from extensive surveying, I think the evidence fits the prediction well.

Being regarded as an intellectual does have something to do with being smart or figuring out some good ideas, at least in some cases. It’s not purely a social game. The best thinkers sometimes gain some intellectual reputation, though often not the best or highest reputation. So e.g. the best living economist, George Reisman, is largely unheard of, but would be regarded by most people as being an intellectual (since he was a professor and wrote a 1000 page book on economics). There are many more examples of great thinkers without accurate reputations.

Some types of intellectual accomplishments are easier to judge than others, so they do a better job of leading to a reputation regardless of what else the person does. Generally scientific ideas (“hard” sciences only) are easier to judge than philosophical ideas. Hence most famous philosophers are awful, while a fair amount of famous scientists are actually good (particularly people who got famous for scientific work, not for writing popular books about science or doing a science podcast or something like that).

Reputations sometimes get more accurate centuries after someone dies. That removes some of the social factors from mattering, and it gives people in the field more time to sort out which ideas are actually good. In general, scientists are much better at science 300 years later, so they can do a decent job of judging the scientific achievements of the scientists from 300 years in the past. However, historians are often wrong. The news is often wrong about what happened yesterday, and historians have a much harder job that gets harder as things get older. False reputations can persist for centuries and the refuting information can be lost.

The good news is: making intellectual contributions has a lower barrier to entry than you may have thought. You don’t need a fancy reputation. Most of the people you think are above you are incompetent. You don’t need the same education or peers that they have in order to do good work.

But beware. You can easily make the same mistakes as them. You can focus on social climbing while pretending to yourself that you’re seeking truth. Avoiding that is more important, and harder to come by, than any credentials.

The bad news is: if you don’t think, you can’t safely expect other people to do it for you. It’s not a safe thing to count on others doing correctly. You should try to learn and reason, yourself, if you value your life, instead of leaving your fate in the hands of our society's “intellectual authorities”.

The world needs more people who are willing to try to learn and think. The main tools needed are honesty, curiosity, energy, avoiding bias, choosing truth over social perceptions, and some stuff like that, not to have an extensive education or to be born a “genius”. Those things are harder and rarer than most people think, but if you think you have them, do something with them. E.g. start discussing ideas in the comments below. Anyone can do it if they are willing to prioritize truth over social status.

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (5)

Social Rules

Social rules are one of the most powerful enemies of reason.

They aren’t all bad. They have some useful purposes. But, regardless of the upsides, they have huge, irrational downsides.

The useful purposes are helping structure or organize how people interact. This gives people more of an idea of what to expect. People don’t realize what it’d be like dealing with a stranger with no customs to guide the interaction. That’s actually a really hard problem. Our social rules handle it pretty well.

When people are “anti-social”, it’s often only a small portion of social rules which they violate. For example, they say taboo words like “retard” or they say something bluntly (directly and honestly) which you’re supposed to tell “white lies” about or avoid saying anything about.

People who violate those rules still use many social customs such as greetings (“hi”), farewells (“bye”), or understanding and using the conversational dynamic of questions and answers.

The small portion of social rules which are commonly violated are not very important. The really important stuff is pretty uncontroversial. Particularly in intellectual conversations. In those conversations, people may be rude or insulting, but it’s basically nothing like trying to talk with a savage or barbarian who is ignorant of civilized modes of interaction.

Politeness helps reduce violence among semi-civilized people. But we’re so civilized today in America that we really expect people to be able to refrain from violence even if they are insulted. We think it’s barbaric to duel over honor.

Social communication rules limit what you say. This limiting makes it much harder to say certain ideas. Some of those ideas are true. Being able to speak freely lets you better focus on speaking the truth without worrying about other factors.

Some truths are very hard to say politely because, socially, you’re just not supposed to say them. For example, people lie all the time but you’re not supposed to point it out. Thinking people lied is common but saying so is considered an aggressive attack (regardless of whether it’s true). What if you want to point out lies so that people can learn to stop lying? What if the goal is improving in many ways including integrity? Then social rules make that hard.

Social rules cause people to take offense rather than rationally analyze what was said. Social rule following involves a way of evaluating statements as polite or rude, which people do before and often instead of evaluating whether the statement is true. This is contrary to truth-seeking. It causes people not to think about whether a criticism is true or not if they find it personally offensive.

There is an interesting issue about what to blame. Did the social rules teach people to get offended by “insults”? Or were they already offended by insults and the social rules just help avoid triggering that underlying flaw? Regardless, one can group it all together under the general heading “social dynamics” or “social rules related issues” and say there is a problem there.

Many problems occur because social rules are unwritten rules which people treat as an automatic, expected default. They won’t say what offends them or what rules they want to be treated by. Actually they often pretend they are willing to hear any criticism, but still expect social rules prohibiting some criticism to be followed.

If people said “I am fragile and get offended by things I perceive as insults. We need to somehow accommodate this flaw of mine in our discussions.” then they’d be easier to deal with. But people don’t honestly face the reality of their situation.

The main things that offend people are criticisms that imply they are bad in some way. This includes being incompetent at something where the social expectation (the general, default expectation of our society or culture) is that adults are competent at it. It also includes being dishonest, being bad at thinking, having immoral ideas, being dumb, not understanding something that people think only a dumb person wouldn’t understand, making dumb mistakes (dumb according to social perception, not objectively), and being irrational.

But people are irrational, dishonest, dumb or incompetent (because our culture’s expectations about skill are actually unrealistic and high in some ways (and low in other ways, they are not very accurate)). Those are crucially important issues for anyone trying to be a rational thinker. People need criticism of those issues. They need to get better at those things, not avoid discussing them. So social rules block intellectual progress.

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (17)

Social Metaphysics

This is an open discussion topic for social metaphysics issues. Below is a conversation log which you can use as an optional conversation starter. It'll give you some leads on issues you might want to talk about.

StEmperorAugustine:
This one is Think Club. They look similar. https://youtu.be/bDTp4yg3XTk?t=396

StEmperorAugustine:
I like this retired Fighter Pilot. Seems to value reason more than most ppl I've seen on this.

curi:
is there something you dislike about reading?

StEmperorAugustine:
I like reading. Why did you say I dislike it?

curi:
why watch a debate like that over reading?

StEmperorAugustine:
over reading what specifically? I like reading and watching debates both. Not one over the other. What I like about debates is watching how people come to hold certain opinions and how they engage in trying to convince the other, or defend their reasoning. Reading I do more if I want to really understand a concept better in more detail.

Justin:
https://fallibleideas.com/books

curi:
You could read more. It is a choice you're making. And there are written debates which are better organized, give more info in a clearer way, e.g. the FI archives.

StEmperorAugustine:
Ty Justin. That reading list is what I am working on already plus some others. Starting with that list tho

StEmperorAugustine:
Reading takes more effort

StEmperorAugustine:
sometimes If I feel like relaxing I watch these debates

curi:
So the answer to the question "is there something you dislike about reading?" is "yes"

StEmperorAugustine:
I like it until I am to tired. I don't want to be misleading by saying I dislike it. I really like it. I like playing soccer but eventually I get too tired to continue.

curi:
you're not being very logical

curi:
you're confusing dislike something about reading with disliking reading.

StEmperorAugustine:
oh no. Where did I mess up?

StEmperorAugustine:
aaaah

StEmperorAugustine:
yes

StEmperorAugustine:
Parts of reading that I might dislike

StEmperorAugustine:
but not as a whole

StEmperorAugustine:
hmm. I don't really see getting tired after a while as the same as disliking it

curi:
you see reading as harder (higher effort) which is a downside which is a problem sometimes

curi:
audio books and text to speech allow you to read by listening. would that solve the problem of making it more relaxing like listening to a video?

StEmperorAugustine:
I have tried it, It helps but it still takes effort to think about the concepts being presented, and I do tire eventually too

StEmperorAugustine:
tho I am getting a bit better at sticking with it longer

curi:
doesn't following a debate take effort? those verbal debates are harder to follow than most books, IMO, because they're poorly organized and inconclusive (lots of loose ends to remember like a list of points that weren't answered).

NikLuk:
I do audiobooks the most. It can be combined with another activity. I like walking outdoors - that is easy to combine with audiobooks.

The negative with this combo is sometimes I get distracted and have to rewind some. I do not think audiobooks on new content are as good as actually reading the same thing, as I tend to miss more listening. On the plus side is I can work through the material faster.

curi:
the debates also lack editing. books are edited to take unclear or confusing parts and make them easier to understand.

curi:
with FI debates, you can easily reread context to check things to help you follow it. with YT debates that's hard.

NikLuk:
Re debates I think most of the time people just talk by each-other and avoid addressing the harder questions.

StEmperorAugustine:
What you're saying makes sense. books should be easier to understand due to editing. It still take more effort to me than to just sit back and enjoy a debate.

curi:
the standard reason for that is people watch debates socially. what they like about it is the social interaction, which is easier for them to follow than the intellectual stuff.

StEmperorAugustine:
so possibly what I enjoy about them is not the ideas presented but how they are presented and their interactions with the other guy

curi:
Adam Friended's body language and voice tones tell a story, a narrative, all by themselves without even listening to any of the words.

StEmperorAugustine:
Yes there's a lot of useful knowledge in just facial expression, body language and tone of voice

curi:
i didn't mean it's useful. i think it's an irrational way of bypassing which arguments are good to manipulate audiences.

curi:
voice tones are not arguments and can be done regardless of whether what you're claiming is true or false

curi:
it's not truth seeking

StEmperorAugustine:
What about useful in the sense of learning to be more persuasive when talking to other people

curi:
by persuasive you mean manipulating them b/c they are persuaded by things other than truth?

Justin:
Social persuasion is not rational persuasion

StEmperorAugustine:
not as a replacement for having true arguements but as a supplement

curi:
so e.g. if you get a more fashionable haircut, ppl listen more? that's irrational and it's pandering to their bad ideas.

StEmperorAugustine:
I think presenting yourself in a certain manner matters. Idk if it is manipulation, maybe in the sense that it might make the other person more receptive to what you have to say, and actually listen

Justin:
What about big tits as a supplement to arguments

StEmperorAugustine:
I think those signal something entirely different than what I had in mind

Justin:
Might make ppl listen more tho

StEmperorAugustine:
Honeslty they probably would listen less

curi:
looking smart and being smart are different things. if you try to look smart, you're playing into ppl's prejudices instead of focusing on truth.

StEmperorAugustine:
what about looking and being smart. Though "looking smart" is also not what I have in mind.

curi:
what's the upside there?

NikLuk:
Does the context not matter here? Say you're in advertising. Using more social would be beneficial, no? Was Jobs not good at the extra stuff making the releases more interesting for many people?

curi:
if ppl like non-arguments, they're wrong. if you want the practical result of more fans, it can work. if you want the truth, it's not helping.

curi:
advertising isn't truth seeking.

StEmperorAugustine:
Let's say I am making argument P. I can state argument P while being nervous, and looking messy, and mumbling etc.. Or I can make statement P with a good projected voice, a good sense of style, and clearly and confidently. The truth of P matter but how you deliver it does matter too. Like in a Job interview

Justin:
Matter for what

curi:
whether P or true or false is 100% separate from whether you looked messy when you said it.

NikLuk:

advertising isn't truth seeking.
Ok. Missed it was only about truth seeking. My bad.

StEmperorAugustine:
yes I am not arguing against that

curi:
so if ppl are focusing any attention on those things, it's bad, it's a distraction from the issues

curi:
it means less thought goes into what's true

StEmperorAugustine:
yes they are getting distracted from P which is what matters.

curi:
so it's bad to encourage that kind of thing, or to like that kind of thing, if the truth is what you value.

StEmperorAugustine:
if P is true regardless. Why is it not objectively better to present it properly and confidently?

curi:
who sounds confident or looks fashionable is a contest, a competition. the winners of that competition may have shitty ideas which then spread.

StEmperorAugustine:
not if the idea is the same

StEmperorAugustine:
in that scenario P is the statement that is true

curi:
the ppl who are best at sounding confident are not the ppl with the best ideas.

StEmperorAugustine:
ok but that's a different argument

curi:
if you have a good idea and also participate in that contest, you may be outcompeted at social stuff by someone with a worse idea. happens all the time.

StEmperorAugustine:
yes that can happen

curi:
competing at social stuff takes a ton of effort. it's a huge distraction. b/c that area is very competitive.

StEmperorAugustine:
well I am not arguing for competing at social stuff. Just at learning proper presentation. Only as secondary as presenting a proper idea.

curi:
and if you play that game, audiences spend some of their time not thinking about your argument, so fewer of them understanding what you said.

StEmperorAugustine:
secondary to*

curi:
what is proper and why is that proper?

StEmperorAugustine:
that I don't know

StEmperorAugustine:
being clear is proper vs mumbling

curi:
the way it actually works is there's no limit where you're good enough and you're done

StEmperorAugustine:
looking at your shoes vs at the audience

StEmperorAugustine:
that kind of thing

curi:
you can get to the 50th percentile or the 70th percentile at skill, or the 99th, and you can still climb higher socially

StEmperorAugustine:
I suppose you could but that's not really what I am arguing for.

curi:
there's nowhere to draw the line

StEmperorAugustine:
The line may be arbitrary but reality kind of imposes on you

curi:
there's no principle that says a certain skill at eye contact is important, but a higher skill at eye contact doesn't matter.

curi:
not reality. other people, and specifically the dumber ones, who you don't have to suck up to.

StEmperorAugustine:
there's so much time in the day, and you spend it building your argument. Once it is built then you can improve at presentation,

curi:
time is a scarce resource

StEmperorAugustine:
Indeed.

curi:
you could always put more time into truth seeking. any time on presentation is lost.

StEmperorAugustine:
I suppose it depends on the context too

Justin:
Augustine if you read FH u might have better understanding of FI view on social stuff

StEmperorAugustine:
Wouldn't your argument then depend on everyone having read FH then Justin?

curi:
you're changing topics a lot

StEmperorAugustine:
If I am presenting an idea and show up all disheveled, mumbled nervously through it, look at the shoes. Maybe the people who read FH are like right on. but somehow I doubt it

curi:
if your goal is truth seeking, what to do does not depend on how many audience members understand social dynamics rationally.

StEmperorAugustine:
that still doesn't tell me why presenting true argument P poorly is preferable than presenting it well. I mean presenting it as stating it in front of someone else or others.

curi:
https://youtu.be/bDTp4yg3XTk?t=3236 there are some examples here within 30s. e.g. Adam says "valuable" in a voice tone, does a shrug and does a voice tone at the end of the section right b4 the other guy talks again. those are just some of the more blatant ones.

curi:
Adam spends more than 50% of his mental effort, during a discussion, on thinking about (mostly subconsciously) what would impress dumb viewers, how to manipulate them, how to pander, etc. This gets more effort than his argument quality.

curi:
This is typical.

StEmperorAugustine:
The first thing people see is neither your personality nor your argument. A good first impression makes a difference. I agree that you should work on making argument P as strong as possible and that should be your focus. Then maybe you can put some effort in presentation. I still don't see the downside, but I do see the upsides. Could even be split 90% argument 10% presentation or move the dials there as needed.

Justin:
Augustine would you disregard someone's argument on some point if they didn't make eye contact etc?

StEmperorAugustine:
Depends on their argument

Justin:
!

curi:
Taking 10% of your effort away from truth is a downside.

curi:
Making eye contact in the socially normal way (an example Aug has given several times) takes a huge amount of effort. This effort is not recognized because the learning time and costs are mostly in early childhood. However, some people don't learn it then, are called "autistic", and are persecuted quite cruelly and extensively. The way people learn it in childhood is by learning to care more about how others think of them than about reality. It's part of a process where they learn not to prioritize truth, that they will be punished for not fitting in and need to prioritize that instead.

StEmperorAugustine:
But what if the truth of argument P is very important. Let's say if people adopted P the world would be a better place. Why would you not want more people to adopt P?

StEmperorAugustine:
Knowing that many do not hold your view on presentation

StEmperorAugustine:
and will judge based on that

curi:
People learn the "proper" way to do eye contact by learning to pay very close attention to the reactions they get from other people and then changing whenever they get negative reactions, and keep making changes until they get it right and get approval. This takes a huge amount of time and effort and the mentality is broadly incompatible with e.g. scientific thinking.

curi:
Aug you keep changing topics, we can't discuss everything at once.

StEmperorAugustine:
I have to go but once again I'd like to continue later.

StEmperorAugustine:
:slight_smile:

StEmperorAugustine:
ttyl

curi:
The things you're saying are everywhere but lots of ppl won't admit or say them in an intellectual context. They lie about how rational they are.

curi:
They're really bad though, but pretending not to think them just makes it harder to change.

curi:
One of the practical effects is ppl spend a lot of time engaging with lower quality material (in terms of ideas and truth seeking) b/c they want to watch ppl compete socially.

curi:
So they learn less.

curi:
ppl seek out material with e.g. facecam b/c they don't even know how to judge what's true, only how to judge social stuff.

StEmperorAugustine:
I've been thinking a bit about our discussion.

It is possible that we may be talking about two different things so I'll try to restate my position.

I agree that truth seeking is important, and that in an ideal world (even then I am not so sure that would be ideal) people would not care about how a message is delivered. But that is not how the world works.

People care about how the message is delivered as much as the message itself. For example, Jordan Peterson sells out large auditoriums in hundreds of cities around the globe. A lot of what he says is quite good, some is okay, other is standard self help stuff that people already know. But he is able to reach a large audience because he is a good speaker.

Another example, Job interviews. Most people get hired based on a 1on1 interview. They already have seen your resume, what they are looking for is how you present yourself. Are you someone they would be okay working with or talking to their customers.

It may be different for you because your job is to write philosophy articles. So you do not need to have charm perhaps. Although, even with philosophy articles you do have to worry about your presentation. Your website has to be readable, easy to navigate. Your sentences need to be clear and follow grammar rules to eliminate confusion.

All in all I think context matters. And as I said yesterday, if statement P is true. I would prefer that statement P is presented in a clear, unambigious, confident manner.

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (49)

Social Climbing Is Incompatible with the English Language

VSE on Discord, lying about the reasoning for relegation (he omitted the flaming he did) and misuing the term "simpler":

Doesn't it seem like it would have been simpler to ask a follow-up question instead of relegating me to a single channel?

i did ask a followup question. they're so bad at engaging with words. i said:

are you going to answer my simple, direct question or not?

this was both 1) a followup 2) a question

there's still something amazing to me about how much they retreat from English meanings of words

i think it's related to retreat from reality in genreal and social metaphysics. standard dictionary English has strong connections to reality.

but they operate in a social reality with social metaphysics, not in real reality. so they use words in a different way that is much less tied to reality, facts, logic, dictionaries, etc, and more tied to social rules and social meanings

i think their inability and/or unwillingness to read literally or to resolve any of these factual disputes is an indication of just how second-handed and social climbing they are. that's what the basic thing at issue is. how do you approach life, do you focus on facts/etc or on social dynamics?

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (3)

Social Reality and Real Reality

There are two broad mindsets for how to deal with life: dealing with reality and dealing with social reality, social dynamics, social metaphysics, social climbing. Some people second-handedly focus on the opinions of other people, while others focus on dealing with nature, logic, facts and science. Most people do a mix of both, but many individual statements or actions are primarily related to one mindset.

I conjecture that social reality is the primary mechanism of static memes. That's how they make people irrational, prevent critical thinking, etc.

Social thinking is the primary reason people fail at being rational intellectuals. It's an ongoing cause of misunderstanding and conflict because e.g. I say something and people read it according to a non-literal, social meaning. Social thinkers aren't very connected to real reality because they're focusing on a whole separate reality.

Some of the messages I comment on in this post are from TheRat Chat.

This is from the public Fallible Ideas Discord.

curi:

looked thru #off-topic stuff. good tries alan, GISTE, J, anne. i thot u all did fine re logic. didn't address the bad faith tho which is why that didn't work

curi:

e.g.

You should read the response above if you need a good laugh.

curi:

when ppl are saying things like that, they are basically admitting their bad faith

curi:

curi:

the basic underlying problem is 2 different approaches to life: facts/logic/physical-reality and social climber approach, social rules, social dynamics, social metapysics

curi:

is a whole separate way of thinking

curi:

it's the way of static memes

curi:

VSE is a cargo culter. his scientific logical mindset sounding statements are fakery for social posturing, which is why he can't engage with arguments, he just knows the kind of things to say but not how to understand arguments and respond substantively.

curi:

he thinks everyone is like this. doesn't know real scientists, logicians, etc., exist

curi:

this is one of the reaosns they hate meta. meta lets you call them out. if you only respond with topical statements, it actually helps them make it look like a real discussion

curi:

if you call out non sequiturs or otherwise talk about their errors, or the overall situation, that's a threat to them

curi:

if you just make statements re e.g. logic of scientific discovery, they can derail and fake forever. that's what they know how to do.

curi:

ppl ignore stuff they find socially inconvenient and then get mad about "meta" if u comment on this

curi:

and they have double standards: they make all kinds of demands that you do things, answer things, etc. which are meta comments

curi:

anyway when you see the kind of people who never give direct answers to questions, and don't read statements in a way that's very well connected to the dictionary meanings of the words, it's b/c they don't think in terms of facts and logic, they think in terms of social meanings

curi:

that's the big divide in the world which prevents ppl from engaging with FI and ruins their minds

curi:

that's the key principle of irrationality

curi:

social metaphysics doesn't do error correction.

curi:

ppl who manage to do some programming, science, engineering, math, etc., often either 1) don't get along well with ppl socially (especially common with the best ones) or 2) it's an exception which they turn off when they aren't in professional mode, like DD talking about the scientists leaving the lecturehall, going to the meal hall, and then going into social dynamics mode and not being scientists anymore.

curi:

1:18 PM] TheRat: I count it after one asks, and he refuses. For example, he has yet to explain his assertion that I don't know what progress in a conversation looks like. After I asked for an explanation he asked me for my mode. Which is irrelevant as to how he came up with the assertion himself.
[1:19 PM] TheRat: model*

curi:

that is factually false. i've already corrected him on his factual errors many times. he has an unlimited supply of them.

curi:

sometimes he changes mindset and is able to think some but right now he's in a hostile and social mode, so he loses touch with reality and its facts.

curi:

the English language is closely connected to reality, as i blogged about yest, which is why social metaphysicians won't use it right

curi:

that's why all the conflicts re words

curi:

and the misreadings which are egregious from factual pov

curi:

there isn't a proper name for the reality/facts/logic/science side

curi:

that identifies it

curi:

cuz it's the default and there is a broad assumption that everyone is on that side

curi:

scientific mindset is too narrow

curi:

i like the contrast of social reality/metaphysics vs. real reality/metaphysics

curi:

but that's custom terminology

curi:

curi:

"a fair amount" is literally a quantifier

curi:

the examples are endless

curi:

he's just cargo culting to sound like a logician

curi:

TheRat: The whole writing in a channel one can't respond to is the most bizarre behaviors I have seen him display.

calling stuff bizarre is an example of a social judgment. similar to abnormal.

curi:

the use of "whole" is social

curi:

there's a factual error too. can you spot it?

curi:

the mindset of behaviors being on display, and putting things in terms of who has seen who do what, is also socially oriented.

JustinCEO:

they can (and have) responded

curi:

indeed

curi:

it's a double pronged error. cuz he maybe meant can't respond in the channel, which is not what he said. would that be true?

JustinCEO:

well i read him as speaking of e.g. VSE and SS, who i think are locked to off-topic. so if that's what he meant (can't respond in the channel) it seems true, unless maybe TheRat was gonna serve as a go-between or they were to ask for an unmute

JustinCEO:

needed to think about that one lol

curi:

he said "one" not VSE or SS

JustinCEO:

ahhh

curi:

so consider if TheRat could reply here or not

curi:

talking about issues like discussion methodology or social vs. actual metaphysics is meta discussion. anything where you point out patterns of error instead of individual errors is meta discussion. their hostility to meta discussion is part of how they protect their racket. they have an unlimited source of errors and they don't want the pattern or source to be discussed.

curi:

also "behaviors" is an error, should be singular. and he left out the word "thing" after "respond to" to match "whole".

curi:

And i don't think the use of "most" is an honest, logical, factual thought.

JustinCEO:

i thought the complaining about channel thing was interesting cuz

JustinCEO:

in the face of the hostility level these folks have demonstrated

JustinCEO:

very standard approach would be to kick

JustinCEO:

for discord

JustinCEO:

and you figured out a way to not kick, to allow some discussion to proceed

JustinCEO:

and get flamed for it

JustinCEO:

TT

curi:

Thought: People are dishonest because (one reason, not only) honesty is related to reality and they are acting in social reality which has its own rules. They are often honest re social rules, in some sense, e.g. they will back off when 100 people say they're wrong (as SS accused me of being unwilling to do – he was calling me socially dishonest).

JustinCEO:

i thought the off-topic channel was a rather elegant/clever solution

JustinCEO:

like the server's purpose is for people interested in FI

JustinCEO:

including people who disagree, that's fine

curi:

yes tho i don't think rat was talking about OT channel and u haven't given a direct answer.

JustinCEO:

but it's not really about enabling hostile flaming, appeals to authority and active disinterest in this community's ideas...

JustinCEO:

oh re: answer you mean "4:46 PM] curi: so consider if TheRat could reply here or not"

curi:

yes

curi:

the reason i can't back off to simpler stuff and get common ground with ppl is they back off to simpler social claims while i back off to simpler facts and logic.

JustinCEO:

well he could reply to stuff said here in another channel

curi:

could he reply in #contributors ?

JustinCEO:

oh lol

JustinCEO:

i see

JustinCEO:

yes he could

curi:

it seems like you thought the answer was "no" but didn't want to disagree with me, or assumed i had some other point in mind, so were avoiding direct response

JustinCEO:

ya i was leaning no but didn't wanna respond right away

JustinCEO:

actually

JustinCEO:

yeah

curi:

so why is the answer yes? u didn't explain.

JustinCEO:

right

JustinCEO:

he could become a contributor

curi:

yes. $2 for a month is not an impenetrable barrier to replying.

curi:

he also acts like i'm talking to him but not letting him reply

curi:

but i was talking to my contributors

curi:

my messages were aimed at the audience of ppl who like my stuff

curi:

back to main theme: notice how often they accuse me of social errors

curi:

i think lots of those are real opinions involving some (social) thought and not just lying in ways they hope to get away with.

curi:

whereas their accusations of factual errors are all cargo cult stuff, skin deep, no details, no examples, no analysis (sometimes a little bit of that stuff, which is always fake cardboard cutouts and they derail if you try to look behind the curtain)

curi:

:06 PM] TheRat: nobody cares about his alleged skills at coming to a conclusion. What matters is his explanations of his conclusions

curi:

notice the social emphasis re what people care about

curi:

and the disrespect for facts. "nobody" is egregiously factually false

curi:

second-handed.

curi:

but that sort of factually false exaggeration like "nobody" is allowable in social rules. it's actually encouraged. it's like saying "you were 3 hours late" to someone who was 2 hours late. if they correct you, they have to admit to being 2 hours late and spend time focusing attention on that fact which is bad for them. so it's lose/lose for them.

curi:

ppl will be like "holy shit how are you defending being 2 hours late?"

curi:

in social rules, a lot of stuff can be taken out of context. i think the context rules are different.

curi:

the social context is stuff like how prestigious someone is, not what is the parent statement of a statement.

curi:

social stuff has so much selective attention. hypocrisy is a facts and logic concern related to consistency and general principles.

curi:

the social world has other general principles like that low status is bad and that the appearance of effort is bad (with exceptions but it has a lot of generality).

curi:

but it doesn't worry about consistency like if you say X is bad when Joe does it, then X should be deemed bad when you do it. the person who is doing it is major differentiating context in social metaphysics. what you can get away with socially is a big issue based on your social status.

JustinCEO:

i was reading about an applied example of effort is bad

curi:

in some sense they see it as not being hypocritical b/c ppl with different social status levels doing the same actions are not the same things

curi:

just like we think "ofc joe can lift that and bob can't, joe is stronger"

JustinCEO:

the idea of "sprezzatura" as applied to male fashion

curi:

what ur allowed to do or say is based on ur social status level

curi:

and that's a thing they're always taking into account as relevant, differentiating context

JustinCEO:

That's the interesting dichotomy of good style: you want to look good but you also don't want to look like you're trying too hard.

There needs to be an element of nonchalance or sprezzatura (aka artful dishevelment) to your look.

curi:

going into details like node by node analysis of discussion is high effort

curi:

so the social ppl super resist it whether they could do it or not

curi:

not b/c they are avoiding effort itself – they will sometimes e.g. put lots of effort into days of derailing and BS, and make the conversations use more resources not less – but more b/c appearance of effort (as judged in a particular way that isn't very factually accurate) is socially bad and they internalized that social rule

curi:

you have a blindspot for curi

social statement

curi:

who is allies with who

curi:

I don't want to go off topic because as we have seen that never works.

social re what the group has seen. that's how something is determined to be true

curi:

it's so ingrained they are bad at hiding it

curi:

also let him defend himself. You shouldn't fight his battles

heh, nice example simultaneous to me saying they're bad at hiding it

curi:

and he goes and openly admits he views discussion as battle

curi:

and he's talking about the sources of statements, treating the same arguments as different depending on who says them

curi:

social metaphysics is very interested in sources of ideas. it needs those to judge ideas by the social status of the speaker.

curi:

and rat is saying: you shouldn't be allies with that guy cuz he's a pariah

curi:

he wouldn't tell a marxist you shouldn't fight marx's battles for him.

curi:

he wouldn't do it with a live and high status person either, like he wouldn't tell a DD fan not to fight DD's battles for him meaning don't argue in favor of FoR and BoI.

curi:

he's hurting you by making you his proxy, you aren't thinking for yourself.

rat wants to talk about who is doing what to who

curi:

who is whose ally and what is the relative status of the ppl in the group

curi:

2:25 PM] TheRat: its not good

he thinks justin is being hurt by having a low status place in my group

curi:

he also claims i'm the actor here, the puppet master, that i'm "making" justin, which is a good example of lack of interest in physical reality and its facts

curi:

there's also the fact that i responded to rat and he ignored me

curi:

and responded to justin only

curi:

so who exactly chose that rat should be talking with J instead of me directly?

curi:

but rat is talking social facts, which don't care about facts

curi:

You've successfully derailed the conversation.

says the guy who won't answer one question, and claims to dislike meta discussion but keeps doing it

JustinCEO:

was gonna say this if Rat conceded assertions: even if curi did make explanationless assertions -- which I doubt, but let's stipulate it for the heck of it -- even if he did, and you also made assertions, @TheRat , then at the very best ya'll would be a symmetrical position re: making some assertions in the conversation. Reason doesn't say making assertions is okay cuz the other guy started it... but instead of trying to bridge the gap of (at best, for you) mistakes on both sides, Rat, you seem more into being mad, flaming people you disagree with as not thinking for themselves, etc.

JustinCEO:

writing here cuz rat didn't wanna engage

curi:

no one explains all their assertions

curi:

methodology is needed re which to explain, when, why

curi:

and there is the whole regress issue

JustinCEO:

i guess part of the issue is

curi:

when you explain one u make other assertions

curi:

is like how u can't define all the words

JustinCEO:

i view explanationless assertion as

JustinCEO:

something for which there is no explanation available

JustinCEO:

like a bluff

curi:

you need some common ground so u don't have to explain everything infinitely

curi:

and I refuse to move from that until he addresses it.

curi:

i factually already addressed it and rat just ignored me

curi:

he is making unexplained, unargued assertions

curi:

he's cargo culting what a principled stand looked like

curi:

but it's so divorced from reality

curi:

Since curi is clearly not afk but crying in his own channel,

curi:

social comment

curi:

curi:

it's all this social stuff about what people have done what actions and who the burdens should fall on, who deserves what treatment and which people should do what actions in the future

curi:

rat enjoyed sending my debate policy to ppl. did he think it was a good way to socially bully them? now when he has an issue with me he doesn't want to use it. does he think the policy is too unfair or unreasonable to use? but then why did he keep linking others to it to challenge them? more social dynamics crap going on?

curi:

enjoyed is the wrong word. i'd guess it's true but the issue is more that he seemed to think it was good and rational to do that.

curi:

Imagine if anyone thought that flew as an explanation. "Vaccines don't work." Why? "See my debate policy www.blogsmahfeels.com"

curi:

can you spot the 4+ social attacks here?

JustinCEO:

anti-blogger flaming, comparison to low status vaccine deniers, "mah feels" to claim the status of being more rational vs an emotional person

JustinCEO:

struggling to get to 4

curi:

u missed the biggest one!

JustinCEO:

😄 doh

curi:

he smeared me as a person who thinks differently than anyone else

JustinCEO:

ah

curi:

u cud phrase it other ways but he's saying ~everyone thinks i'm wrong and he put stuff blatantly in second handed terms of what ppl think

curi:

the msg has other issues like he's misrepresenting what i said

curi:

and the method of imagining a counterfactual world instead of analyzing

curi:

and the appeal to the obvious dumbness of the scenario rather than arguing why

curi:

and the not saying his conclusion: that woudl be bad

curi:

the structure is "Imagine if X."

curi:

with no conclusion statement b/c it's assumed to be so obvious it doesn't need saying

curi:

there's also no direct connection btwn the msg and what i said, and no attempt at one

curi:

that's only implied

curi:

he focused on social instead of logic

curi:

the point of it, the purpose, was the 4 social smears

curi:

@Freeze perhaps you can learn something about how and why ppl quit FI. or perhaps you can try to talk to him.

curi:

curi:

lol/sigh @ the unargued assertion (got schooled, which is also an anti-student social smear) in the msg accusing me unargued assertions

curi:

@Mingmecha you also asked re ppl quitting FI

GISTE:

I was asking SS about what he meant by one of his statements that included the word “force”, where he misused the word. After some back and forth I asked him to restate without the word “force”. He was surprised that I wanted that. He said something like that he couldn’t do it cuz force is what he meant. That made no damn sense. Like he wanted me to make sense of his statement despite it containing a word that he knew didn’t really fit. And he put so much effort in the meta, effort that he instead could have put into restating without the word “force”.

GISTE:

I was pretty surprised by that.

GISTE:

I didn’t know that people did that.

GISTE:

So that’s something I learned. And SS said shortly after that convo that he thinks I didn’t learn anything from the meta discussion.

curi:

curi:

good answer GISTE

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (10)

Static Memes Are About Social Dynamics

This post shares recent conjectures. I’m less confident than usual. I’m confident there’s something important and irrational about social dynamics (which is not a recent or original thought), but I’m less confident about the connection with static memes in particular (which is an original idea covering specifics that David Deutsch left mostly unspecified).

The core static memes (see Third Type of Meme: Static Companion Memes and comments, which I'm following up on) are second-handedness (see The Fountainhead) and related social orientation instead of reality orientation. The way static memes suppress critical faculties is by getting people to judge in terms of the opinions of other people, and their social status, rather than in terms of facts, logic and reality. Static memes get people to replace their connection with objective reality with a connection with social dynamics.

Static societies are similar to what Elsworth Toohey described to Peter Keating in The Fountainhead (emphasis added):

“ ... A world of obedience and of unity. A world where the thought of each man will not be his own, but an attempt to guess the thought in the brain of his neighbor who’ll have no thought of his own but an attempt to guess the thought of the next neighbor who’ll have no thought—and so on, Peter, around the globe. Since all must agree with all. A world where no man will hold a desire for himself, but will direct all his efforts to satisfy the desires of his neighbor who’ll have no desires except to satisfy the desires of the next neighbor who’ll have no desires—around the globe, Peter. Since all must serve all. A world in which man will not work for so innocent an incentive as money, but for that headless monster—prestige. The approval of his fellows—their good opinion—the opinion of men who’ll be allowed to hold no opinion.... Judgment, Peter? Not judgment, but public polls. An average drawn upon zeroes—since no individuality will be permitted.... I want power.... Let all live for all. Let all sacrifice and none profit. Let all suffer and none enjoy. Let progress stop. Let all stagnate. There’s equality in stagnation. All subjugated to the will of all. Universal slavery—without even the dignity of a master. Slavery to slavery. A great circle—and a total equality....”

Static companion memes, then, are socially calibrated behaviors – they compete to better fit into the social game instead of being useful or reality-oriented. Most of the social rules (in detail re particular things) and behaviors don’t create or cause the social game itself, they just make sense within it. An example is being passive-aggressive (or more specifically a particular insult like saying something is a “bad look” or “weird”). That’s something which is adapted to the selection pressures of social games instead of the selection pressures of dealing with reality. Wearing fashionable clothes, learning recent jargon for a subculture, trying to please others, and all sorts of social climbing are static companion memes. They’re evolved not to directly suppress thinking but to be effective in the social world created by the core static memes to shut down creative thought about reality.

Consequently, it’s informative to analyze many things in two ways: in terms of reality (facts, logic, science, literal meanings of word, etc.) and in terms of social reality (what people think of it, its meaning in social status contests). Many misunderstandings and clashes between people in our mixed society are because one person, at this time, is focusing on real reality while the other is focusing on social reality.

David Deutsch described in The Fabric of Reality how (in his experience) scientists only have a scientific mindset at certain times and use a social mindset at other times. Italics are DD’s, bolds are my emphasis:

I have sometimes found myself on the minority side of fundamental scientific controversies. But I have never come across anything like a Kuhnian situation. Of course, as I have said, the majority of the scientific community is not always quite as open to criticism as it ideally should be. Nevertheless, the extent to which it adheres to ‘proper scientific practice’ in the conduct of scientific research is nothing short of remarkable. You need only attend a research seminar in any fundamental field in the ‘hard’ sciences to see how strongly people's behaviour as researchers differs from human behaviour in general. Here we see a learned professor, acknowledged as the leading expert in the entire field, delivering a seminar. The seminar room is filled with people from every rank in the hierarchy of academic research, from graduate students who were introduced to the field only weeks ago, to other professors whose prestige rivals that of the speaker. The academic hierarchy is an intricate power structure in which people's careers, influence and reputation are continuously at stake, as much as in any cabinet room or boardroom — or more so. Yet so long as the seminar is in progress it may be quite hard for an observer to distinguish the participants’ ranks. The most junior graduate student asks a question: ‘Does your third equation really follow from the second one? Surely that term you omitted is not negligible.’ The professor is sure that the term is negligible, and that the student is making an error of judgement that someone more experienced would not have made. So what happens next?

In an analogous situation, a powerful chief executive whose business judgement was being contradicted by a brash new recruit might say, ‘Look, I've made more of these judgements than you've had hot dinners. If I tell you it works, then it works.’ A senior politician might say in response to criticism from an obscure but ambitious party worker, ‘Whose side are you on, anyway?’ Even our professor, away from the research context (while delivering an undergraduate lecture, say) might well reply dismissively, ‘You'd better learn to walk before you can run. Read the textbook, and meanwhile don't waste your time and ours.’ But in the research seminar any such response to criticism would cause a wave of embarrassment to pass through the seminar room. People would avert their eyes and pretend to be diligently studying their notes. There would be smirks and sidelong glances. Everyone would be shocked by the sheer impropriety of such an attitude. In this situation, appeals to authority (at least, overt ones) are simply not acceptable, even when the most senior person in the entire field is addressing the most junior.

So the professor takes the student's point seriously, and responds with a concise but adequate argument in defence of the disputed equation. The professor tries hard to show no sign of being irritated by criticism from so lowly a source. Most of the questions from the floor will have the form of criticisms which, if valid, would diminish or destroy the value of the professor's life's work. But bringing vigorous and diverse criticism to bear on accepted truths is one of the very purposes of the seminar. Everyone takes it for granted that the truth is not obvious, and that the obvious need not be true; that ideas are to be accepted or rejected according to their content and not their origin; that the greatest minds can easily make mistakes; and that the most trivial-seeming objection may be the key to a great new discovery.

So the participants in the seminar, while they are engaged in science, do behave in large measure with scientific rationality. But now the seminar ends. Let us follow the group into the dining-hall. Immediately, normal human social behaviour reasserts itself. The professor is treated with deference, and sits at a table with those of equal rank. A chosen few from the lower ranks are given the privilege of being allowed to sit there too. The conversation turns to the weather, gossip or (especially) academic politics. So long as those subjects are being discussed, all the dogmatism and prejudice, the pride and loyalty, the threats and flattery of typical human interactions in similar circumstances will reappear. But if the conversation happens to revert to the subject of the seminar, the scientists instantly become scientists again. Explanations are sought, evidence and argument rule, and rank becomes irrelevant to the course of the argument. That is, at any rate, my experience in the fields in which I have worked.

DD describes a world in which social behavior is the norm, but some men temporarily set it aside to think like scientists capable of learning something about reality instead of about who thinks who has a higher social rank than who.

See also The Law of Least Effort as an example of insightful analysis of social dynamics. While some basics about social status and interaction are well known, lots of the details and rules are not well known (or there are well known myths about them).

The core static memes are things which cause this situation and create the social game in the first place, rather than the consequences and details of it. It's whatever makes people second-handed rather than the latest fashion which isn't responsible for the situation. The law of least effort is something deep enough it could be closely related to a core static meme instead of being a superficial consequence like men holding doors open for women, but it's hard to tell.

In response to the basic idea that social dynamics are the essence of irrationality, there's a question one should ask. What about some other candidates for major irrationality issues? For example, superstition, religion and coercive parenting. How do those things fit into this picture?

Religion is a mix of social interaction and superstition (and some useful life advice), so let's turn to superstition. When people are oriented to social reality instead of physical reality, they lose touch with facts and logic. They judge a superstition not by whether it's true but by whether high social status people believe it.

For parenting, a lot of what parents do is socialize their children. They make them learn to defer to parental authority. They make them learn the social hierarchy of society and how to get along with others. When they say "Because I said so..." they mean because a higher status person said it to a much lower status person.

The problem I've been thinking about, which this post is in response to, is what's going on with people who won't/can't read literally, think logically, get facts right, be precise, etc. Why can't we have some common ground, as a basis for discussion, using standard dictionary English and some simple facts?

It's because they read and write sentences in terms of the loose gist for the reality meaning and focus mostly on the social meaning. While I read and write in terms of the reality meaning while paying only a little attention to the social meaning (overall, I do a lot better than random chance at e.g. not being rude – that shows some awareness of social meanings).

When I ask people to meet me, as common ground, at facts and logic – try to get some little details correct and focus on correctness and go step by step – it doesn't work because they're so oriented to the social world.

When I talk about problems like overreaching or lack of paths forward, those don't work with most people because they are reality/facts/etc oriented. They seem fundamental to me from my perspective, but they aren't designed to have the right social meanings to work for socially-focused people. Overreaching is not the fundamental problem of an overreacher. Living in social reality instead of actual reality is their fundamental problem.

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (49)

Second-handedness Examples

For He's A Jolly Good Fellow Lyrics

For he's a jolly good fellow [...] which nobody can deny

Phrasing it in terms of what other people can deny is second-handed. It views the world in terms of other people's opinions instead of truth.

Please post dozens examples of second-handedness in the comments below. It'll help you be a better person.

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (45)

Discussion with "Critical Rationalist"

From Discord.

Critical Rationalist:

I’m new to this app. Someone recommended that I come here. I am pursuing an masters degree in philosophy. My undergraduate degree was in psychology (concentration in applied theory and research). I would count myself as a Neo-Popperian (which should be unsurprising given my username). I look forward to tuning into the conversations you guys have.

curi:

What’s a Neo-Popperian?

Critical Rationalist:

Neo just means new or modified. It’s a shorthand way of saying “Popperian with some caveats”

Critical Rationalist:

Karl Popper influenced my epistemology more than any thinker, but I don’t think he was right about everything

curi:

What was he wrong about?

Critical Rationalist:

I think that the demarcation problem (insofar as it is a problem at all) is not best solved by a single criterion. Insofar as there is a correct definition of a term (like “science”), it’s definition will be cashed out in terms of family resemblance.

Critical Rationalist:

That’s probably my biggest disagreement with Popper. In Popperian fashion, I welcome criticism.

Critical Rationalist:

(I’m also happy to explain what I said with concrete examples)

Freeze:

What do you think of Popper's political philosophy?

JustinCEO:

@Critical Rationalist what do you think of Popper's critical preference idea

Critical Rationalist:

@JustinCEO @Freeze Very much on board with both his political philosophy and critical preference

curi:

Hi. Have you seen much of my stuff? I’m an Objectivist.

Critical Rationalist:

No, I haven’t

Critical Rationalist:

Do you have a blog or something?

Critical Rationalist:

(I know what objectivism is though)

curi:

Popper didn’t learn econ or give counter arguments but disagreed with free market minimal govt

curi:

How’d you find this server?

Critical Rationalist:

Someone recommended it to me

Critical Rationalist:

I met them at a party actually

curi:

https://elliottemple.com

curi:

Have you read Deutsch?

Critical Rationalist:

I see that you’ve talked with David Deutsch!

Critical Rationalist:

Yes! I love Deutsch.

Critical Rationalist:

He has never made explicit his ethical commitments, other than the fact that he is a) a realist, and b) not a utilitarian.

Critical Rationalist:

(Not in what I’ve read)

curi:

DD was an Ayn Rand fan and libertarian. He favors capitalism, individualism, minimal govt or anarchism. I got those ideas from him and his discussion community (which this is a continuation of, we had IRC back then) initially.

Critical Rationalist:

Well, no one is perfect.

curi:

What do you mean?

Critical Rationalist:

Sorry, that was a bad attempt at humour.

Misconceptions:

imagine this scenario. a bunch of kids are playing. 1 kid is mean to the others. so the other kids get away from him. the alone kid cries because he's now alone and he wants to play with the rest of the kids. the parent hears the crying of the alone kid and he learns about what happened. he doesn't hear about the part where that kid was being mean though. and the parent decides that the other kids have to include the alone kid. is this utilitarian ethics in action?

Critical Rationalist:

I have immense respect for DD. He was my introduction to Popperian thought. But I am not a Randian.

curi:

Is there a written criticism you think is good?

Critical Rationalist:

Of Randianism?

Critical Rationalist:

None that I’ve read

Misconceptions:

That action is not optimific. It leads to lower overall happiness, kid getting further bullied, and other kids not enjoying this company. Not utilitarian

curi:

of Objectivism. the term "Randianism" is disrespectful FYI.

Critical Rationalist:

Sorry I knew the term objectivism, but was unaware that Randianism was viewed as a pejorative

curi:

np

Misconceptions:

What is wrong with Randian? is Popperian bad too?

curi:

Rand didn't want her name used that way

curi:

Is there something you think would change my mind if I read it?

Critical Rationalist:

I’ve never read any criticism of Rand

Critical Rationalist:

I’ll go further

curi:

why disagree then?

Critical Rationalist:

I actually think egoism (a family of ethical theories of which objectivism is a species) is perfectly defensible

Critical Rationalist:

I think that actions which maximize your own welfare can be called genuinely good.

Critical Rationalist:

Actions which maximize the welfare of others (even when they conflict with your own) can also be called genuinely good

Critical Rationalist:

How do you decide between the two axioms when they conflict (egoism and utilitarianism)? Henry Sidgwick says that although they agree in most cases, there is no rational standard for deciding between them when they conflict.

Misconceptions:

Is your claim that one must not disagree with theories until one has criticism of it? @curi

curi:

Why else would one disagree?

Misconceptions:

There are infinite many theories, you agree with all of them?

curi:

no

Misconceptions:

Henry Sidgwick says

Why should we care what he says?

Critical Rationalist:

We shouldn’t

Misconceptions:

so why bring it up?

Critical Rationalist:

I’m giving credit to where I got this idea from.

curi:

Is there a conflict you have in mind?

Critical Rationalist:

Do I give money to life-saving charities. That’s one salient example.

curi:

Like cancer research?

curi:

Or like handing out fresh water in africa? or what?

Critical Rationalist:

Like the latter. The case I have in mind is the Against Malaria Foundation. They make bednets that save lives inexpensively.

Misconceptions:

@Critical Rationalist btw there's multiple Utilitarianism versions. Not all are about GHP.

Critical Rationalist:

Yes. Eg preference satisfaction

Critical Rationalist:

I’m defending the version that is a) most well known and b) the one I agree with

curi:

I think Africa's problems are political and that kind of charity is like pouring water into a leaky bucket. The real issues here are more about tyranny, which isn't a conflict between individual or group benefit, it's bad in both ways.

Misconceptions:

You'd think with that name you'd agree with Popper's version of utilitarianism.

curi:

@Misconceptions hi, how'd you find this server?

Critical Rationalist:

I’m not a sycophant. I agree with theorists when their arguments work. I think Popper got some things wrong. Any fallibilist should expect their heroes to get some things wrong.

Misconceptions:

Did I accuse you of being a sycophant?

Critical Rationalist:

Fair enough. My use of the term was not needed.

Critical Rationalist:

I just wanted to clarify that I am not a Popper devotee or something.

Misconceptions:

Hi, @curi Reddit.

curi:

where on reddit?

curi:

Popper made comments advocating TV censorship and a 51% share of all public companies being owned by the government. I think some of his beliefs contradict others so you couldn't agree with him about everything even if you wanted to.

Misconceptions:

Your post against Ollie's ANTIFA vid.

curi:

ah cool. which subreddit was it posted to? i didn't see.

GISTE:

@Critical Rationalist this line of discussion is still pending: curi said: "I think Africa's problems are political and that kind of charity is like pouring water into a leaky bucket. The real issues here are more about tyranny, which isn't a conflict between individual or group benefit, it's bad in both ways."

Misconceptions:

You didn't post it?

Critical Rationalist:

Oh sorry I was typing and forgot to finish

curi:

i don't recall posting it but possibly i did in the past.

Critical Rationalist:

@curi Yes that’s an interesting factual claim. It might turn out that giving to charities in Africa are on the whole counterproductive. But suppose it factually turned out to be the case that on balance, donating to African charities contributed more to their welfare and did NOT detract from their political progress. Philosophically, what would you say then?

curi:

i think you could help more people, a larger amount, by addressing the political problems, rather than donating to the victims who are being victimized on an ongoing basis (which is why they're so poor). and i think that can be done with mutual benefit – more civilized, productive countries to trade with.

Critical Rationalist:

Yes, and you could be right about that factual claim.

Misconceptions:

Dancing around the question tho

Critical Rationalist:

Do you think there are no cases in which self-interest and benefiting others come apart? It would be a miracle if that was true.

curi:

i don't think conflicts of interest exist in any cases. so if you want me to replace this hypothetical with a different one where i agree there's a conflict, i can't do it.

curi:

this is a standard (classical) liberal position which is also held by Objectivism

curi:

my comments re replacing were addressing to @Misconceptions comment about dancing.

Critical Rationalist:

I’m in a lab that is burning down. I’m dying of a disease x (I’m the only person who has it), and millions of people are dying from disease y. The lab has one room with the cure for disease x (last of its kind). The lab has another room with has the cure for disease y. I only have time to go into one room before the building burns down. Which room should I enter?

Misconceptions:

The point I think the KritRAT was making was that Donating your money in this hypothetical scenario does not further your selfish interests but it does help others. What do?

curi:

i also don't think it's necessarily sacrificial to donate to benefit others. if you value life and want to promote life, and combat mosquitos, i don't see anything wrong with that. i think it's a variety of shaping the world more to your liking.

GISTE:

hmm, i thought Misconceptions was talking to Critical Rationalist when he said the dancing comment

Critical Rationalist:

Ok, so what about the case I just described?

Misconceptions:

That sounds like a rejection of egoism. Value life = value other's lives.

curi:

the lab scenario is an emergency situation which is generally a bad way to understand how to live a good life in general in normal situations. i don't have strong opinions about it. i think an egoist can pick either room. you have to choose values to pursue in life. saving millions of people is a good accomplishment for a whole career. one can be happy with that.

Misconceptions:

That sounds like another tango my friend.

Critical Rationalist:

If you define egoism so broadly so as to include living in accordance with the values you hold, then it becomes empty. Choosing literally any set of values and acting upon them would count as egoistic so long as you hold the values.

Misconceptions:

I am curious about your real answer regarding the lab situation too mr @curi

Critical Rationalist:

By empty, I mean it is not an alternative to other ethical systems. It doesn’t add new content or help you decide in moral dilemmas.

curi:

i don't accept all values, but i do accept valuing human life – it's a wonderful thing.

Critical Rationalist:

It’s not clear to me then in what sense you’re an egoist

curi:

i'm describing Rand's position

Misconceptions:

ok what door would Rand take?

Critical Rationalist:

If I’m not mistaken, Rand thought that altruism was unethical

curi:

yes, as do i

Critical Rationalist:

At least, altruism for its own sake

Misconceptions:

So Rand and curi would take the self cure.

curi:

no

curi:

have you read Atlas Shrugged?

Critical Rationalist:

If the other cure is not altruistic, then nothing is

Misconceptions:

The Plot Thickens

Misconceptions:

my reading of AS is irrelevant to whether you would take x or y door my good man.

curi:

AS contains a relevant scene

Critical Rationalist:

What counts as altruistic according to you curi?

curi:

i guess you guys would consider John Galt an altruist

Critical Rationalist:

I haven’t read as, but I’m curious about your take on this dilemma

Misconceptions:

well it seems that if you do not take the self cure, you're sacrificing yourself for the benefit of others

Critical Rationalist:

Literally

Misconceptions:

and you said you would not take the self cure

curi:

if you want to understand the Objectivist way of thinking, this is a bad place to start.

Critical Rationalist:

Curi, you said self interest and benefiting others NEVER conflict

Critical Rationalist:

And I used this to show why that claim is false

Critical Rationalist:

It is very easy to imagine scenarios where they come apart

curi:

do you agree that i'm right about all non-emergency scenarios? we should start with easier cases before harder ones.

curi:

then you will see the main ideas of the theory.

Critical Rationalist:

There probably are cases in the real world where they come apart, but that’s an empirical question not a philosophical question

curi:

and learn something about how to apply them.

Misconceptions:

To be clear, you would not take the self cure right?

Misconceptions:

your position regarding where to start has been noted

curi:

so for example, a common alleged counter-example is two men apply for the same job, and there's just one spot. do you think that's a conflict of interest?

Misconceptions:

I'd like to conclude the lab scenario

Misconceptions:

before we move on

Critical Rationalist:

Curi, I think it is a sign of philosophical skill to be able to apply your philosophy to fresh moral dilemmas, not just to dilemmas that you have practiced dealing with

Misconceptions:

I agree my critical rodent friend.

curi:

i did give you an answer, but if you want to learn about Objectivism you're taking the wrong approach.

Critical Rationalist:

It’s unclear to me how your answer is consistent with egoism

Misconceptions:

curi how is sacrificing yourself to save the lives of others not altruism?

Critical Rationalist:

I think the egoistic answer has to be self cure

curi:

right, so let's talk about how this works in general before trying to apply it to an edge case.

Critical Rationalist:

Or else it is not egoism except in a trivial sense

Critical Rationalist:

Sure, give your explanation of the General case

curi:

so for example, a common alleged counter-example is two men apply for the same job, and there's just one spot. do you think that's a conflict of interest?

Critical Rationalist:

I’ll grant that there isn’t

curi:

why isn't there?

Misconceptions:

I would not have abandoned your lab scenario to a previously practice scenario so easily

Critical Rationalist:

I could concoct different explanations. eg I would rather live in a society where employers evaluate on merits

Critical Rationalist:

I agree, it is easier to give an account of why self interest and benefiting others converge in those cases

Critical Rationalist:

Misconceptions: I try to be charitable

Misconceptions:

Charity is evil!

Critical Rationalist:

I don’t play debate games, I’m interested in what the other person thinks

Misconceptions:

Get you some bootstraps

Critical Rationalist:

Especially someone who knows David Deutsch personally (that’s very cool byw)

Critical Rationalist:

*btw

curi:

yes, employers evaluating on merits is important. many benefits. and part of the mindset here is wanting good general policies rather than insisting on short term personal benefit in the immediate situation, regardless of overall consequences. right?

curi:

in the lab scenario, i don't see a clear principle (like evaluating job candidates on merit) that would be violated by either choice. yeah dying sucks but we don't have immortality yet anyway and it's a major accomplishment to pursue and helps shape reality more to my (non-arbitrary, i claim) preferences. on the other hand, nothing was specified in the example about me having any obligation to those people. like it isn't my job to save their cure. i don't have a contract making this part of my job duties. i don't know why all these people have allowed their lives to be dependent on this one lab without any backup copies of the info, but it seems unreasonable.

Critical Rationalist:

You say that your preferences for human life are non-arbitrary. Say a bit more about why they are non-arbitrary

curi:

i think promoting and contributing to a beginning of infinity and the growth of knowledge is good. also e.g. i value the kind of society which allows men to live peacefully, cooperate voluntarily, and control nature. is that enough or did you want a different type of info?

Critical Rationalist:

Yes that’s exactly what I want

Critical Rationalist:

Very good. So, you think all of those ends are good and worth pursuing. Furthermore, you think there are good and worth pursuing in a case when they conflict with self-interest. That’s not a problem! I just don’t think you’re really an egoist (but I don’t care much about the terms). You think it is empirically the case that in most cases self-interest and benefiting others converge on the same answer, but in the case where they don’t, you go for benefitting others

curi:

i didn't say what room i'd pick. and i think by your standards Rand isn't an egoist either. John Galt said he'd kill himself if they threatened Dagny's life (to pressure and control him). he didn't put his own life first no matter what.

Critical Rationalist:

Interesting.

Critical Rationalist:

So yes I don’t care what term we use. Rand would (according to that) not be an egoist in the traditional sense.

Critical Rationalist:

The fact that it is even a question for you problematizes your self-description as an egoist. Maybe you should define egoism

Critical Rationalist:

Ben

Critical Rationalist:

Brb

curi:

I guess you'd also think an egoist in the military must betray his country and comrades if he gets into a very dangerous situation where he thinks that'll (significantly? or even 1%?) improve his odds of personally living?

curi:

whereas i think you can sign up for the military. it's risky but it's an option. and if you do, you should follow general policies like your contract with your employer and your duties to your fellow soldiers to follow military strategy instead of getting them killed. If you don't want to risk your life, don't sign up. but if you do sign up and follow the basic rules you agreed to, it's possible to succeed and have a good life. it's not hopeless. it's a way to make a try for it. so it's ok if you don't have a better option.

GISTE:

i don't recall curi calling himself an egoist

curi:

Egoism is a term used by Objectivism. I consider it an overly fancy word but it's OK. The basic point is the self is very important and valuable, and pursuing self-interest is good. But the point is not to maximize years of life regardless of all other considerations like quality of life and the state of the world.

curi:

If that was the meaning, an egoist would have to get all his groceries delivered to reduce the risk of dying in a car accident.

curi:

I don't know anyone who advocates that. Certainly not Rand.

curi:

Egoism means e.g. that it's not my duty to sacrifice my preferences or values to other people's preferences or values. I should reject that. But it doesn't mean rejecting all values broader than my continued physical existence. An egoist is allowed to care about e.g. colonizing the stars and spend money towards that goal even if he doesn't expect to see it, and even though not spending that money on medical care lowers his life expectancy a little.

curi:

An egoist also may value his model trains above additional medical care.

GISTE:

so traditional egoism is nonsense like how the traditional selfishness concept is nonsense?

curi:

@GISTE take a look at info like https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/egoism/ and see if you can find it saying to maximize life expectancy over all other values

Critical Rationalist:

@curi thank you for the replies

Critical Rationalist:

I really should go to bed now, but I definitely have more to say

Critical Rationalist:

@curi I read through your comments again. If egoism (for you and Rand) only means that pursuing self-interest is good and worth doing, I’ll accept your definition

curi:

Did someone link squirrels yet?

Critical Rationalist:

But someone could still say “I value what’s in the Bible and want to follow it”

Critical Rationalist:

Egoism (in this broad sense) has nothing to say to such a person

JustinCEO:

http://curi.us/1169-morality

Critical Rationalist:

Was the Carlo Elliot dialogue a response to me?

JustinCEO:

It's squirrel thing curi mentioned, and is relevant to morality discussion

curi:

It’s DD and my view rejecting moral foundationalism. Mostly afk.

Critical Rationalist:

Conveniently for y’all I’m not a moral foundationalist

Critical Rationalist:

Does anyone have thoughts on Popper’s solution to the problem of induction? I think it is very compelling. His approach is to accept Hume’s conclusion that it is invalid to draw conclusions about the likelihood of events in the future based on observations of the past. He says that we instead have various competing theories which are criticized and (when applicable) tested. The theories which best survive our attempts at refutation, we tentatively accept (for the time being).

JustinCEO:

I dont think I really got crit of drawing conclusions on past data until someone explained that the reason we expect sun to rise is not cus we've seen it rise a bunch of times but because we have an explanatory model of sunrises. Change the model or some variables in it (cuz eg sun expanding in later stages of being a star or whatever) and your expectation of what will happen changes

Critical Rationalist:

Yes exactly

Critical Rationalist:

The model is what is held up to empirical tests and tentatively accepted in the absence of disconfirmarion.

curi:

re egosim, Objectivism is a system. i'm not very interested in terminology, but the overall ideas about how to think about morality, what sort of values are good and bad, what sorts of methods of achieving values are effective and ineffective, etc. when you look at the whole picture here, you find substantial disagreements with most people. the exact nature or starting point of those disagreements is hard to discover because most people don't organize their moral thinking much and don't want to go through the issues point by point (and if they do that, it often changes their view, which complicates finding out what they thought before).

curi:

re solution to induction, i think it's important to talk about how conjectures and refutations is an evolutionary process and evolution is the only known reasonable theory of how new knowledge is created. induction never actually offered a rival theory to evolution. also, although I think Popper's idea is good, and adequate to solve the problem of induction narrowly, i think it's missing some things. specifically the idea of best surviving attempts at refutation is vague and leaves people using a lot of intuition to fill in the gaps.

Critical Rationalist:

@curi I’m not interested in terms either, so that’s a fair response. Does objectivism give us a standard by which to decide between values that people hold? For example, if I (as a utilitarian) value maximizes happiness (everyone’s counts equally), does objectivism have anything to say to me? If so, what?

curi:

yes Objectivism has a lot to say about what values to hold. as does BoI, btw: don't hold values incompatible with error correction, don't hold values incompatible with unbounded progress.

Critical Rationalist:

Well... that sounds more Popperian than objectivist

curi:

i think you misread

Critical Rationalist:

But ok, I’m a utilitarian. I believe in error correction and unbounded progress.

Freeze:

i think objectivism might say don't hold values that sacrifice your preferences for others '

Freeze:

because they are counterproductive

Critical Rationalist:

Well, as a utilitarian I sacrifice my happiness for others, but since I want to do that, I suppose in a certain sense I’m not sacrificing my preferences.

Critical Rationalist:

Utilitarianism (and many other ethical systems) seem compatible with @curi’s standards

Freeze:

Jordan

jordancurve:

@Critical Rationalist Any comment as to your alleged misreading of curi's comment on values?

Critical Rationalist:

Where was that alleged?

jordancurve:

https://discordapp.com/channels/304082867384745994/304082867384745994/662830621898571806

Critical Rationalist:

sorry there’s a lot to keep track of

curi:

i'm going to be mostly AFK soon FYI

Critical Rationalist:

Ok sure, I’ll grant that.

Critical Rationalist:

I’ll grant his standards are objectivist

Critical Rationalist:

I maintain that they are compatible with many (maybe most) ethical theories

curi:

my 2 examples were from BoI not Oism

Freeze:

yeah

curi:

they are Oism-compatible though.

Critical Rationalist:

Right that’s what I thought

Critical Rationalist:

Boi=Deutsch

Critical Rationalist:

Anyways, breaks over

jordancurve:

@Critical Rationalist If that's what you thought, then why did you write "that sounds more Popperian than objectivist"?

Critical Rationalist:

I’ll see y’all later

Critical Rationalist:

I count Deutsch as a Popperian (as would he)

Freeze:

i think the misreading allegation had to do with you expecting them to be more oist when curi said them after the BoI part. were you more asking for objectivist values that aren't Popperian or Deutschian?

Critical Rationalist:

But yes Deutschian would have been more accurate

curi:

Oism says the way for individuals or society to get ahead is by the pursuit of individual self-interest in peaceful ways. this is how to help others. trying more directly to help others is broadly (not alway) counter productive and people shouldn't be guilted into it or told it's a moral ideal.

Freeze:

my disagreement isn't about your use of Popperian over Deutschian

jordancurve:

@Critical Rationalist curi said, paraphrased: Boi suggests these values. You replied, "that sounds more Popperian than objectivist". That still looks like a non-sequitur to me, most likely due to a misreading.

curi:

Oism rejects ideas like that the profit motive, or greed, are inherently anti-social or bad for anyone, and rejects the seeing the purpose of my life as being to help others instead of to help myself.

JustinCEO:

re: moral ideal, i think someone said earlier (mb @Critical Rationalist ? i'm not sure, correct me if wrong) that the strong form of altruism was rare. but even holding altruism as a moral ideal has a big effect on ppl's thinking

curi:

Oism broadly thinks each person should look out for himself and a few people who play a substantial, valuable role in his life (family, close friends), and take personal responsibility for getting good outcomes for himself, and people should cooperate especially via the economic division of labor and specialization, and also in other voluntary ways (like friendship) when they want to. this is not how most people see life.

JustinCEO:

even if ppl don't actually practice altruism consistently, it still has a (bad) effect on the world

curi:

Oism says e.g. that Bill Gates did more good for the world as microsoft founder/CEO than with his charity efforts afterwards.

Augustine:

Why is that?

curi:

when you trade for mutual benefit, it's hard to screw that up. both sides think they are benefitting. they can make mistakes but it's a good thing similar to solo actions that you think benefit you. and with business you have tools like profit and loss to help you judge what's effective and efficient. when you do charity you lose those mechanisms to help you get good outcomes. it's hard to know what's a good use of resources. it's hard to measure. the recipients can say "sure this is good for me" but it's hard to tell how good it is for them and compare it to alternative uses of resources. the free market system compares resource uses to alternatives and does optimization there.

curi:

and competition between charities for fundraising dollars are a different sort of thing (more marketing based for example) than competition by companies for customers.

Critical Rationalist:

@curi given your description of oism, I think it is an empirical claim not a philosophical one. It might be true (and likely is to a large extent) that self-interest produces more benefit than being altruistic. But that’s a claim for economists and sociologists to confirm or disconfirm.

Critical Rationalist:

I have to go again, but that would be my initial reaction

curi:

Economics is primarily a matter of logic and math, not empirical

Critical Rationalist:

There is behavioral economics, which is more empirical

curi:

That isn’t where Oism gets these ideas

Critical Rationalist:

To the extent that economics is insufficiently empirical, I would just amend my comment to say “it is for better economics to corroborate or disconfirm”

Freeze:

DD:

The whole concept of bias is a misconception. So-called 'biases' are just errors. Thinking is error correction—which biases are not immune to.

Hence patterns of errors in the outcomes of thinking are not explained by biases but by whatever is sabotaging error correction.

Freeze:

I also thought of behavioural economics when you mentioned sociology alongside economists

Freeze:

but I've been questioning that stuff lately

Freeze:

a lot of it seems based on ideas that contradict CR epistemology

Freeze:

in terms of knowledge and how it's created and the role ideas play in minds

Critical Rationalist:

Have to go again unfortunately. I’ll try to return tomorrow

curi:

Bye CR

Critical Rationalist:

@GISTE “do you agree with these 2 interpretations of your view? (1) a headache has inherent negative value and that it's automatically bad. (2) if i have a headache, and choose to not immediately take pain meds because i prefer to continue philosophy discussion for a few more minutes before taking pain meds, that is a sacrifice.”

Critical Rationalist:

Is this a true story?

Critical Rationalist:

But yes that is a sacrifice. If the pleasure derived from philosophy discussion outweighs the headache, then it would be prudent to make the sacrifice

curi:

Do you think all purchases are sacrifices because you give up money?

Critical Rationalist:

In a trivial sense, sure

Critical Rationalist:

But they are worthwhile sacrifices (sometimes)

curi:

In the same sense as what you just said re headache?

Critical Rationalist:

Yes exactly

Critical Rationalist:

Though the pleasure created could be in others or long term

curi:

I think it’s an error to view all action as sacrifice just because some hypothetical other scenario would be superior.

Critical Rationalist:

No I’m not using sacrifice in that sense

Critical Rationalist:

I would say sacrifice is giving up some good for an end

Critical Rationalist:

The end could be such that it makes the sacrifice worth it, or not

GISTE:

Is that ends justifies the means logic ?

Critical Rationalist:

Absolutely

curi:

All action involves giving up alternatives

Critical Rationalist:

What else could justify the means?

Critical Rationalist:

In other words, I don’t see how one can show that some means are bad unless they have tend to have bad consequences

Critical Rationalist:

People sometimes say “ends justify the means” to defend lying, violence etc

Critical Rationalist:

But those “means” are bad precisely because they have bad consequences

curi:

Busy soon btw.

Critical Rationalist:

No worries

curi:

Not caught up much but:

There are two different ways an idea can be empirical.

1) The idea was inspired by evidence. We used evidence to help develop the idea.

2) The idea makes claims about observable facts, so we could use evidence to test the idea.

The main ideas of economics, as I view it, are neither 1 nor 2. They are about logical and mathematical analysis of abstract, hypothetical situations. The starting point of economics isn't seeing what sort of economies worked well in the past and trying to optimize that. It's theoretical analysis of certain ideas and principles.

Economics is very hard to test because we can't do controlled experiments for most issues. Even if we could test, it's often not the best approach, as DD pointed out: https://curi.us/1504-the-most-important-improvement-to-popperian-philosophy-of-science

Some people try to make economics more empirical. For example, if they want to know about minimum wage, they look at cities, states or countries which created or changed a minimum wage and then look at the results (and sometimes they can find two similar places, and one creates a minimum wage, and one doesn't, and do a comparison). I reject this sort of empirical approach to economics in general. Not 100% useless but generally not much use.

If you want to understand minimum wage, you should consider concepts like supply and demand, and do mathematical calculations to see what they mean in some simplified scenarios.

And when rival economists disagree, the way to resolve this isn't by getting more data. A better approach is to figure out what's different about each of their systems and look for logical errors.

curi:

Applying economics to real world scenarios has various difficulties but can be done to a reasonable approximation. With minimum wage, after figuring out its consequences in a simple scenario, we can play with that scenario. Start adding extra complications and see what changes. E.g. increase or decrease the ratio of workers to employers and see if minimum wage has different results. Or you could add part time workers to your model, or add a simplified stock market, or whatever you think is relevant. That lets you learn about the connections between minimum wage and the other stuff you model.

You can also see how it's a form of price control and follows the general logic of price controls (price maximums causes shortages when low enough to matter; price minimums cause surplusses when high enough to matter – minimum wage causes a surplus of labor (unemployment) by preventing the price of labor from reaching the market clearing price). You can also understand why that is based on simple principles. The principles are things like what a trade is, what the division of labor is, what supply and demand are, what a buyer and a seller are, etc.

For complex real situations, we can see them as similar to an abstract concept – an inexact but pretty good fit – except for e.g. 8 extra factors that we identified as potentially important differences. Then we can consider the effects of each of the factors. And then we can often make some empirical predictions. But if we're wrong, while it can be an error in our economic logic, it's often an error somewhere else, like there was another factor in the real situation, which is important to the result, but which we didn't take into account.

curi:

same issue with Objectivist morality and self-interest. we get conclusions like that by thinking more like this https://elliottemple.com/essays/liberalism rather than by empirical observation.

curi:

8:16 AM] Critical Rationalist: If you all believe so much in the power (and easyness) of rational criticism, I would like to see someone defend @curi’s and @Freeze’s original claims which lead to this.

which claims by me?

GISTE:

@curi, maybe cr was talking about this https://discordapp.com/channels/304082867384745994/304082867384745994/663051081818963991

curi:

I just think as a practice it should be less common. I want @curi to rule out the following claim with philosophy: “everyone would be better off if they were altruistic”.

that claim is too vague to begin criticism.

curi:

it's ambiguous between: each individual would be better off if he did it himself, or everyone as a group would be better off if everyone did it

curi:

it doesn't specify what is and isn't altruistic behavior

curi:

and it doesn't specify what better off means

curi:

also i would expect to use economics in my response and i don't know which economics is accepted or denied.

curi:

like are we accepting the benefits of private property, division of labor, capitalism and trade? or not? if not, what is claimed instead?

curi:

which of the claims about those are errors and why?

curi:

if we accept that stuff, how does altruism interact with it? like are some trades altruistic? which ones?

curi:

@Critical Rationalist

curi:

also if i missed some major point to respond to, let me know, cuz i'm not gonna be reading everything. (this applies to everyone). if you really want my attention you can use curi or FI forums btw. i encourage ppl to do that but some seem to prefer discord without much explanation of why. http://fallibleideas.com/discussion

Critical Rationalist:

@curi

“1) The idea was inspired by evidence. We used evidence to help develop the idea.
2) The idea makes claims about observable facts, so we could use evidence to test the idea.
The main ideas of economics, as I view it, are neither 1 nor 2. They are about logical and mathematical analysis of abstract, hypothetical situations.”

Yes, but those logical models depend on assumptions about the world that are 2. The claim that humans are best approximated as rational self-interested utility maximizers is a claim economists could be wrong about. We might not have evolved to be like that. To the extent that that assumption (the rationality assumption) is violated, economic models will be less than perfect. Surely the point of economic models is to predict real economic behavior. Economic models are not toys for smart people to play with.

Critical Rationalist:

“Some people try to make economics more empirical. For example, if they want to know about minimum wage, they look at cities, states or countries which created or changed a minimum wage and then look at the results (and sometimes they can find two similar places, and one creates a minimum wage, and one doesn't, and do a comparison). I reject this sort of empirical approach to economics in general. Not 100% useless but generally not much use.”

Our disagreement might run deeper than I thought, because that is exactly the sort of economics I’m in favour of. I’m also in favour of abstract mathematical modeling, but if the modeling does not approximate real world exchange of goods, then it is useless. It is, as I said, a toy for smart people to play with. The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

Critical Rationalist:

“If you want to understand minimum wage, you should consider concepts like supply and demand, and do mathematical calculations to see what they mean in some simplified scenarios.”
There is nothing wrong with those concepts, but those mathematical calculations include empirical assumptions about human nature that could be false. If we evolved to NOT be rational self-interested utility maximizers, the equations will just be false (or at least, imperfect approximations).

“And when rival economists disagree, the way to resolve this isn't by getting more data. A better approach is to figure out what's different about each of their systems and look for logical errors.”
Or look for empirical assumptions that are false. Which of the following claims do you disagree with:
1. The goal of economics is to describe and predict actual economic interactions
2. Actual economic interactions are affected by human nature
3. Economic models make assumptions about human nature
4. Those assumptions could be false for accidental reasons about how we happened to evolve

“that claim (that a world of altruists would be better) is too vague to begin criticism.
it's ambiguous between: each individual would be better off if he did it himself, or everyone as a group would be better off if everyone did it”

You as an objectivist believe that it is the case that a world wherein people were altruistic would be a worse world. What did you have in mind when you asserted that? Tell me what you mean by altruistic, and we will select people who fit the description. No matter what description you give, it quickly becomes an empirical question whether people who fit that description interact better and produce more wealth.

curi:

Semi afk. Didn’t read @Critical Rationalist messages yet but I’m thinking we should narrow down the discussion and pick a specific point to focus on and try to reach agreement about. Make sense to you? Topic suggestion?

Critical Rationalist:

@curi I agree

Critical Rationalist:

I just had left a lot that I hadn’t responded to from 3 people so I just did a volley

Critical Rationalist:

If I had to narrow down what I see as my main disagreement with you, it would be this: the exact form that human nature has taken is a contingent fact of evolution. We are a certain way, and we could have easily been different if evolution had gone differently. Given that, we cannot know a priori what human nature is like (contingent facts have to be discovered through empirical testing). Your claims about which ethical systems will produce more wealth or welfare depend on assumptions about human nature. Therefore (given that assumptions about human nature cannot be know a priori, because they are contingent results of evolution), your claims about the effects of ethical systems cannot be known a priori.

Critical Rationalist:

Everything I said above would also apply to economic theories.

jordancurve:

@Critical Rationalist I don't know what you mean by "human nature". The closest meaningful term that comes to mind is "universal knowledge creator", but since you're familiar with Deutsch, I guess you would have used that instead if that's what you meant.

Critical Rationalist:

No. I mean things like how we respond to incentive structures, under what circumstances we will cooperate or not cooperate, what makes people respond tribalistically or not, whether people develop better under strict parenting or permissive parenting

Critical Rationalist:

Those are all relevant to what the impact of different ethical systems will be

jordancurve:

So... human nature = the way people think about various ideas in Western culture today?

jordancurve:

I don't think that's what you mean, but it's again my best guess at something coherent (to me) that roughly matches (maybe) what you're talking about.

Critical Rationalist:

What do you think I mean?

jordancurve:

idk, the closest match I have so far is "the way people think about various ideas in Western culture today"

Critical Rationalist:

If you think it’s incoherent, point out how

Critical Rationalist:

Did I mention or imply western culture?

jordancurve:

I don't undestand what you're talking about well enough to criticize it other than for being vague (to me)

Critical Rationalist:

I just listed some traits

jordancurve:

Does traits = ideas?

Critical Rationalist:

It is an open empirical question to what extent humans develop better under strict parenting, for example

Critical Rationalist:

Or... to what extent do we naturally feel empathy for suffering strangers

Critical Rationalist:

Some primates are fairly empathetic

Critical Rationalist:

Others are not

Critical Rationalist:

Which kind are we?

Critical Rationalist:

Open empirical question

Critical Rationalist:

I could give examples like this all day

Critical Rationalist:

And the answers to these questions really matter when we try to design societies

Critical Rationalist:

@curi these examples are relevant to our topic

curi:

i regard my main, important ideas about economics or parenting styles to apply to aliens too, not to be human-specific. do you disagree with that?

Critical Rationalist:

I stand by the idea that economic models can only be true to the extent that their assumptions about human nature are true (eg that humans or aliens are self-interested rational utility-maximizers). Whether or not those assumptions are true is an accidental fact of evolution. There is no law of nature that says humans or aliens must be a certain way. It depends what selection pressures we happened to face.

curi:

i think the relevant assumptions about human nature are very limited. e.g.: intelligence. made of matter. have preferences.

curi:

separate individuals

curi:

no magic

Critical Rationalist:

Well, even those are empirical claims (albeit ones that are so obvious that it is not worth challenging them)

curi:

i'm not saying 100% non-empirical

Critical Rationalist:

Good

curi:

tangentially i actually think the laws of logic, epistemology and computation are all due to the laws of physics, and so are technically empirical matteers.

Critical Rationalist:

Do you think the assumptions you listed are premises from which you can deduce logically (ie with no empirical social science data) that egoism works better than altruism in society?

Critical Rationalist:

And are you so confident in this deduction that no amount of empirical social science data could change your mind?

curi:

i probably left out a few premises and i use critical argument in general not strictly deduction, but basically yes.

Critical Rationalist:

Well, I’m afraid you’ll have to spell that out

curi:

big clashes with empirical data would result in me trying to figure out what's going on. lots of the sorts of studies people do today could not change my mind.

Critical Rationalist:

Explain to me the transition from those assumptions to egoism works better

curi:

or i should say, not with the sort of results they actually get. i guess if a minimum wage study found wages went up a trillion times in a city (after inflation adjustments) i'd start investigating wtf happened there.

Critical Rationalist:

Do you mean a trillion fold or a trillion times in a row?

curi:

fold

Critical Rationalist:

Your critical argument is so powerful that you need a trillionfold increase in wages to even consider that your argument is wrong?

curi:

that was an example not a minimum

Critical Rationalist:

What would the minimum be

Critical Rationalist:

Ballpark

Critical Rationalist:

Although frankly

Critical Rationalist:

To me

Critical Rationalist:

What matters more is not the size of the increase

curi:

varies heavily by context. just if something really unusual happened, which does not appear to be explainable by any of the typical factors, i'd be curious what caused it.

Critical Rationalist:

But the number of replications

Critical Rationalist:

If dozens of different natural experiments were done (ie neighbouring states or provinces with minimum wage increases) and all of them found a particular result, that would count more than one natural experiment with a huge effect size

curi:

if they all got 10% wage increases it'd mean nothing to me

curi:

but a trillion percent increase is very hard to explain by any explanations i already know of

Critical Rationalist:

But if it is just one natural experiment

Critical Rationalist:

It could be so many other factors

Critical Rationalist:

Replications are (rightly) much more impressive to social scientists than single studies with big effects

Critical Rationalist:

It is easy to get big effects by chance with a single study

curi:

you're speaking general rules of thumb. i'm not debating that.

Critical Rationalist:

It is much harder to get small effects that replicate really well (and btw, 10% wage increase is huge)

curi:

i understand what you're saying

Critical Rationalist:

Ok, I want you to spell out this critical argument

Critical Rationalist:

Because... you’re hypothetically willing to discount dozens of replicated natural experiments on the basis of this argument

Critical Rationalist:

It better be airtight

curi:

do you have an opinion of minimum wage laws? do you know much econ? is it a good topic to use? may afk any time btw

Critical Rationalist:

Well, I guess I originally had in mind the argument that egoism makes society better

curi:

my arguments re egoism involve econ, that isn't a separate topic

Critical Rationalist:

I figured they’d be related

Critical Rationalist:

Well, I would like to see it spelled out

Critical Rationalist:

I suspect I’ll be able to follow without a technical understanding of Econ

curi:

ok. just to know where to start, what is your current view on min wage?

curi:

yeah my econ arguments aren't especially technical

Critical Rationalist:

Oh I’m very open minded about this

Critical Rationalist:

There are some natural experiments of the sort I’m describing that indicate min wage increases employment

Critical Rationalist:

But they are few in number

Critical Rationalist:

I accept that the models generally predict the opposite

Critical Rationalist:

I’m not here to defend any particular view of economics

curi:

ok

Critical Rationalist:

I’m not even attacking the idea that egoism harms society

Freeze:

around here was a minimum wage discussion between Andy and curi that was interesting: http://curi.us/2145-open-discussion-economics#10988

Critical Rationalist:

I’m attacking the idea that the claim that “egoism helps society” can be known a priori

curi:

to be clear, my claim: not strictly a priori, but approximately. we don't need to do empirical studies about it, and it doesn't depend on parochial details like that our planet has oil or trees on it.

Critical Rationalist:

Not those parochial details

Critical Rationalist:

But details about the kind of creatures humans are

Critical Rationalist:

How empathetic are we

Critical Rationalist:

How rational are we

Critical Rationalist:

Do we engage in systematic errors of reasoning

Critical Rationalist:

How selfish are we under normal conditions

Critical Rationalist:

(not “how selfish should we be for optimal results”)

Critical Rationalist:

We are primates. The product of an unguided process. It really matters what kind of creatures we are.

curi:

yeah, my arguments don't use claims about those things are premises in the usual sense. however, i do have some claims about the irrelevance of standard claims along those lines.

jordancurve:

I regard people's degree of empathy and rationality as a product of the ideas they hold, not as some kind immutable property of humans.

jordancurve:

Contra "the kind of creatures humans are"

curi:

yeah that. it's part of the universal knowledge creator view of BoI.

Critical Rationalist:

The extent to which empathy is caused by their ideas is a question of psychology and neuroscience

Critical Rationalist:

In fact, I think there is good reason to think that most of our responses are the result of automatic unconscious processing

Critical Rationalist:

But even if you don’t agree with that, how can you rule it out? It is certainly possible that unconscious automatic processing (NOT ideas) leads to empathy. How can you rule that possibility out?

Critical Rationalist:

How can you rule out that empathy is not in the non-idea part of unconscious processing

curi:

This internet is cutting out. The quick outline is you do epistemology first and then use that to evaluate models [of] minds. I’ll give some details but not today.

Critical Rationalist:

I definitely want that spelled out when curi comes back

Critical Rationalist:

Our minds could have evolved many different ways

Critical Rationalist:

Evolution is a contingent process, with lots of random events and shifting selection pressures

Critical Rationalist:

There is no way to sit on your armchair and figure out how evolution happened

Critical Rationalist:

And our minds are products of evolution

jordancurve:

Empathy involves understanding other people. If our ability to empathize were limited by non-universal hardware (which I take to follow from the hypothetical that empathy is part of "the non-idea part of unconscious processing"), then there could exist situations in which it would be impossible for us to understand the other person enough to empathize with them. This would contradict the unbounded reach of human understanding that is argued for in The Beginning of Infinity. Therefore our ability to empathize is not controlled by non-universal hardware.

jordancurve:

Or at least, the final sentence follows unless there's some other objection I didn't think of, which is quite possible. 🙂

Critical Rationalist:

Ok, maybe there are some situations in which our current empathetic capacities (which we’ll suppose are constituted of non-universal hardware) cannot empathize with others

Critical Rationalist:

But maybe our rational capacities do have the unbounded character Deutsch speaks of. I’m willing to grant that

Critical Rationalist:

But I see no contradiction between supposing that a) empathy is non-universal and b) rationality is unbounded

curi:

Do you think you understand and agree with what BoI says about universality and jump to universality?

jordancurve:

To the extent that empathy is a matter of ideas, any hard-wired limitation on human empathy contradicts the universality of human thought argued for in BoI. @Critical Rationalist

Critical Rationalist:

The claim that empathy is a matter of ideas is precisely what I’m challenging

Critical Rationalist:

I have not read Boi in its entirety. The universality chapter was one of the ones I skimmed

jordancurve:

If you're looking for things to argue with or learn about, curi has collected a list of unrefuted and potentially controversial ideas here: http://curi.us/2238-potential-debate-topics

Critical Rationalist:

@jordancurve I went through that page and identified around 50 claims. I disagree with around 35 of them (quite strongly in most cases)

curi:

Most of these things don’t have an explicit Popper view, have to apply Cr principles

Critical Rationalist:

@curi If you know which claims on your list are DDs views, I’d be interested in knowing

Critical Rationalist:

These are my core commitments, and the thinkers who influenced me:

Critical Rationalist:

Critical rationalism* (epistemology): Karl Popper, David Deutsch, Alex Rosenberg (helpful critic)

Utilitarianism, moral realism* (ethics): Henry Sidgwick, Joshua Greene, Peter Singer

Metaphysical naturalism (metaphysics): Sean Carroll, Dan Dennett, Alex Rosenberg

Social democracy, centre-leftism (politics): Karl Popper, Noam Chomsky, Thomas Sowell (helpful critic)

Compatibilism (free will): Dan Dennett, David Hume, Giulio Tononi

Panprotopsychism (consciousness): David Chalmers, Christopher Koch, Giulio Tononi

Evolutionary psychology* (human nature): David Buss, Steven Pinker, David Buller (helpful critic)

* with caveats

curi:

Most are. Is there a particular thing you’re curious about?

Critical Rationalist:

Trump, romance, global warming

curi:

No, yes, yes

Critical Rationalist:

Global warming... are you sure about that?

curi:

Yes

Critical Rationalist:

Because I seem to remember hearing him say in a ted talk that the right response is to trust the experts

Critical Rationalist:

In this context

curi:

He was trying to be diplomatic and choose words very exactly to not literally lie

Critical Rationalist:

Has DD ever been married?

curi:

I don’t discuss my personal life let alone his

Critical Rationalist:

Haha fair enough

Critical Rationalist:

Anyways, there is obviously lots to talk about

Critical Rationalist:

I will probably have to push away in a week or so when my next semester starts

Critical Rationalist:

But this will be a looming temptation

curi:

Re romance there was an Autonomy Respecting Relationships forum

Critical Rationalist:

Next semester I’m working on finishing my MA in philosophy, but I’ll also be volunteering as a research assistant for that horrid discipline of psychology

Critical Rationalist:

😉

curi:

DD supported Bush but has been gradually shifting more politically left

Critical Rationalist:

I think Popper is left wing to a first approximation

curi:

Yeah but not far left like Hillary, Bernie, SJWs

Critical Rationalist:

Hillary is left in your book?

curi:

Yes!?

Critical Rationalist:

*far left??

curi:

Yes she is an Alinskyite who called a hundred million Americans deplorables

Critical Rationalist:

She’s centrist even by the standards of the Democratic Party

Critical Rationalist:

And by international standards, the democrats themselves are quite centrist

Critical Rationalist:

Bernie, Warren, the squad, they are squarely in the left

Critical Rationalist:

But they’re a minority in the dems

Critical Rationalist:

In terms of Hillary’s concrete policy proposals, she’s quite centrist

curi:

I don’t agree

Critical Rationalist:

Foreign policy she has a long history of being hawkish (arguably Center right)

Critical Rationalist:

Calling 100 million Americans deplorables is elitist and dismissive, but not leftist

curi:

She did it because she’s far enough left of them to hate them

Critical Rationalist:

How do you know that’s why she said it?

Critical Rationalist:

Btw just to be clear I’m not a Hillary fan

Critical Rationalist:

I’m just a little surprised

curi:

I have read a lot of political info that you probably haven’t

curi:

Leads to perspective differences

Critical Rationalist:

That’s... not a good way to engage in conversation

curi:

? It shouldn’t be surprising to reach significantly different conclusions based on different info

Critical Rationalist:

I might have been reading more into that comment than was there

curi:

Just on phone not giving details. Around more tomorrow probably

curi:

Almost done traveling

Critical Rationalist:

Ok @curi, here is one issue from the list of debate topics: genes have no direct influence over our intelligence or personalities. That is a empirical conjecture. As Popperians, what do we do when we make empirical conjectures? We try to test them. If genes had no influence over those traits, then people who share all of their genes but none of their environment should not be similar. Identical twins raised in separate adoptive families fit this description. They are in fact massively similar. In terms of IQ scores and personality tests (which I am sure you’re skeptical of), but also behavioral measures: how much education they get, income, even political values (yes, really). Just go to google scholar and look up “heritability estimate twin studies” and then any trait. These heritability estimates are derived from the kind of twin and adoption studies that I’m describing.

Critical Rationalist:

To make this concrete, suppose John and Bob are identical twins raised in separate families. They would be similar in terms of cognitive ability (as measured by IQ tests), political beliefs (though of course not 100% identical), and measurable behaviors. Get massive samples of “Johns and Bobs”, and you find similarities like this replicate well. What is your explanation for this?

curi:

While I have some empirical comments on that issue (e.g. re low data quality), I think the important issues are primarily theoretical. We need a complex theoretical framework with which to interpret the data. We need models of how genes and minds work, explanations of causal mechanisms, rival ideas, criticism, etc. Popper says observation is theory laden, and fairly often there is a lot of theory involved, a lot of background knowledge that makes some difference.

curi:

So e.g. I think the theory points in http://bactra.org/weblog/520.html are important to interpreting the data correctly. They explain e.g. what "heritability" is. One needs an understanding of that to know what to make of the data. They also explain in general some limitations of correlations and statistics.

Critical Rationalist:

Well, on the data quality issue, the findings of behavioral genetics are VERY well-replicated. See https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1745691615617439

Critical Rationalist:

I've taught AP Psychology (which contains a chapter on heritability and individual differences) several times, and took psychology statistics courses during my undergrad. Heritability has a precise meaning: the percentage of population variance in a trait that is caused by genetic differences. For example, people in the population differ on height (i.e. height is variable). What percentage of this variability is due to genetic differences? Around 90%. That means 90% of the differences between people are due to genes. We can estimate this with twin and adoption studies.

curi:

the percentage of population variance in a trait that is caused by genetic differences.

that is not the meaning.

Critical Rationalist:

So, if your article has a different account of heritability than the one I've described, I can say with some confidence that it is at odds with contemporary behavioral genetics. I've read summaries of the literature from Eric Turkheimer, Steven Pinker, and the article above (which was written by 4 leading experts; they summarized dozens of studes).

Critical Rationalist:

Oh it isn't? Please give me the definition.

curi:

the article is by an geneticist expert FYI

curi:

To summarize: Heritability is a technical measure of how much of the variance in a quantitative trait (such as IQ) is associated with genetic differences, in a population with a certain distribution of genotypes and environments. Under some very strong simplifying assumptions, quantitative geneticists use it to calculate the changes to be expected from artificial or natural selection in a statistically steady environment. It says nothing about how much the over-all level of the trait is under genetic control, and it says nothing about how much the trait can change under environmental interventions. If, despite this, one does want to find out the heritability of IQ for some human population, the fact that the simplifying assumptions I mentioned are clearly false in this case means that existing estimates are unreliable, and probably too high, maybe much too high.

curi:

the term "associated with" is not, and does not mean, caused by

JustinCEO:

"associated with" is more like "correlated with" if my understanding is correct

curi:

i've read mostly looked at the actual literature instead of summaries of the literature FYI. i think this is a better method.

Critical Rationalist:

I actually agree with that definition. But the best explanation of the pattern of associations is that the genes are playing a causal role. This is not just my view. Here is a quote from an article from Nature (written by leading experts): "IQ heritability, the portion of a population's IQ variability attributable to the effects of genes"

Critical Rationalist:

https://www.nature.com/articles/41319

Critical Rationalist:

But yes, the data are logically compatible with other causal explanations.

GISTE:

i guess most people (including most "experts") agree with you, but that doesn't mean that's the right position. @Critical Rationalist

curi:

your ideas about what is a good explanation in a particular case are not a matter of heritability. they are something else.

Critical Rationalist:

@curi What is your rival theory for why identical twins raised apart are similar on every trait we can measure.

Critical Rationalist:

@GISTE He was citing the definition given by a geneticist. I agree with everything in the definition, but it was incomplete.

Critical Rationalist:

Or at least, it is compatible with a causal explanation. The causal explanation is the theory which (I would contend) best survives theoretical criticism.

Critical Rationalist:

If someone disagrees, they better offer a better theory.

GISTE:

@Critical Rationalist i was referencing this: "But the best explanation of the pattern of associations is that the genes are playing a causal role. This is not just my view."

Critical Rationalist:

It is true that that explanation is not just my view, but I am willing to defend it on its own terms.

Critical Rationalist:

The fact that experts believe it does not make it true.

Critical Rationalist:

Here is my explanation for why identical twins raised apart are similar for psychological traits: genes influence them. Does someone have an alternative explanation?

curi:

i don't agree with your take on the dataset, but setting that aside the basic explanation is gene-environment interactions, e.g. a gene for height can be correlated with basketball skill but it doesn't provide basketball skill, that isn't the kind of thing it does.

betterbylearning:

@Critical Rationalist I find it easiest to think about this matter of genetic causes by way of example. Suppose our culture regards red-haired people as volatile, easily angered and less rational personalities. And so when people, generally, encounter a red-haired child they treat him or her differently from other children. They try to explain stuff less and invoke violence / control over redheads more quickly. So then someone comes along and does a twin study. They find that, in fact, genes are associated with adults who are less rational and more prone to violence. But it could be (likely is) that genes cause red hair, red hair causes cultural mistreatment, and cultural mistreatment causes less rationality and more violence. Not that genes directly cause less rationality and more violence. If the culture changed, the result would change without the genes changing at all.

Critical Rationalist:

"i don't agree with your take on the dataset" Please be more specific. Are you denying that identical twins raised apart have similar IQs, similar personalities, etc.?

curi:

i think you're overstating that.

Critical Rationalist:

They much more similar than strangers, but not 100% the same.

Critical Rationalist:

I can give you precise numbers if you want.

Critical Rationalist:

I'm still waiting for an alternative explanation.

curi:

the basic explanation is gene-environment interactions, e.g. a gene for height can be correlated with basketball skill but it doesn't provide basketball skill, that isn't the kind of thing it does.

betterbylearning:

@Critical Rationalist I intended to suggest an alternative explanation via my example. There could be some trait genes cause, which people culturally decide means they should treat people differently. The different treatment then causes outcomes like IQ (or basketball skill).

curi:

DD's example is an infant smiling gene, which causes infants to smile more and does nothing later. This could end up associated with all sorts of stuff because it leads to different treatment by parents in our culture.

Critical Rationalist:

Yes, these would all (for me) count as ways that the genes can cause human differences.

curi:

a gene which causes infant smiling is quite different than a gene which causes intelligence, right?

Critical Rationalist:

Ok, so now you want to have a specific empirical discussion of HOW genes cause intelligence.

Critical Rationalist:

Maybe they do so by structuring the brain differently

Critical Rationalist:

Maybe they cause more height

curi:

no, i don't want to discuss empirical matters, i want to discuss how to view a simplified example

betterbylearning:

I think it comes down to what problem you're trying to solve with the "genes cause" explanation.

Critical Rationalist:

maybe they cause smiling (which in turn causes more attention)

curi:

suppose by premise it's the smiling thing. that is very different than a brain structure gene right? worth knowing the difference? worth making statements which differentiate the two cases?

Critical Rationalist:

So my original question was what your explanation was for the fact that identical twins raised apart are similar in terms of personality and IQ scores

Critical Rationalist:

and your response is: it is possible that genes cause this difference by making children smile more

Critical Rationalist:

I agree

curi:

ok so have the twin studies differentiated between these two scenarios?

betterbylearning:

If you're trying to enumerate all causes, including indirect ones, then I don't have an objection to including genes. But if you're trying to figure out what you'd have to change to get greater IQ, genes don't make that list, culture does.

Critical Rationalist:

the twin studies do not establish HOW genes cause intelligence

Critical Rationalist:

to be clear, you both have only established that one possible way that genes cause intelligence is through eliciting cultural responses

curi:

if you agree the twin studies might be about infant smiling genes, and that one should be careful not to make statements talking about genetic intelligence when genetic infant smiling is the actual thing, then you should not make statements that studies have shown genetic intelligence. right?

curi:

they'd just be inconclusive

Critical Rationalist:

they are inconclusive about the exact mechanism by which genes have their effects yes

Critical Rationalist:

but

Critical Rationalist:

your page said something to the effect of genes do not influence intelligence

Critical Rationalist:

you claim to know that this is true

Critical Rationalist:

not that "it is possible that genes have their influence indirectly"

curi:

yes, so there are multiple issues involved with that

JustinCEO:

Does a study consistent with very different causal mechanisms tell us anything more than that a correlation exists?

curi:

one is: some people think twin studies refute my position. you brought that up. they do not. they are compatible with it.

curi:

another is my actual reasoning

Critical Rationalist:

you believe (correct me if I'm wrong) "genes do NOT directly influence intelligence"

curi:

my comments re twin studies were just trying to defend my view from refutation, not tell you the positive reasons for it

curi:

do you agree that i've succeeded at this limited goal?

Critical Rationalist:

Yes, actually I would agree that your view is not logically incompatible with the results of twin studies.

curi:

ok great

Critical Rationalist:

The DD example is a possible explanation of the twin studies findings which would be such that the genes have an indirect effect on intelligence

Critical Rationalist:

So, how do you rule out the possibility of direct influence?

Critical Rationalist:

The quote from the website is this: "Genes (or other biology) don’t have any direct influence over our intelligence or personality."

curi:

to understand what ways genes may effect intelligence, one needs a model of how minds work and an epistemology.

Critical Rationalist:

Make your case

curi:

for example, if we model minds as buckets, then we could imagine (without knowing all the details, that's ok) that there is a gene which causes a brain to be a larger sized bucket which lets more knowledge be poured into it total.

curi:

similarly there could be genes that make the entrance to the bucket wider or narrower, allowing knowledge to be poured in at a higher or lower rate.

Critical Rationalist:

Sure, I'm willing to discard the bucket model

Critical Rationalist:

I've read Objective Knowledge (which you seem to be alluding to)

curi:

in this model, it's fairly easy to propose genetic mechanisms. however the model has problems.

Critical Rationalist:

Ok, so we've ruled out the bucket model

Critical Rationalist:

go on

curi:

my model says that brains are universal classical computers. they're Turing-complete. this highly limits the relevance of hardware differences. minds are a type of software. basically we get an operating system pre-loaded which grants us intelligence (the ability to conjecture and refute) and then we develop our own apps/ideas during our life. intelligence differences, in the sense of thinking quality differences, are due to better or worse ideas.

Critical Rationalist:

"brains are universal classical computers. they're Turing-complete."

Critical Rationalist:

And you established this without the smallest amount of neuroscience data, right?

Critical Rationalist:

You're going to have to spell out how you know that brains are universal classical computers

curi:

i wouldn't say zero. but not much.

Critical Rationalist:

And also, I assume you mean that only human brains are like this. Chimpanzee brains are not classical computers, right?

curi:

do you know what a universal classical computer is? They are covered in FoR. not sure if you've read that.

curi:

no, chimpanzee brains are also universal classical computers.

Critical Rationalist:

I've read maybe half of it

Critical Rationalist:

A turing machine? Capable of computing anything that can be computed

curi:

yes

Critical Rationalist:

but classical as in non-quantum (only 0s and 1s)

Critical Rationalist:

Interesting, how do you know that human brains are classical computers

curi:

do you mean classical as opposed to quantum?

Critical Rationalist:

no classical as opposed to whatever chimpanzee brains are doing

curi:

i said chimp brains are also classical

Critical Rationalist:

oh sorry I misread that

curi:

so are PCs and iphones

Critical Rationalist:

yes yes those definitely are

Critical Rationalist:

now... you also think chimpanzees are less intelligent than humans...

curi:

i don't think chimps are intelligent at all

Critical Rationalist:

so it is possible for brains (which are classical computers) to differ in their intellectual capacity, yes?

curi:

it's important to differentiate differences due to software from differences due to hardware

Critical Rationalist:

well, I think there are several more steps you must go through before you can rule out that genes directly influence intelligence

curi:

sure, i gave an outline

Critical Rationalist:

where?

curi:

my model says that brains are universal classical computers. they're Turing-complete. this highly limits the relevance of hardware differences. minds are a type of software. basically we get an operating system pre-loaded which grants us intelligence (the ability to conjecture and refute) and then we develop our own apps/ideas during our life. intelligence differences, in the sense of thinking quality differences, are due to better or worse ideas.

Critical Rationalist:

"are universal classical computers. they're Turing-complete. this highly limits the relevance of hardware differences."

Critical Rationalist:

but wait... chimpanzees also have universal classical computers which are turing-complete

Critical Rationalist:

are the number of hardware differences (that are relevant to intelligence) between humans and chimpanzees "highly limited"?

curi:

yes

Critical Rationalist:

so if a chimpanzee was raised with the same software as a human, it could be as intelligent?

curi:

not all software comes from parenting

Critical Rationalist:

by the way

Critical Rationalist:

this isn't limited to chimpanzees I assume

curi:

right

Critical Rationalist:

but I won't even go there

Critical Rationalist:

you think if a chimpanzee was raised in the same parenting (and wider social) context, it would be as intelligent as a human?

curi:

no

Critical Rationalist:

what other sources of software are there?

Critical Rationalist:

in your view

curi:

genes do something roughly like an operating system install disk does

Critical Rationalist:

ok so genes can influence software?

curi:

initially

Critical Rationalist:

and install software that makes an organism more intelligent, initially?

curi:

if you drop the "more" then yes

Critical Rationalist:

so you know that human genes produce the exact same intelligence software in each human

Critical Rationalist:

how do you know that?

curi:

no

Critical Rationalist:

so... do you think that human genes produce different intelligence software in different humans?

curi:

so, genes do not produce the exact same hardware brains in each person, but small variations in hardware, such as having 1% more neurons, have only limited importance. they don't change certain key issues like being a universal computer or not. (setting aside cases of major brain damage and people who can't hold conversations, learn math, etc.)

variations in intelligence software don't matter much either for the same basic reason: the important issue is whether a universality is present or not present. for the software, either it is or isn't a universal knowledge creator.

Critical Rationalist:

does the software in chimpanzee classical computer brains have universality? I'm inferring "no"

curi:

it doesn't have universal knowledge creation. (there are different types of universality)

curi:

in my view, the term intelligence has two separate meanings. one is binary: intelligent or not. this refers to universal knowledge creation or not. the second is a matter of degree, and relates to thinking quality. this is the kind of difference we see between people healthy people, and is due to different knowledge especially methodology stuff.

Critical Rationalist:

I'm skeptical of your account of the human mind, but I'll grant it and see if what you're saying follows or not

curi:

ok

Critical Rationalist:

Here is an empirical possibility that seems compatible with your accont

curi:

btw i may afk soon but will continue later

Critical Rationalist:

Well, actually, multiple possibilities

Critical Rationalist:

The software could come prepackaged with ideas already in place. It could come into place with certain ideas encoded unconsciously (and thus, inaccessible to deliberative reflection and change). If the latter is true, then the ideas IN PRINCIPLE could be changed (with technology) but not with pure thought. Absent dramatic changes in technology, if that were true, some people would be more limited if bad ideas were encoded into the unconscious by our genes

Critical Rationalist:

Let's start with that possibility

curi:

what sort of limit? would this limit limit the repertoire of knowledge they could create, or not?

Critical Rationalist:

suppose empathy turns out to be harmful

Critical Rationalist:

but suppose its effect on conscious thinking is unidirectional

Critical Rationalist:

empathy affects our conscious thinking, but not the other way around

Critical Rationalist:

but the underpinnings of empathy are unconscious, and determined by our genes

Critical Rationalist:

suppose it prevents certain people from becoming objectivists

curi:

objectivism is a type of knowledge. so you're talking about a person who is not a universal knowledge creator, right?

Critical Rationalist:

their unconsciously caused empathy overrides their conscious thinking or at least strongly influenced it

Critical Rationalist:

they in principle could be

Critical Rationalist:

their linguistic capacities are capable of conjecturing objectivism and criticizing it

Critical Rationalist:

but they refuse to accept it, because their empathy overrides it

Critical Rationalist:

(empathy being, ex hypothesi, somethign unconsciously caused and built by genes)

Critical Rationalist:

This is obviously very hypothetical, but this is the kind of thing you need to rule out

curi:

this empathy is an extra, unnecessary complication tacked onto a simpler model, and without clear details about where it fits into the conjecture and refutation model.

Critical Rationalist:

but it is a possibility

Critical Rationalist:

we could have been selected to have this empathy

curi:

i don't think one can see whether it's a possibility without clarifying the thing being claimed.

Critical Rationalist:

whenever we think of people who are suffering

curi:

but in any case it's a possibility that we're all puppets of advanced aliens, living in a simulation, etc., etc.

curi:

that sort of possibility is the wrong way to make judgments about what to tentatively, fallibly believe

Critical Rationalist:

we have a software program that says "be concerned about this for its own sake"

Critical Rationalist:

and it overrides the outputs of conscious deliberative thinking

Critical Rationalist:

but it itself is outside the reach of deliberative thinking

Critical Rationalist:

there is nothing contradictory about this hypothesis

Critical Rationalist:

but your theory (seems to) require that it is false

curi:

people aren't born knowing what suffering is conceptually and how to recognize it in other people, so how could an preloaded software deal with it? that's similar to proposing preloaded software for doing calculus even though we aren't born knowing arithmetic or algebra.

Critical Rationalist:

"people aren't born knowing what suffering is conceptually and how to recognize it in other people"

Critical Rationalist:

how do you know that?

curi:

do you think they are?

curi:

i conjectured they aren't and considered the matter, and alternatives, critically.

curi:

i didn't seek an airtight proof, i used CR methods.

Critical Rationalist:

the preloaded empathy software program could be one that is ready to develop as soon as the organism develops the concept of suffering

Critical Rationalist:

you said earlier that the preloaded software admits of individual differences

Critical Rationalist:

as long as it is possible that some of those individual differences are realized as unconscious programs (which are not amenable to being changed with reflection), then it is possible that those individual differences are consequential

Critical Rationalist:

(consequential by your standards)

curi:

busy

curi:

what does software being ready to develop mean? develop in what ways by what means?

curi:

and what, if anything, prevents a person from simply not running this software?

Critical Rationalist:

However you think the universal knowledge creation software develops in brains, this software develops the same way

Critical Rationalist:

What prevents the person from not running the software is that it is inaccessible to conscious reflection

curi:

but i don't think that develops. more like it's there, fully formed, when the computer is first turned on.

JustinCEO:

kinda like a BIOS?

Critical Rationalist:

Does a zygote have the universal knowledge creation software?

Critical Rationalist:

Obviously not

curi:

your conception of conscious reflection is not specified in terms of the things in this model. i think it's a higher level issue.

Critical Rationalist:

Do adults have it? Yes

Critical Rationalist:

Somewhere in the middle it develops

curi:

if you're talking about development in terms of e.g. creating and attaching proteins that form the brain, then do you think people's brains grow at age 10, or whatever, re empathy?

Critical Rationalist:

Yes that’s an empirical possibility that you haven’t ruled out

curi:

do you believe that?

Critical Rationalist:

But no, I was just responding to your assertion that the universal knowledge creation software doesn’t develop

Critical Rationalist:

Which... of course it has to develop

Critical Rationalist:

Somewhere between zygotehood and adulthood

curi:

do you think macos develops at some point in the imac factory?

Critical Rationalist:

Yes they are built

curi:

what is "they"?

Critical Rationalist:

You mean macs right?

curi:

no i said macos

JustinCEO:

macOS, mac Operating System

Critical Rationalist:

Oh sorry

Critical Rationalist:

I think I have a way to make this more concrete (in terms of your system)

Critical Rationalist:

You think the universal knowledge creation software is innate

Critical Rationalist:

How do you know that there are not other softwares that a) sometimes override the universal knowledge creation software, and b) cannot be overridden by the universal knowledge creation software because they are unconscious

Critical Rationalist:

*Unconscious and insulated from inputs from the universal knowledge creation software. This is just (on my hypothesis) how the brain is designed

curi:

is there a proposal of that nature which you find convincing?

curi:

i think the key issue here is that i'm judging by critical thinking, not by airtight proof that logically covers every possibility

Critical Rationalist:

Good.

Critical Rationalist:

I would say that it is perfectly possible that evolution could have produced such softwares, and I wouldn’t put confidence in any theories that hadn’t been subjected to experimental tests

Critical Rationalist:

My analogy I used yesterday was this: imagine that there was a theory that people had conjectured about the sun

Critical Rationalist:

In the absence of any data at all

curi:

is there a specific proposal which you find plausible, which explains the nature of the software, the selection pressure to create it, gives details about what it does, etc., which you think stands up to criticism?

Critical Rationalist:

I could tell a just so story

curi:

but i'm not asking for just so stories, i'm asking for ideas which you think survive criticism. a just so story is a story you have a criticism of.

Critical Rationalist:

That’s not the definition of a just so story

JustinCEO:

is there a specific proposal which you find plausible

If you're calling something a just so story that's a pretty good indicator you don't find it plausible, so bringing up just so stories is non-responsive

Critical Rationalist:

I don’t have a view about what is plausible in cases like this. My view is that what we should not settle on a perspective with much confidence in the absence of data

curi:

do you see some major flaw in my model?

curi:

g2g

Critical Rationalist:

It is logically possible and internally coherent

Critical Rationalist:

Whether or not it is true ought to be settled with empirical tests

curi:

is there a specific alternative model which you think can stand up to criticism? that we need a test to differentiate btwn it and my model?

Critical Rationalist:

Sure. I’ll put forward this as an alternative model

Critical Rationalist:

I don’t believe it, but I think it is also internally coherent and logically possible

Critical Rationalist:

There is other software that a) sometimes override the universal knowledge creation software, and b) cannot be overridden by the universal knowledge creation software because the (occasionally) overriding software is unconscious

Critical Rationalist:

If you want it to be more specific

Critical Rationalist:

I’ll say that the software is “empathy for kin”

Critical Rationalist:

There are plausible reasons why there would be selective pressures that favour it

Critical Rationalist:

And we’ll suppose that the empathy for kin overrides the universal knowledge software, but the reverse cannot happen (because of how the brain is built)

curi:

When I asked about a flaw in my model, I meant any type of flaw. Anything bad about it. But with emphasis on a problem with the model itself and its application to the world, not an issue in its ability to exclude alternatives, which is a somewhat separate matter. Just lacking logical errors isn't the whole question.

For the alternative empathy model, I think it's too vague to begin serious critical analysis. For example, you've introduced unconsciousness as a concept which is connected to the ability of software subroutines to write to certain locations in memory. Something like that? A lot more details would be needed to know what's going on there. Similarly, empathy for kin is underspecified. And simple examples of what you have in mind are underspecified. Like does this empathy for kin software take over my muscles and control my arm motions in some situations, and i'm like a puppet who watches helplessly as I can't control my limbs? If not that, what is it like? it somehow (how?) controls my conscious opinions, like mind control rather than puppetry? is the empathy for kin software able to create knowledge?

Critical Rationalist:

I’m going to bed now, but I’ll just say this. You are asking for a level of detail in my theory that you have not provided for your own. I can make similar requests for specificity. It will be easy to make my account as detailed as yours. So tell me, how do our classical computational capacities give rise to the creative ability to create new explanations? What selection pressures gave rise to that ability?

curi:

moving from #fi @Critical Rationalist https://discordapp.com/channels/304082867384745994/304082867384745994/663953331714261002

i'm open to more questions. i don't know what areas you find problematic or want to know more about. i think if you provide details for your ad hoc theory, you will run into problems just like how fleshing out the theory that DD will float when jumping off a building, in FoR ch 7, led to difficulties.

the selection pressure for intelligence may have been the value of better tool use, for example. we don't know the exact mechanism but there are several stories that work ok and, afaik, no criticism for why this wouldn't work. DD presents one in BoI re meme replication.

curi:

another possibility is it helped with communication and language, which enabled more effective group hunting

curi:

Yes, but those logical models depend on assumptions about the world that are 2. The claim that humans are best approximated as rational self-interested utility maximizers is a claim economists could be wrong about.

That isn't one of my claims. Think of a claim more like "everything else being equal, when demand for a product increases and supply stays the same, then the price must be raised to avoid shortages". there are premises here like that each buyer will pay up to a certain price for the product, rather than e.g. be willing to pay any even number of dollars but not an odd number of dollars. i'm aware that has non-zero connection to the empircal world. it is nevertheless different than doing a bunch of studies and science experiments to try to figure things out, which is my point. the empirical aspects of this claim are more limited than the empirical aspects of the claim that force equals mass times acceleration. the actual debates that take place re economics claims like my example are primarily non-empirical. do you agree there's a notable difference there? if so, what terminology would you like to use to keep this distinction clear? just calling my idea re demand and shortages "empirical" doesn't differentiate it from an issue like whether a particular vaccine works for humans and to prevent a particular parochial disease from earth.

you are welcome to try to point out empirical problems with economic models when you have them, but i don't think you'll have many empirical complaints about my core economic claims. i don't expect you to say "maybe Joe likes buying things with prime numbered prices. we better do a big study to see how many people buy in that way".

curi:

Actual economic interactions are affected by human nature

i think a claim like my example above is approximately (but not literally 100%) independent of controversial conceptions of human nature like how empathetic or rational people are.

Your claims about which ethical systems will produce more wealth or welfare depend on assumptions about human nature.

What sort of human nature do you think would make not having division of labor be more productive than having it? Got anything plausible enough to merit a study to try to test what people are like?

curi:

[re human nature] I mean things like how we respond to incentive structures, under what circumstances we will cooperate or not cooperate, what makes people respond tribalistically or not, whether people develop better under strict parenting or permissive parenting

It is an open empirical question to what extent humans develop better under strict parenting, for example

I stand by the idea that economic models can only be true to the extent that their assumptions about human nature are true (eg that humans or aliens are self-interested rational utility-maximizers). Whether or not those assumptions are true is an accidental fact of evolution. There is no law of nature that says humans or aliens must be a certain way. It depends what selection pressures we happened to face.

You have a different model of how minds and personalities work than I do. Deciding which model is correct will initially involve specifying the models more, specifying our epistemologies more, and doing philosophical debate about those sorts of issues. Depending how those discussions went, it's possible an issue would come up where doing an empirical test made sense, but I doubt it. I wouldn't expect our discussion to get stuck over disagreeing about an empirical fact. (This does not mean we'd never mention anything empirical. I would expect some simple, uncontroversial empirical facts to be mentioned.)

(I'm now caught up. If i didn't respond to a specific thing you want a reply to, feel free to quote it and ask for a reply.)

Critical Rationalist:

I’ll stick with the issue of the empathy software for now. I’ve read chapter 7 of FoR several times, and I do not think my model suffers from the same problems. Very powerful kin empathy software could arise from selection pressures. Genes that favour altruistic Behavior towards kin at (almost) any cost actually make good evolutionary sense.

Critical Rationalist:

The reason for an overriding kin empathy software is clear: it gets more genes into the next generation. By contrast, all you have said is that “maybe it helped with tool use”. But why not just have tool creation software? A universal knowledge creation software seems wasteful.

Critical Rationalist:

I think this whole approach is backwards. In evolutionary biology (which Deutsch is not an expert in) what you are supposed to do is empirically discover what traits an organism (in this case, humans) have, and then reverse engineer those traits.

Critical Rationalist:

Crucially, I did not see in your response an explanation of how a classical computer could instantiated creativity. I asked “how do our classical computational capacities give rise to the creative ability to create new explanations?” You do not have a detailed account of how this happens. Do you see now that it is unfair to ask for a similar level of detail in my account? I will provide details for mine when you provide details for yours.

Critical Rationalist:

As it stands, I can tell an evolutionary story that is at least as plausible as yours. Neither of us have spelled out the details about how such software will be instantiated.

Critical Rationalist:

I guess I might as well give my two cents about your response to my economics arguments. The one example of an assumption you gave is instructive. It says “all else being equal, this will tend to happen”. There is an implicit claim in there about human nature, it is just one that is so uncontroversial that it is rational to accept it without doing an empirical study. But crucially, it’s connection to the real world is mediated by the “all things being equal” clause. Widespread errors in thinking or other elements of human nature could systematically prevent such a claim from mapping onto the real world. Don’t get me wrong, the kind of economics you’re describing has its virtues. I just think the possibility that human nature is such that our behavior is systematically different from the predictions of economics models is a possibility. @curi

GISTE:

@Critical Rationalist Selection pressures are not responsible for creating new genes. They are instead responsible for selecting the (already existing) genes that cause their hosts to have more grandchildren than compared to rival genes. (Disclaimer: I don't claim to be an expert on this.)

Critical Rationalist:

Yes that’s true. Random mutations create the genes, and then selection pressures eliminate the harmful ones and keeps the beneficial ones.

Critical Rationalist:

But natural selection is also a cumulative process. So you can get new traits over time with repeated instances of variation and selection.

Critical Rationalist:

@curi after this weekend I’ll probably have to stop commenting for the sake of school. There’s one topic I really wanted to ask about: All Women Are Like That. How can you hold to this in light of your belief that people have free will, are not determined by genes, and have universal knowledge creation software? Are women not people? Or is it just a coincidence that all women have used their unbounded free will incorrectly?

Critical Rationalist:

I’d also like you to share what specific traits you think all women share.

Alisa:

The AWALT phenomenon is due to things like culture and the prevalence of certain static memes, not genes

curi:

I was planning to make a discussion tree to organize our discussion but I'll drop that and try to do some quicker replies today. AWALT vs NAWALT is a specific debate about redpill/PUA ideas that you can google. the shared traits of women in question are related to romance and relationship behavior. the overall issue is what alisa says: culture, including static memes, are major forces in life.

Critical Rationalist:

And not a single woman has escaped the grasp of these static memes? Despite the fact that they have free will and universal knowledge creation software?

curi:

the all means something more like "i'm not convinced that a single NAWALT sighting posted to a redpill forum is actually true"

jordancurve:

Critical Rationalist: You seem to be unaware of what the word "all" means when used outside of a formal logical context

Critical Rationalist:

I’m confused. You’ll have to be more precise. Does “all” mean most?

Critical Rationalist:

Precision of hypotheses is a Popperian virtue. It makes them more amenable to rational and empirical refutation

curi:

there is an ongoing problem where people fool themselves into thinking their gf is different. AWALT is pushback against that. and i don't think any documented exceptions exist.

Critical Rationalist:

Loose and vague hypotheses are impossible to criticize

jordancurve:

You can criticize them for being vague.

curi:

you're wrong to call something loose and vague when, as i said, there are ongoing discussions about it. you can read tons more info about what it means if you want to.

curi:

the proper noun does not precisely summarize all the meaning.

curi:

this is typical of proper nouns

curi:

such as Critical Rationalism

Critical Rationalist:

Also, speaking of precision, give me precisely what traits all (whatever that means) women share in common

JustinCEO:

That just means being rationalistic critically rite

curi:

you can read about the traits if you want to learn. if you are expecting to learn this topic by being told a list of 10 traits each given 3 words of explanation, you're dramatically underestimating the complexity of the issiue

Critical Rationalist:

Why don’t you give me the most well-evidenced example, and as thorough an explanation as you want

curi:

because you need the redpill/PUA intellectual framework first before interpreting an example

Critical Rationalist:

Just as a basis for discussion

Critical Rationalist:

I have some passing familiarity with it. Try me. See how far you can get

curi:

were you already familiar with AWALT?

Critical Rationalist:

No that particular term was new to me

Critical Rationalist:

Totally serious

curi:

that sounds like near-zero familiarity

curi:

do you know what AFC is?

Critical Rationalist:

Hence “passing”

curi:

shit test? neg? hoops? two-set? DHV?

Critical Rationalist:

Haha wow I’m definitely less familiar than I thought

curi:

mystery method?

Critical Rationalist:

Ok, do you at least think that this is the kind of theory that should be put to empirical tests?

curi:

yes it's extensively field-tested.

Critical Rationalist:

Awalt is extensively field tested?

curi:

yes

Critical Rationalist:

Interesting

Critical Rationalist:

I’m genuinely curious, name me just one trait that “all” women share in common

curi:

all this stuff was developed with a heavy empirical testing emphasis. lots of the theory was created to explain observed patterns.

Critical Rationalist:

Ie not one documented exception

curi:

valuing social status as she perceives it (not everyone is into actors as high status).

curi:

if i said all parents were coercive, it wouldn't mean that there was any single thing (e.g. playing with matches) for which all parents coerce.

Critical Rationalist:

Yes, but in this case you said “all women are like that”. “Like that” has to mean something.

Critical Rationalist:

As far as your example, sure. I would wager that’s true of all humans (not just women). Completely innocuous

Critical Rationalist:

Sure, all women value status.

Critical Rationalist:

Completely banal

curi:

the issue ppl are debating is roughly: is there a woman who is immune to PUA?

Critical Rationalist:

Ok that’s more interesting

Critical Rationalist:

Since you’ve agreed that this is an issue that should be subject to empirical tests

Critical Rationalist:

This is what Popper said we must do before an empirical test: specify in advance what observations would falsify the theory (in this case “no women are immune to PUA”).

Critical Rationalist:

So, what empirical observation would falsify the claim that “no women are immune to PUA”? If you’re going to do an empirical test Popper-style, you have to answer that question.

Critical Rationalist:

If you systematically reinterpret the results to make them consistent with your theory, you’re doing what Popper (rightly) accused Freud and Marx of doing.

curi:

you seem to want a single decisive test to settle this conclusively. no one has done one or knows how to do one.

curi:

hence the ongoing debates

Critical Rationalist:

You said you believe this issue should be subject to empirical tests.

curi:

PUA approaches have been broadly testing on many women to help refine them, they aren't ivory tower speculation

Critical Rationalist:

So you believe the theory has been subject to tests, but can you explain to me what an empirical test is, in Popper’s theory?

Critical Rationalist:

To be clear, I’m not asking about the relative advantage of PUA. It might be on average better than other methods

Critical Rationalist:

Im talking about testing this theory: no women are immune to PUA

Critical Rationalist:

You admit that this is the sort of claim that should be tested empirically

curi:

people have said over and over "my gf is different" and they seem to be wrong every time. and ppl keep saying it. that's the issue AWALT is about.

Critical Rationalist:

So, explain to me how, according to Popper, we empirically test theories

Critical Rationalist:

you also said the issue is “are any women immune to PUA”

Critical Rationalist:

Implying that this was part of the meaning of awalt

curi:

right: different than the other girls who PUA works on.

Critical Rationalist:

Good

Critical Rationalist:

You believe that issue should be empirically tested

curi:

no one on either side has any idea for how to test it in the way you want. some things are hard to test.

Critical Rationalist:

How does Popper believe we should perform empirical tests?

curi:

nevertheless, there is nothing even resembling a documented counter example AFAIK

curi:

and there are many, many documented examples where AWALT turned out corrected

curi:

and ppl don't respect this situation and are super biased

Critical Rationalist:

I would like an answer to my question

curi:

a test is an observation aimed to potentially refute an idea. the best tests address a clash between 2+ ideas, such that at least one has to be refuted by any outcome of the test.

Critical Rationalist:

Good, exactly. For Popper, an empirical test only counts as a test if it is a genuine attempt at refutation

Critical Rationalist:

So... if you have not specified in advance the conditions for falsification, then for Popper, you have not actually empirically tested a theory

curi:

no

Critical Rationalist:

So, given that you and PUAs have not specified the conditions for falsification in advance, you have not actually performed empirical tests

Critical Rationalist:

No? Are you alleging that I’ve misunderstood Popper? I’m happy to provide quotes

curi:

you said "So" like you're following on what I said, but then you introduced a new thing: specifying conditions in advance.

Critical Rationalist:

Do you think Popper thought you could specify the conditions for falsification after the experiment?

curi:

we never fully specify anything, as Popper explained

curi:

if you mean that the conditions for falsification have to be partially specified in advance, i'll agree, but that's a different claim.

Critical Rationalist:

I’ll brb with quotes.

Critical Rationalist:

Also, it goes without saying you can disagree with Popper on this issue

curi:

do you agree that "we never fully specify anything"?

Critical Rationalist:

In a certain sense. But I’ll get the quotes

Critical Rationalist:

Yes, there is a certain sense in which we cannot fully specify anything (I'm interested for you to spell out why that's relevant).

Critical Rationalist:

But here's the quote. "Confirming evidence should not count except when it is the result of a genuine test of the theory; and this means that it can be presented as a serious but unsuccessful attempt to falsify the theory."

Critical Rationalist:

So, have you (or the PUAs) made "serious...attempt(s) to falsify the theory" that no women are immune to PUA?

curi:

i don't understand why you dug up a quote that doesn't mention specifying falsification conditions in advance. also please only post sourced quotes at my forums.

curi:

and yes PUAs have searched widely for NAWALTs

Critical Rationalist:

It is from Conjectures and Refutations. Page 36 http://www.rosenfels.org/Popper.pdf

Critical Rationalist:

So they have made genuine attempts to falsify theory and have failed to do so?

Critical Rationalist:

So... what kind of observation would count as falsification?

curi:

a NAWALT

Critical Rationalist:

What observations would count as observation of a NAWALT

curi:

that's complicated and involves understanding a bunch of theory with which to interpret data

Critical Rationalist:

As far as specifying in advance, this quote comes from the next page.

Critical Rationalist:

"Some genuinely testable theories, when found to be false, are still upheld by their admirers--for example by introducing ad hoc some auxiliary assumption, or by re-interpreting the theory ad hoc in such a way that it escapes refutation. Such a procedure is always possible, but it rescues the theory from refutation only at the price of destroying, or at least lowering, its scientific status."

curi:

if you can point to that ever being done with AWALT, i'd be interested

JustinCEO:

Right ad hoc stuff bad

JustinCEO:

Ppl want to find a NAWALT tho

Critical Rationalist:

NAWALT is too broad

Critical Rationalist:

I'm talking about an observation that would refute this theory: "no women are immune to PUA"

Critical Rationalist:

You said that^

Critical Rationalist:

as a concrete example of what AWALT means

Critical Rationalist:

Don't give me jargon. Tell me what observation would refute this claim "no women are immune to PUA"

curi:

read the Girls Chase book if you want to begin to understand what we're talking about

Critical Rationalist:

If you have subjected your theory to Popperian tests, then you should be able to answer that question

Critical Rationalist:

Does the Girls Chase book explain what observation would falsify the theory that "no women are immune to PUA"? What chapter explains that?

curi:

i don't think you're trying your best to understand my perspective. you're trying to shoehorn the discussion into your preconceived notions of how to be Popperian.

curi:

while neglecting issues like the use of complex theoretical frameworks to interpret data

Critical Rationalist:

@curi you're doing exactly what GISTE was doing

curi:

and you seem to want to be able to test and debate something without understanding the topic.

Critical Rationalist:

refusing to answer questions when it gets difficult

Critical Rationalist:

you told GISTE that he should answer the question

Critical Rationalist:

you should abide by your own standard

curi:

i've just spent a while answering your question. you don't like the answer.

curi:

the specifications re the testing are complicated and you don't have teh background knowledge to discuss them.

curi:

that's your answer.

Critical Rationalist:

Really? I missed it. What observations would count as a falsification of this theory: "no women are immune to PUA"

JustinCEO:

If a complex theoretical framework is required to interpret data then pointing out that fact and a concrete place where you can get info with which to develop such a framework is not a dodge

Critical Rationalist:

you said at one point "a NAWALT". That's not an observation.

Critical Rationalist:

That is too flexible.

curi:

it gets less flexible if you learn the field. you just aren't familiar with the constraints involved and can't be told them in 5min while adversarial.

Critical Rationalist:

Adversarial? I'm asking genuine questions. I am willing to hear you explain it in detail. I place no time limits on your explanation (it doesn't have to be within 5 minutes).

curi:

but if that was true you'd read multiple books as part of the conversation.

Critical Rationalist:

Remember what you said to giste, and remember what you said on your page: picky arguments matter

JustinCEO:

CR u seem unwilling to let curi incorporate a book as part of his explanation so your length claim seems false

Critical Rationalist:

Sometimes recommending a book is a way of avoiding conversation.

Critical Rationalist:

I will read the book if you can tell me which chapter answers my question. Which chapter (or chapters) answer this question: What observations would count as a falsification of this theory: "no women are immune to PUA"

Critical Rationalist:

I doubt the author of the book even considers a question as technical as that

Critical Rationalist:

If I'm wrong, I want page numbers

curi:

there is no chapter with a direct answer to that question, it provides some of the framework with which to discuss tha tmatter, as i told you.

JustinCEO:

CR you seem to be implicitly conceding that your no time limit claim is false by raising arguments against reading books

Critical Rationalist:

@curi if during our debate about the software of the mind, I required you to read all of "How the Mind works" by Steven Pinker (without specifying which parts were relevant), would that have been a fair request?

curi:

i routinely respond to books during discussions

Critical Rationalist:

Do you read the books in their entirety?

Critical Rationalist:

Would you read all of "How the Mind Works" if I asked you to?

curi:

you're welcome to propose a better way to become familiar with the field, or to point out problems with Girls Chase.

curi:

it's up to you whether you're interested in learnign about this. idc

Critical Rationalist:

@curi that isn't answering my question

curi:

you seem to want a really short version containing certain specific things, which i don't have to offer you.

Critical Rationalist:

I'm wondering if you think it is legitimate to require a conversation partner to read a whole book

curi:

i didn't require you to

Critical Rationalist:

You can't apply a standard to someone else if you won't apply it to you

Critical Rationalist:

ok

curi:

https://curi.us/2235-discussions-should-use-sources

curi:

and i proposed the book as a potential way to make progress. if you have a better one, feel free to suggest it.

Critical Rationalist:

Well, I have a different rival theory of how women work

Critical Rationalist:

It is explained in How the Mind Works (which does deal extensively with sexuality)

Critical Rationalist:

I propose that you read that book before we continue

curi:

does it cover shit tests?

Critical Rationalist:

No...

Critical Rationalist:

I'm just saying, for you to understand my perspective, you have to understand the details of my theoretical framework

curi:

since shit tests have been observed many times, why aren't they covered and explained?

Critical Rationalist:

And I can't explain my theoretical framework in conversation, so you have to read How the Mind Works

Critical Rationalist:

Unless

curi:

do you mean that or are you just trying to mirror what you think i said?

Critical Rationalist:

you can propose an alternative way

Critical Rationalist:

Evolutionary psychology (my own view of how human sexuality works) is a complicated theory that takes time to understand

Critical Rationalist:

if I'm going to be expected to read a book (or a comparable alternative), I think this would be fair

Critical Rationalist:

we would both have a better understanding of each other's approach

curi:

i'm already familiar with evo psych

Critical Rationalist:

what is the evolutionary psychology explanation for sex differences in human jealousy?

curi:

the evo psych framework is compatible with more than one explanation for that.

Critical Rationalist:

(you asked me questions about the PUA theories to see how familiar I was)

Alisa:

I don't know evo psych, but I would say: the asymmetrical resources each sex invests in child rearing

Critical Rationalist:

Name one that has been offered for jealousy

Critical Rationalist:

Alisa: not quite

Alisa:

Fair. Was just a guess.

Critical Rationalist:

That is an explanation of many sex differences tho

Critical Rationalist:

So it was a good guess

curi:

i don't read much at that level of detail b/c it's irrelevant to my (DD's) criticisms of evo psych

Critical Rationalist:

right, so just as I don't have a detailed understanding of PUA, you don't have a detailed understanding of evo psych

Critical Rationalist:

so... if it is fair for you to propose a book, it is fair for me to propose a book

curi:

if you were familiar with some higher level PUA theory and had a refutation of it, and skipped some details, that would be comparable.

curi:

it would still not put you in a position to debate AWALT vs. NAWALT given PUA/redpill premises though

curi:

i haven't tried to jump into a debate between different applications of evo psych

Critical Rationalist:

right, in order to do that, I need to know details. Well, in order to understand what I deem to be the correct explanation (i.e. the rival theory for why women do particular things), you need to know details about evo psych

Critical Rationalist:

Becoming familiar with higher level PUA theory does not require details.

Critical Rationalist:

by "in order to do that", I mean AWALT and NAWALT

curi:

i don't know what you want to get out of this. you seem to want to call me Wrong about an issue you don't know or care about.

curi:

b/c you didn't like the choice of words that make up a particular jargon

curi:

which were, i will readily grant, not chosen in a way to make friends with the mainstream, and aren't normally used for outreach

JustinCEO:

Perhaps a different topic would be more fruitful to discuss??

Critical Rationalist:

@curi you listed this as a debate topic on your page. I read through your list and this issue jumped out at me. I am deeply interested in human sexuality (I mean, who isn't?). You are trying to read into my behavior bad motivations. And now you are saying "you just want to prove me wrong". You are doing exactly what Giste did when he accused me of being in debate mode

curi:

if you're deeply interested then why don't you begin reading material from this school of thought?

Critical Rationalist:

Also like him, you are refusing to answer my questions. When Giste did this, you (rightly) called him out on it (no hard feelings giste).

curi:

until you find some objection to it

JustinCEO:

Ya read to first objection

curi:

you're trying to jump into the middle of an internal debate you aren't familiar with

Critical Rationalist:

@curi by affirming PUA, you are implictly rejecting evo psych. You are thus taking sides on an issue when you don't understand the rival theory. You're in the same position as me (but a mirror image)

curi:

what are you talking about? PUAs routinely use evo psych explanations.

Critical Rationalist:

I guess I should say your version of pua, they are compatible

Critical Rationalist:

yes I've actually heard that, that's fair

JustinCEO:

You guys could both read to first objection on a suggested book

Critical Rationalist:

I think this matter though

curi:

my objections to evo psych have nothing to do with PUA

Critical Rationalist:

Let me use an analogy

Critical Rationalist:

Let's think about Einstein's theory

Critical Rationalist:

The paradigm case of a falsifiable theory

curi:

wait slow down

curi:

by affirming PUA, you are implictly rejecting evo psych

do you retract this?

Critical Rationalist:

Oh yes 100%

Critical Rationalist:

Anyways like I was saying

Critical Rationalist:

The theoretical details of Einstein's theory are very hard to understand

Critical Rationalist:

much harder to understand than PUA or evo psych

curi:

You are thus taking sides on an issue when you don't understand the rival theory.

do you mean that i don't understand what NAWALT means?

Critical Rationalist:

No, I meant the rival theory, evo psyc. But I retracted the implication that they are rival theories

Critical Rationalist:

Anyways

Critical Rationalist:

Despite the theoretical sophistication, Einstein was still able to say "this is the observation that will refute my theory" in clear terms.

curi:

yes because he was dealing with stuff that's much easier to measure and do math about, etc.

Critical Rationalist:

@curi I won't talk by implication. I do not think you have a clear understanding of what observations will falsify this claim "no women are immune to PUA"

curi:

other fields, like those involving human behavior, have a much harder time measuring things. takes more theory to do that.

Critical Rationalist:

I strongly suspect that you do not have an answer.

Critical Rationalist:

I was texting someone else in the group, and I am not the only one with this suspicion

Critical Rationalist:

When you don't answer a question, it makes you look bad.

curi:

can you quote a question i didn't answer?

Critical Rationalist:

What observations would count as a falsification of this theory: "no women are immune to PUA"

curi:

i did respond to that

Critical Rationalist:

So, tell me what the observations are?

curi:

do you remember me responding?

Critical Rationalist:

well, you did say NAWALT. But that is not a statement about what you would observe. Let me say something about that answer. It is actually just a tautology. A NAWALT is just "a woman who is not like that". In other words, you are just answering by saying the observation that would falsify the theory is the observation that the theory doesn't predict

Critical Rationalist:

That would be like Einstein saying "an observation that is not predicted by general relativity would falsify the theory"

curi:

do you remember me responding?

Critical Rationalist:

But what Einstein actually said was "if you see the points of light here rather than here, that falsifies the theory".

Critical Rationalist:

Yes I do now remember, you said NAWALT

curi:

you didn't remember before?

Critical Rationalist:

But I'm explaining why that is insufficient

Critical Rationalist:

No I forgot about that answer when I was typing. Thank you for helping me remember.

curi:

do you agree that a response you consider insufficient is different than no response?

Critical Rationalist:

yes of course

curi:

do you retract everything you said comparing me to GISTE?

Critical Rationalist:

Well, during the earlier part of the conversation

Critical Rationalist:

I followed up to your NAWALT answer by insisting on something more specific

Critical Rationalist:

that was approximately when you started proposing that I read a book

Critical Rationalist:

(if I remember correctly)

Critical Rationalist:

Which is still not answering the question

curi:

AWALT and NAWALT are jargon terms which refer to many books, articles and discussions. thousands of pages of material. is there a particular part of that literature which you think is inadequately specific?

Critical Rationalist:

But I am asking for specificity in terms of what observation counts as an instance of a NAWALT in a Popperian test. I bet that none of the material you mention gives specificity in that sense

Critical Rationalist:

And if they do, just quote it or point me to page numbers

curi:

you want physics-like specification. the field doesn't have that.

curi:

do you think evo psych has that?

Critical Rationalist:

Not physics level, but evo psyc theorists make predictions and test them.

Critical Rationalist:

They do say in advance what would count as falsification of their specific hypotheses

curi:

PUAs have made and tested many predictions.

Critical Rationalist:

I'm more than happy to give examples

Critical Rationalist:

Ok great!

curi:

e.g. "I think X would be a good opener". then try it 20 times.

Critical Rationalist:

Tell me what predictions follow from this theory (the original topic): "no women are immune to PUA"

Critical Rationalist:

Remember, if that theory is empirically testable in a Popperian sense, if the predictions are not corroborated, the theory should be considered falsified

curi:

it predicts things like e.g. Joe Newbie will never find a NAWALT, and if he claims to have found one he's fooling himself.

Critical Rationalist:

"if he claims to have found one he's fooling himself" this sounds suspiciously like an ad hoc hypothesis designed to save the theory from refutation

Critical Rationalist:

but again

curi:

if you review the literature and find inappropriate use of ad hoc hypotheses, feel free to point them out.

Critical Rationalist:

that is not an observational prediction I can test. I need to know what observations count as an instance of a NAWALT

curi:

you will find in most cases that Joe is fooling himself in highly repetitive ways that were already written about at length.

Critical Rationalist:

in most cases?

curi:

that's the typical discussion

curi:

the concepts AWALT and NAWALT are not specified as exactly as you'd like (like physics). i already told you this but you keep bringing it up. i don't see the point.

Critical Rationalist:

let me give you an example of how evo psyc works

Critical Rationalist:

so you can see what I mean

Critical Rationalist:

one evo psyc explanation of male homosexuality

Critical Rationalist:

was that genes for being gay also lead to increased giving to kin. This means gay uncles invest more in nieces and nephews than straight uncles.

Critical Rationalist:

Because of kin selection, those genes can be selected for

Critical Rationalist:

This theory lends itself to a prediction: gay uncles should be measurably more generous to kin than straight uncles

Critical Rationalist:

That turns out to not be true

Critical Rationalist:

So the theory is falsified

Critical Rationalist:

Now, let me give you this

Critical Rationalist:

your example of "this pickup line is superior"

Critical Rationalist:

that is DEFINITELY testable

Critical Rationalist:

I would never dispute that

Critical Rationalist:

it is very easy to run natural experiments on that

curi:

PUA is a body of knowledge that has used lots of testing

curi:

that's all i said

Critical Rationalist:

but this claim "no women are immune to PUA"

Critical Rationalist:

I think it should be testable

curi:

i also said there were no known documented counter examples to AWALT

Critical Rationalist:

what would count as a documented counterexample?

Critical Rationalist:

tell me

curi:

if you have one you think qualifies, let me know

Critical Rationalist:

no, you have to explain what observation would count as someone qualifying

Critical Rationalist:

maybe your explanation won't be complete

curi:

it's explained in a very roundabout, complicated way for thousands of pages

Critical Rationalist:

but get me started

curi:

that's all u get, sorry

curi:

that's what exists for that debate

curi:

also i think a evo psych example with a passed test would be more enlightening.

Critical Rationalist:

a different theory of male homosexuality is this

Critical Rationalist:

there is a gene on the x chromosome (males have one, females have two) which causes increased attraction to men. In males this makes them gay, in females it makes them extra fertile. This would allow the gene to continue to exist.

Critical Rationalist:

This theory makes a prediction.

Critical Rationalist:

Female relatives of gay men (who share that gene on the x chromosome) should have more children on average

curi:

that prediction doesn't follow

Critical Rationalist:

For now, this theory has in fact been corroborated

Critical Rationalist:

Why not?

curi:

how do you get from increased attraction to more children? could easily result in fewer children.

Critical Rationalist:

You might have misunderstood

curi:

do you mean the gene does different things for the different genders?

Critical Rationalist:

one way of reading it is that the gene makes the holder want to have sex with men more

curi:

what does that have to do with fertility?

Critical Rationalist:

I mean fertility in the sense of producing more children

Critical Rationalist:

in women, wanting sex with men leads to more children (in our evolutionary past, no condoms)

curi:

that's what i'm saying doesn't follow

curi:

wanting sex and getting sex are different things

Critical Rationalist:

ok good, so a good followup experiment would measure the number of sex partners

Critical Rationalist:

now, as you know

Critical Rationalist:

when observations occur as the theory predicts

Critical Rationalist:

it doesn't prove the theory, it only corroborates it

curi:

are you going to respond to me?

Critical Rationalist:

which is why you try to do as many tests as you can

Critical Rationalist:

what question?

curi:

the non sequitur issue

Critical Rationalist:

well, given evolutionary dynamics, there are always men who want to have sex with women (for reasons having to do with differential parental investment, which @Alisa mentioned)

Critical Rationalist:

so increased desire for sex (in women) would reliably lead to more sex

curi:

do you think it reliably leads to more sex today?

Critical Rationalist:

because they are the gatekeepers (as a PUA I'm sure you believe this)

Critical Rationalist:

yes, if women want more sex, they will usually get it

curi:

can you think of any reasons they wouldn't? any ways this can go wrong?

Critical Rationalist:

of course! hence the need to do followup experiments! corroboration does not equal proof

Critical Rationalist:

just like with Einstein

curi:

hold on

Critical Rationalist:

the fact that the starlight was where it was does not PROVE he was right

curi:

when you have a problem with the logic of your theory, testing it more times doesn't help

Critical Rationalist:

there are other explanations

Critical Rationalist:

Ok, lets compare this with Einstein

curi:

the tests are all premised on that logic

Critical Rationalist:

his theory predicted that starlight would be here rather than here

Critical Rationalist:

but there are other possible reasons for the light to be in that location

curi:

you're saying something like "X will cause Y which will cause Z so we'll measure Z to learn about X", right?

Critical Rationalist:

no

Critical Rationalist:

we say "x will cause y which will cause z"

Critical Rationalist:

we look to see if there is z

Critical Rationalist:

if there is no z, theory is falsified

Critical Rationalist:

if there is a z, the theory is not proven right

Critical Rationalist:

same with Einstein

curi:

so if Y would cause Z or not-Z, then the test doesn't work right due to the theory being logically confused?

Critical Rationalist:

"x (Einsteinian gravity) will cause y (curved spacetime) will cause z (star light here rather than here)"

Critical Rationalist:

if by y you mean "increased sexual desire", then we have other theoretical reasons for believing that (in women) increased sex drive will cause more sex partners (z)

Critical Rationalist:

parental investment theory

Critical Rationalist:

As I've said, I'm sure you already agree with that anyways

curi:

i asked if there were reasons it could lead to less sex. you said yes. but then instead of investigating this problem you suggested running extra tests which are premised on the idea that more attraction would lead to more sex.

Critical Rationalist:

are there possible reasons that spacetime could lead to the light NOT being where Einstein predicted?

Critical Rationalist:

yes, there could be other forces acting on the light that we don't know about

Critical Rationalist:

there are always possibilities like that

Critical Rationalist:

(which you can test on their own)

curi:

suppose, hypothetically, that increased attraction reduces the amount of sex a woman has by 50%. then would the results of your proposed tests be misleading?

Critical Rationalist:

you mean if women who wanted sex more had 50% less sex?

curi:

yes

Critical Rationalist:

yes, then the prediction would not follow

curi:

ok and could you solve this problem by doing more tests?

curi:

test it 100 times instead of 10

Critical Rationalist:

no

Critical Rationalist:

you would test that claim

curi:

2:36 PM] curi: can you think of any reasons they wouldn't? any ways this can go wrong?
[2:36 PM] Critical Rationalist: of course! hence the need to do followup experiments! corroboration does not equal proof

Critical Rationalist:

I mean followup experiments with different methodologies

Critical Rationalist:

i.e. test for a relationship between female sex drive and number of sex partners

Critical Rationalist:

Ok

Critical Rationalist:

Everyone who is watching

curi:

ok do you think that testing has been done?

Critical Rationalist:

I want you all to take note of something

Critical Rationalist:

(before I answer @curi's next volley of questions)

Critical Rationalist:

I do not know if that testing has been done or not

Critical Rationalist:

I asked @curi for specific observational predictions based on his theory. He said "NAWALT". When I asked him to explain what observations would count as an instance of NAWALT, he said "it's explained in a very roundabout, complicated way for thousands of pages. that's all u get, sorry". When he asked me for specific observational predictions based on evo psych, I answered. I gave real world examples from real experiments. I gave one example of an experiment that FALSIFIED an evo psych hypothesis, and I gave one example of an experiment that CORROBORATED an evo psych hypothesis. He asked a followup question about whether the corroborating experiment actually counted as corroboration, and I explained why it does by comparing it to the case of Einstein. I tried to use as little jargon as possible. If @curi asks me to explain any jargon I left unexplained, I will be happy to do so. There is a clear asymmetry here.

Critical Rationalist:

If anyone thinks my account of this conversation is inaccurate, I encourage you to read it for yourself.

curi:

do you think there exist examples of PUA openers or concepts which were falsified?

Critical Rationalist:

I stated (and never disputed) that the relative efficacy of openers is falsifiable.

curi:

ok so some evo psych ideas and some PUA ideas are relatively easy to test. so what?

Critical Rationalist:

You have not explained how "no women are immune to PUA" is falsifiable.

Critical Rationalist:

If you think there are some evo psych ideas that are not falsifiable, please tell me what you think they are.

Critical Rationalist:

I don't think there is an analogous unfalsifiable claim.

curi:

i asked for an example of an evo psych idea that passed some testing. the example you gave depends on an untested (as far as you know) premise which one can immediately think of major flaws with. why do you think that constitutes meaningful corroboration?

Critical Rationalist:

What did I say in response?

Critical Rationalist:

Did you read my Einstein analogy?

Critical Rationalist:

Einstein's prediction that starlight would be "here rather than here" requires untested assumptions

Critical Rationalist:

You always need auxiliary assumptions to get from a theory to a prediction (this is well understood in philosophy of science). You then can test those assumptions after

Critical Rationalist:

Do you disagree with Popper? Do you not think that Einstein's theory was meaningfully corroborated by the 1919 test?

curi:

how do you differentiate your method from the following: i think there is a gene which makes people like to eat fish. i assume, without testing, that liking to eat fish gives people better skin quality which leads to being more attractive which leads to more sex. i measure babies and correlate it to that gene. i say my whole theory is corroborated.

Critical Rationalist:

how would that explain male homosexuality?

curi:

it doesn't. it's a different theory.

Critical Rationalist:

... that is the reason the explanation was conjectured

Critical Rationalist:

so I would criticize you theory because it doesn't explain what it is supposed to explain

curi:

i'm giving a toy example to discuss a concept. does that make sense to you?

Critical Rationalist:

No. The claim that there is a gene on the x chromosome that leads to increased attraction to males was postulated to explain male homosexuality

Critical Rationalist:

that is why it was postulated

curi:

do you know what a toy example is?

Critical Rationalist:

your theory does not explain that datum at all

Critical Rationalist:

so it would be criticized on that basis

curi:

busy?

curi:

do you think any untested assumptions are allowable and it's still corroboration, or only certain categories?

Critical Rationalist:

I tested assumptions are allowable so long as they can be tested later

Critical Rationalist:

And as long as they’re consistent with other theories etc

curi:

anything which can be tested later is allowable?

curi:

oh, consistent with which other theories?

Critical Rationalist:

Well, yeah you could put additional constraints. Consistent with other corroborated theories etc

Critical Rationalist:

You still haven’t engaged with my Einstein analogy

curi:

your premise (female more attracted to men -> more sex) is inconsistent with many theories.

curi:

that's why i objected to it

Critical Rationalist:

Oh yeah no i meant to theories that are well corroborated thank you for the objection

Critical Rationalist:

Allows my to clarify

curi:

it's inconsistent with many high quality theories, not just arbitrary junk

curi:

i'm not talking about the space of logically possible theories

Critical Rationalist:

@curi this line of questioning is important and interesting

curi:

it's inconsistent with a variety of things that i and many other people believe and have extensive reasons for

curi:

there are many books about such things

Critical Rationalist:

But I’m going to have to remind you of the asymmetry

Critical Rationalist:

When you asked for a specific experimental test of an evo psyc theory

Critical Rationalist:

I gave you an example

Critical Rationalist:

A concrete example of how an observation can rule out an evo psyc theory

Critical Rationalist:

For any evo psych theory

curi:

i think it's a good example of the quality of the work in the field b/c it assumed a very questionable premise.

Critical Rationalist:

I’d be happy to do this for you

Critical Rationalist:

But when I challenged a specific PUA theory

curi:

AWALT is like a meta study

Critical Rationalist:

you only said “NAWALT”, and couldn’t tie it to a concrete observation

curi:

it's a belief about the overall state of many other tests, ideas, debates, etc.

Critical Rationalist:

You could not specify what observations would falsify the theory

Critical Rationalist:

Even though you think the theory is testable (in Popper’s sense)

Critical Rationalist:

When I explain how my theories are testable

Critical Rationalist:

I give details

Critical Rationalist:

I answer followup

curi:

but your details are problematic

Critical Rationalist:

You think so

Critical Rationalist:

I explained why they aren’t with the Einstein analogy

Critical Rationalist:

Which you haven’t responded to

curi:

want me to give details that you consider problematic? would that satisfy you?

Critical Rationalist:

But you haven’t even BEGUN to do the same for your theory

Critical Rationalist:

Well, it’s not just enough for me (or you) to consider something problematic

Critical Rationalist:

What matters is arguing for their problematic nature

curi:

you seem to think saying stuff i consider bad quality research is a good start. i don't know why you think that should count for a lot.

Critical Rationalist:

You tried, and I responded (my response has been left alone)

Critical Rationalist:

It doesn’t matter what you consider to be bad

Critical Rationalist:

You have to argue that it is bad

curi:

i asked if you could think of reasons your premise is false

curi:

you said yes

curi:

instead of asking for mine

Critical Rationalist:

I criticized that argument

curi:

so we didn't go into those details because you conceded

Critical Rationalist:

The same is true for Einstein’s prediction

Critical Rationalist:

Which Popper thought was a paradigm case of empirical testing

Critical Rationalist:

Again, still waiting

curi:

can you think of reasons that matter that the premise would be false, not just picky logically-possible stuff? this is what i meant in the first place.

Critical Rationalist:

The reasons in the Einstein case also matter

curi:

what is your best argument that the premise is false that you know of?

Critical Rationalist:

There really could be other forces interacting with the curvature of space time

Critical Rationalist:

And don’t forget

Critical Rationalist:

“Picky” isn’t bad

curi:

you're trying to dismiss infinitely many possible objections b/c there are always infinitely many possible objections. this was not the point i was making

Critical Rationalist:

No that’s not the response I made.

Critical Rationalist:

At a later point I will explain my Einstein response again if you wish. For now I have to go. I recommend that you read my Einstein response as I originally put it, and really try to understand it.

curi:

i already know what you're saying but you aren't following me and you keep trying to fix this by explaining CR to me.

curi:

You always need auxiliary assumptions to get from a theory to a prediction (this is well understood in philosophy of science). You then can test those assumptions after

Critical Rationalist:

Note again that you have not even begun to do something analogous for your theory. I think I’ve explained the problem.

curi:

that comment deals with the infinity of possible objections

Critical Rationalist:

But yeah I really do have to go for now. Take a look at the passages about x causing y which causes z

Critical Rationalist:

Your argument against the corroboration of the evo psyc theory would work almost exactly the same way against the corroboration of Einstein’s theory

curi:

you don't know what my argument is

curi:

you made incorrect assumptions about it

curi:

i don't have an objection re Einstein. while your assumption contradicts ideas bordering on common sense.

curi:

that's a difference. it's not "something could be wrong" but actual known criticism. like if someone assumed 2+2=5 as a premise, that has known criticism in a way Einstein's premises did not.

curi:

i illustrated this with a toy example where i put an intentionally dumb premise in the middle, but you didn't understand it and also wouldn't followup and try to clear up the issue.

curi:

curi:

i'm giving a toy example to discuss a concept. does that make sense to you?

CR:

No.

curi

do you know what a toy example is?

[no answer]

curi:

you switch topics frequently without resolving them. however one asymmetry in the discussion is that we've established and mutually agreed that you made mistakes. while you have not established any specific mistake by me.

curi:

my guess is you will lose patience and stop discussing prior to https://curi.us/2232-claiming-you-objectively-won-a-debate

curi:

you will give up without an impasse chain https://elliottemple.com/essays/debates-and-impasse-chains nor provide some other written methodology by which you think you won any specific debate point.

curi:

i hope i'm mistaken about this. i haven't given up. curious what you think about discussion goals like those.

curi:

i think you're overly focused on making inconclusive comments re big picture instead of resolving specific small conversational branches.

Critical Rationalist:

One quick point of clarification. When I said "no" in response to your toy example, I was not saying that I didn't understand your example. I understood your toy example, I just thought it was inadequate as a rival theory to mine.

curi:

i asked a direct question, and you gave a direct answer, but you weren't answering and then ignored me when i tried to clarify further?

Critical Rationalist:

I understand your toy example.

curi:

your prior comments had indicated you did not understand it.

curi:

you kept trying to relate it to homosexuality, which it did not mention.

curi:

and you persisted in that after i clarified that it wasn't related to homosexuality

curi:

I understood your toy example, I just thought it was inadequate as a rival theory to mine.

this statement is self-contradictory. the second half shows you don't understand it.

curi:

b/c it wasn't a rival to yours.

Critical Rationalist:

Ok, I see. So your example is meant to criticize that the link between the theory (a gene on the x chromosome causes homosexuality) and the prediction (female relatives of male homosexuals will have more sex partners)

Critical Rationalist:

The link between the theory and prediction is called an auxiliary assumption. Do you know what an auxiliary assumption is?

Critical Rationalist:

You are essentially saying "you haven't corroborated the auxiliary assumption (in this case, that women who want more sex will get more sex as a result)"

curi:

that is not what i'm saying, no

Critical Rationalist:

Ok, please clarify.

Critical Rationalist:

Here is my claim

curi:

i said i think the assumption is bad.

Critical Rationalist:

So you agree that it is legitimate in principle to use untested auxiliary assumptions? You just think this particular auxiliary assumption conflicts with other (well corroborated) theories?

curi:

i didn't say how well corroborated the other theories were. we often use non-empirical criticism, e.g. logical points.

curi:

i agree it's legitimate in principle, but you have to use critical thinking to limit it, not do it arbitrarily.

Critical Rationalist:

Ok sure, so you just think that this particular auxiliary assumption conflicts with other well corroborated OR logically unrefuted theories?

curi:

is this the research you're talking about? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1691850/pdf/15539346.pdf

Critical Rationalist:

Yes. More than one experiment (to the best of my memory) has been done in this area.

curi:

does one of the other papers talk about attraction to males?

Critical Rationalist:

No, strictly speaking they are agnostic to the exact mechanism by which the gene on the x chromosome causes increased female fecundity.

curi:

so the claim you made, as an example of something corroborated, is not part of the research?

curi:

and the assumption i doubted is also not part of the research?

Critical Rationalist:

Strictly speaking, the claim made by the researchers is that the gene on the x chromosome causes homosexuality in males but increased female fecundity in females. It is agnostic as to mechanism. The idea that the gene causes increased attraction to males strikes me as plausible. However, if you think that the fact that this mechanism is not described by the researchers, I'm happy to use a different example of corroborated evo psych theories.

curi:

you're not speaking strictly, though. e.g. you speak of "the gene" but they don't. right?

Critical Rationalist:

Oh yes they have localized a gene

Critical Rationalist:

One second

curi:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn6519-survival-of-genetic-homosexual-traits-explained/

Camperio-Ciani stresses that whatever the genetic factors are, there is no single gene accounting for his observations.

is Camperio-Ciani wrong or misreported?

Critical Rationalist:

When I say they have localized a gene

Critical Rationalist:

I do not mean "the" gene that explains homosexuality.

Critical Rationalist:

It is a gene which makes a male more likely to be homosexual.

Critical Rationalist:

Complex traits like homosexuality are polygenic.

Critical Rationalist:

One gene that was localized by this kind of research was Xq28

curi:

is Xq28 a gene?

Critical Rationalist:

yes

Critical Rationalist:

Now, I'm not particularly interested in the details of this example (if it happens to have a false auxiliary assumption, I can give many other examples of corroborated evo psych theories: patterns of male vs female sexual jealousy, sex differences in preference for casual sex)

curi:

https://bmcgenomics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2164-7-29

Well known for its gene density and the large number of mapped diseases, the human sub-chromosomal region Xq28 has long been a focus of genome research.

why would a gene contain gene density?

Critical Rationalist:

The point is to say that this is how you are supposed to test theories.

Critical Rationalist:

Make a theory, use some auxiliary assumptions (you still have not indicated if you understand what these are) to form predictions, then test the predictions.

curi:

curi:

why would a sub-region of a gene contain at least 11 genes?

Critical Rationalist:

There are competing definitions of "genes". I found one article which said "the study hypothesized that some X chromosomes contain a gene, Xq28, that increases the likelihood of an individual to be homosexual."

Critical Rationalist:

Maybe that article had a different definition of gene, maybe it was a simple mistake.

curi:

what definition of gene are you using, and what is a competing definition that you disagree with?

Critical Rationalist:

I have no opinion on the definition of gene. I will use whatever definition you want me to.

Alisa:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xq28

Critical Rationalist:

It makes no difference to the content of the prediction whether we define Xq28 as one gene or 11 genes.

curi:

you aren't reading carefully even though i'm talking about details. that's inappropriate to productive discussion

curi:

no one said Xq28 had 11 genes.

Critical Rationalist:

@curi my point is that it does not matter how many genes are in Xq28.

curi:

my point is that you were factually mistaken. i think getting facts and statements correct matters. you don't seem interested. i regard this as an impasse.

Critical Rationalist:

@curi this is not an impasse (in the sense of a deadlock in debate). However many genes you think are in Xq28, I will grant that fact to you.

Alisa:

That is not responsive to his point that you were mistaken and that getting facts and details correct matters.

curi:

the impasse isn't the number of genes in Xq28. i don't think you understood what i said. your repeated misreadings of what i say, along with lack of clarifying questions or interest, is a second impasse.

Critical Rationalist:

What is the impasse? Please explain it to me.

Alisa:

you were factually mistaken. i think getting facts and statements correct matters. you don't seem interested.

curi:

your disinterest in focusing on making correct statements and caring about errors in them.

Critical Rationalist:

Ok, I also want to make correct statements. If you know how many genes are in Xq28, I will be happy to find out (so I can be correct).

curi:

do you agree that you made an error?

Critical Rationalist:

This particular fact (how many genes are there) does not have relevance to the debate (unless you can show otherwise). But I agree that correct statements are better than incorrect ones.

Critical Rationalist:

Which statement of mine was an error?

curi:

that's a yes or no question.

Critical Rationalist:

If you can show me which statement was an error, I'll agree.

Critical Rationalist:

I am a fallibilist, so I expect that sometimes I will make errors.

curi:

that's not an answer to the question. your unwillingness or inability to understand and answer questions is an impasse.

JustinCEO:

Taking a position on whether you made an error is sticking your neck out. If you're wrong in your evaluation that would warrant further analysis re why you missed that error

Freeze:

are these impasse chains in action?

Critical Rationalist:

Ok, I don't think I made an error.

Critical Rationalist:

Show me one, and I'll concede that I made one.

curi:

@Freeze not exactly, no clear chains

Freeze:

ah

Alisa:

is Xq28 a gene?

yes

For one

Freeze:

just unconnected impasses

curi:

4:40 PM] curi: is Xq28 a gene?
[4:41 PM] Critical Rationalist: yes

Freeze:

still interesting

Critical Rationalist:

Some people define it as a gene.

curi:

what definition of gene are you using, and what is a competing definition that you disagree with?

Critical Rationalist:

But actually the more reputable sources (from my glancing) define it as having more genes,

Critical Rationalist:

So sure, I concede that was an error. It is actually many genes.

Critical Rationalist:

A "gene complex"

curi:

why did you change your mind even though i didn't give new information?

Critical Rationalist:

Because you pointed out an error that I made.

curi:

i don't think you understood my question

curi:

when you say "you pointed out an error that I made" you seem to be referring to me giving you new information, contrary to the question.

Critical Rationalist:

I couldn't think of any error I made.

Critical Rationalist:

Alisa pointed one out. And I double checked the sources, and confirmed that it was an error

curi:

You forgot about the issue of whether Xq28 is a gene when evaluating and making a claim re whether you had made an error?

Critical Rationalist:

I also wasn't sure earlier because one source said it was a gene

Critical Rationalist:

But the more reputable sources said it was multiple genes

Critical Rationalist:

So I now concede that it was an error

Critical Rationalist:

These are all fair things to be saying.

curi:

i've asked a yes or no question. i'm still waiting for an answer.

Critical Rationalist:

No, it was not in my mind when you asked about whether I had made an error.

curi:

do you mean "yes"?

JustinCEO:

curi:

You forgot about the issue of whether Xq28 is a gene when evaluating and making a claim re whether you had made an error?

Critical Rationalist:

Sorry, yes.

curi:

it's hard to organize and make progress in discussions with frequent errors. because you're talking about one thing and then an error comes up, and you talk about that, an another error comes up. this can happen a lot if the rate of errors is faster or similar to the rate of error corrections. does this abstract issue make sense to you?

Critical Rationalist:

Yes, the abstract issue makes sense to me. I concede the error, and agree that errors make conversations harder. I said Xq28 is one gene when it is in fact many genes. You are free to continue with any line of argument you had.

curi:

ok. i appreciate that. many people quit around here if not earlier.

it's hard to answer some of your complicated, bigger picture questions and points, in a way that satisfies you, when communication about some of the smaller chunks is breaking down often. that's my basic answer re AWALT. does that make sense?

this discussion community has been trying to examine issues rigorously for 25 years. it has developed some complicated ideas about how to do that. if you're interested in learning the methodology, that'd be great. if not, it's possible to have discussions but expectations have to be lower. do you think that's fair?

Critical Rationalist:

I think this will be my last comment for the night. Given that I only have two days left before I leave my family for Georgia, it might be my last comment for a while. Here is why I do not think that is fair. Debates about evo psych have also gone back decades (longer than 25 years). There are also complicated ideas about how to do that (in fact, more complicated: they involve statistical analysis and genetics). Despite the fact that t7he debates about evo psych theories have been going on longer, and have more complicated methodologies, I was still able to explain (in plain English) what observations would falsify specific evo psych theories. I think it is reasonable to expect you (as a Popperian) to be able to do the same. You have a hypothesis (no women are immune to PUA) and you have been unwilling to explain what data would falsify it. You have said (and I agree) that some PUA hypotheses are testable, but I started this conversation by contesting that particular claim (i.e. the AWALT claim). I don't think there are any evo psych hypotheses for which I could not explain (in plain English) what evidence would count as falsification of the hypothesis. But if there were, I would just admit "yes, that particular hypothesis is not falsifiable". I am not claiming in any way to have "won the debate". I view this more as a conversation. I am merely saying that @curi held me to a different standard. He extensively criticized my examples of how to test evo psych hypotheses, but was unwilling to give his own example of how to test the hypothesis which was the subject of debate. I could not even begin criticism of his position, because he flatly refused to answer the crucial question.

curi:

your explanations re evo psych contained errors which have not yet been untangled, so you did not yet succeed at doing that.

curi:

that = " was still able to explain (in plain English) what observations would falsify specific evo psych theories."

curi:

you're also comparing research into evo psych using standard methodology with research into discussion methodology. and doing it after i just gave several demonstrations of how your discussion contributions were inadequately rigorous, hence my suggestion better methodology is needed to deal with that ongoing problem.

curi:

the standard i was trying to hold you to was not being mistaken. i do hold myself to that too.

curi:

i did not agree to debate AWALT with you (you call it the subject of the debate) and you didn't seem to listen to me about that.

JustinCEO:

CR seems more interested in showing curi has some purported double standard than in trying to achieve mutual understanding

curi:

AWALT is an all X are Y claim, similar to "all swans are white". you can test it by looking for counter examples. in order to judge what is a counter example you have to learn and use the redpill/PUA theoretical framework to interpret the data. i don't know a simple summary to redpill a bluepill person in a couple paragraphs so that they could do that, especially not when they're argumentative and not asking questions to learn about PUA.

curi:

the data is much messier than physics b/c e.g. no PUA has a 100% success rate

curi:

so 10 guys can try to get a girl using their flawed PUA, all fail, and that doesn't imply she's a NAWALT

curi:

this is dangerous b/c ppl could make endless excuses to get rid of counter examples, as CR said. nevertheless it's the situation. i asked if he knew of that danger happening but he didn't. which makes sense because he's unfamiliar with the literature and not in a position to join the AWALT debate.

curi:

AWALT is not 100% rigorously defined. worse, it's considerably less airtightly specified than many other existing ideas. nevertheless it does have some content, and if data started clashing with it in big ways the reasonable people would start changing their mind.

curi:

people mean stuff by it that has limited flexibility

curi:

but no single field report could refute AWALT

curi:

no more than observing one family for one day could refute the idea that they are coercive parents.

JustinCEO:

do lesbians use PUA?

curi:

no idea

JustinCEO:

i wondered cuz lots of lesbian relationships fall into gendered patterns where there's like the boy lesbian and girl lesbian

JustinCEO:

so i was wondering if it'd work for the boy lesbians

curi:

you could try to RCT whether PUAs have better pickup results on average than ppl without PUA training, but that won't tell you whether AWALT or NAWALT.

curi:

you can't directly test whether a particular woman is a NAWALT b/c any number of PUA attempts failing on her is compatible with AWALT

curi:

that doesn't mean those failures would be meaningless. we'd try to come up with explanations of the data.

curi:

it could indicate e.g. a systematic error in PUA training that many PUAs fail on that women. which would be unsurprising. no one thinks PUA is perfect as understood today. the issue is whether that kind of stuff works.

curi:

CR was uninterested in the problem situation this debate stems from

curi:

which is ppl actually want to find a NAWALT and other ppl think it's a hopeless quest

curi:

this has consequences like MGTOW, which believes AWALT and consequently rejects women

JustinCEO:

ya i mentioned that earlier i think re: wanting to find NAWALT

curi:

the actual nature of the debate is kinda like, stylized:

MGTOW: u'll never find a unicorn, RIP
Joe: my gf is GREAT, why u dissing her? i totally understand that redpill is right in general and > 90% of girls are like that, but she's special, just look harder
MGTOW: link me her facebook
Joe: ok
MGTOW: here are 8 examples of AWALT behavior i found on her wall
Joe: fuck you

curi:

then, after consistently dealing with challenges like this, CR comes along and says AWALT theory is not subject to empirical testing.

JustinCEO:

i think if u assume PUAs are like misogynists or something (which is a conventional view) you would have the opposite expectation, that they want to say AWALT

curi:

b/c it's hard to tell him how to find AWALT behaviors on an FB page

curi:

there's no simple formula for that

curi:

i can't write a bot to scrape that data

curi:

i can't get that data from a survey

curi:

it takes creative, critical thinking

curi:

note this debate is btwn ppl who think redpill is 99% right and ppl who think 100%, NOT btwn ppl who think redpill is 50% right or 5% right or 0% right. the debate with them is different. CR didn't seem to understand this when i explained earlier. but then blames me for not being able to give a short explanation, just cuz he didn't understand the one i gave? meanwhile he did not give one that satisfied me, but claimed asymmetry b/c he gave one!

curi:

anyway the big thing, to me, is he makes lots of mistakes, he admits he makes lots of mistakes, he ought to be super interested in talking with someone who can catch and correct his mistakes (and who he can't do that to, as yet). but it's not clear that he is.

curi:

curi:

and now he's leaving, probably for a while, without trying to do those things or explain alternatives or concede he has a lot to learn and express interest in learning it.

curi:

[4:26 AM] GISTE: Before I address your question, I have a point to make and a clarifying question about what you said:
(1) I think you’re implying that all of your previous comments are compatible with Popperian epistemology. I’ve been reading your comments and I disagree with many of them re epistemology. So that means that you and I disagree on what Popperian epistemology really is, how it works, and how it applies to the non-epistemology topics we’re discussing.
(2) To clarify, are you saying that you have to look at data (observe) before coming up with a theory? @Critical Rationalist
[4:31 AM] Critical Rationalist: I don’t hear a question from 1).

This is a misreading by CR. GISTE clearly stated that he had a point and a question, then provided a point and a question. CR assumed not only without it being said, but directly contrary to the text, that it would be two questions.

curi:

[5:00 AM] GISTE: (1) You’ve seen me disagree with Popper on stuff re epistemology, so I don’t get the “sacred text” comment. (Recall that we talked about Popper’s critical preferences idea and I gave you a link to a curi blog post that explains that Popper’s idea is wrong and incompatible with the rest of Popperian epistemology, while curi’s correction to that idea is compatible with the rest of Popperian epistemology.)
(2) Ok. I recommend that you engage with @curi or @alanforr about this because they are experts on this and I’m not. For now I’ll explain something that I’m not sure will help you understand my view. (This is my vague memory and these are not actual quotes.) Popper once gave a lecture where he said to his students “Observe”. The students said, “observe what?” Popper replied with something like, “Exactly, you have to have an idea (theory) about what to observe before you can observe”. This was to point out that theory always comes before observation.
(3) selective pressures cannot “give rise” to anything. I tried to come up with an interpretation of your question that makes sense from my perspective (which includes my understanding of epistemology) but I did not succeed. I could try to come up with a question that tries to get at what I think you’re trying to get at, and then answer that question. So here’s my question: what selective pressures could have possibly selected for the genes that made flying dinosaur bones lighter? Answer: flying dinosaurs that had genes that made their bones lighter resulted in those dinosaurs being able to fly more, higher, longer, etc, which resulted in those dinosaurs having more grandchildren than compared to the dinosaurs that had rival genes.

@Critical Rationalist
[5:04 AM] Critical Rationalist: I agree, the “sacred text” comment was unnecessarily provocative. The passage you cite is roughly what I had in mind.

This is an error because GISTE did not cite a passage.

curi:

[6:18 AM] Critical Rationalist: Children can only learn language during a certain period of time. If they try to learn a language after a certain age, it is virtually impossible to attain full fluency. Furthermore, learning a language as an adult is incredibly effortful, whereas doing so as a child is effortless.

How do you know it's effortless for children?

The reason you think this data contradicts my view is that you don't know what my view is. You're trying to argue with it before understanding the basics. This isn't an issue we overlooked.

These data seem best explained by specialized language acquisition capacities (which only function for a limited time), not a general learning capacity.

this claim contradicts some theories in epistemology, which are in BoI, which CR hasn't learned or found any flaw in. if theory and data are incompatible you have to say "i don't know", but the data is compatible, the only issue here is the theory-violating explanation of the data seems more intuitive.

curi:

[6:30 AM] GISTE: AFAIK = as far as i know
[6:31 AM] Critical Rationalist: Lol typed it into google incorrectly

here CR thinks making an error is funny.

Measure the degree of corruption by society (however you define it) and see if if predicts the difficulty of learning language.
[9:19 AM] Critical Rationalist: Are you willing to put your money where your mouth is and make that prediction?

CR doesn't understand the things he's trying to argue with. you can't just measure that. our concept doesn't map to a measuring device. he's dramatically underestimating the complexity of the human condition by proposing (in later messages) very naive, simplistic proxies for corruption which are very dissimilar to our thinking on the matter.

more broadly he's dramatically downplaying the role of philosophy and critical thinking compared to KP and DD.

curi:

[9:54 AM] Critical Rationalist: Both my theory and his lack theoretical specificity

this comment on me comes from misreading what i actually said. he's glossing over the details and specifics of the points i made. could go through it in detail but he won't thank or reward me, or start trying to learn FI.

[10:26 AM] Critical Rationalist: There is no account of how a universal classical computer could creatively conjecture new explanations

KP gave one. P1 -> TT -> EE -> P2. Also known as "evolution" or "conjecture and refutation". that doesn't mention computers. is the problem/objection related to some imagined limit of computers? what?

Critical Rationalist:

@curi as I said, I’ll be stepping out for a while. I’ll just say one thing. Since you’re holding my words to a very high standard, it is only fair for the same standard to be applied to you.

Critical Rationalist:

The reason you think this data contradicts my view is that you don’t know what my view is.

Critical Rationalist:

Did I say that this data contradicts your view?

curi:

Freeze:

"very powerful evidence against curi's account"

Freeze:

the evidence is the data?

Critical Rationalist:

Does “powerful evidence against” mean the same thing as “contradicting”?

Freeze:

i think so

curi:

do you think that data is compatible with my account? why, then, would it be very powerful evidence against? i myself think that the data, as you present it, refutes my account.

Critical Rationalist:

I do not think data needs to logically contradict a theory to be evidence against it. The point is that you misrepresented what I said. I elsewhere explained that what I meant was that the data are better explained by an alternative model.

Critical Rationalist:

That might not be your epistemology, but you made an error when presenting my position.

curi:

in the quote, i didn't make a statement about what you said.

Critical Rationalist:

You presented my position. You said > The reason you think this data contradicts my view is that you don’t know what my view is.

curi:

since your presentation of your data does contradict my account (IMO), and you thought it was strong evidence against, and Critical Rationalism considers evidence against something to be contradicting data, and you said you were a Critical Rationalist, i made a reasonable guess given incomplete information.

Critical Rationalist:

Ok, but it was an error nonetheless

curi:

no, making a reasonable guess using incomplete information is not an error. it's a correct action.

Critical Rationalist:

You are presupposing an incorrect definition of error. Error means mistake or false statement

Critical Rationalist:

Error: “the state or condition of being wrong in conduct or judgment.”

curi:

was my conduct wrong?

Critical Rationalist:

No, your statement was wrong

curi:

was my judgment wrong, meaning i should have made a different judgment in that situation?

Critical Rationalist:

Wrong as in factually wrong, not ethically wrong

JustinCEO:

That's the very definition I would have chosen to contradict u CR

Critical Rationalist:

No, it was wrong in the sense that it was factually incorrect

curi:

so i didn't make a conduct or judgment error?

Critical Rationalist:

The first definition of wrong is “not correct or true; incorrect”

Critical Rationalist:

Your statement was incorrect, therefor it was an error

JustinCEO:

The very definition that you first chose doesn't talk about factual correctness

curi:

you're moving the goalposts

curi:

and what do you think is evidence against a theory which doesn't contradict it? how does that work?

Critical Rationalist:

Furthermore, if we accept your definition of error, then my claim that Xq28 was a single Gene was not an error: it was a reasonable guess based on incomplete information (I looked at a source which said it was a gene)

curi:

i don't agree

Critical Rationalist:

That’s besides the point

Critical Rationalist:

The point is, your statement was incorrect. It was an error

curi:

why did you manage to find a source that's worse than wikipedia or reading link previews on google?

JustinCEO:

CR imho u r scrambling badly while trying to catch curi out

curi:

seems like an error

JustinCEO:

You should be less adversarial

curi:

and why did you double down on it by making a claim re differing definitions of gene while being unable to provide any definitions?

JustinCEO:

Night

Critical Rationalist:

I’m not revisiting it in detail

curi:

i think if i restate something you communicated, and then you call it factually false, the error is yours for communicating it, not mine for talking about your views in terms of what you said.

curi:

further, you're claiming i'm factually wrong but have yet to explain the real state of affairs, as you claim it to be, which differs from what i thought it was.

Critical Rationalist:

Then the same is true for you

JustinCEO:

There he goes again

curi:

i haven't yet explained that Xq28 is more than one gene?

Critical Rationalist:

You accused me of not understanding your view. In that case, the fault is yours

Critical Rationalist:

If we use the same standard

curi:

where did i miscommunicate?

Critical Rationalist:

Where did I miscommunicate?

curi:

i told you where i got my interpretation of your position. you have yet to point out any error in my way of reading.

curi:

did you forget?

Critical Rationalist:

I did not forget. It is a rhetorical question. I do not believe that I miscommunicated

curi:

i gave an account which you have not responded to

curi:

so that's an asymmetry

curi:

asking where you miscommunicated, while remembering that i already told you and it's pending your reply, is unreasonable

Critical Rationalist:

I believe that data can decide between two theories when one theory predicts it, but the other does not.

Critical Rationalist:

That is not the same as the data contradicting the latter theory, but it does constitute evidence against it

curi:

i think you're too tilted to continue, and are just trying to win a pedantic point to save face because you lost a bunch of points, and that you can't actually win but are just going to keep throwing nonsense at me without regard for the quality of your arguments, and this is an impasse.

Critical Rationalist:

No, I just explained what I mean by evidence being against a theory without contradicting it

Critical Rationalist:

Which is what you asked for.

curi:

asking where you miscommunicated, while remembering that i already told you and it's pending your reply, is unreasonable

curi:

among many other things

Critical Rationalist:

Alright, this will actually be my last comment. The reason i did this little exercise is because your own accusations of errors are levied against me when they were clearly good faith misunderstandings. For example, I admitted that I mistyped something into google and you called this an error. I am showing why that approach is problematic. I think you’re projecting. You accusing me of being combative is odd coming from someone who criticized me for mistyping something into google.

curi:

asserting they were "clearly good faith" is an unreasonable way to speak to me. you can't reasonably expect me to agree with that.

Critical Rationalist:

Do you think I mistyped something into google in bad faith (I was referring to the errors you pointed out in your volley, eg when I mistyped something into google, or when I said giste “cited” something when he only alluded to it. Those were clearly not in bad faith).

curi:

someone who criticized me for mistyping something into google.

i didn't do that. you're lost b/c you keep misreading things and getting facts wrong. then you build conjectures using those errors.

curi:

Alright, this will actually be my last comment.

false

curi:

(I was referring to the errors you pointed out in your volley,

you didn't specify a limit on which errors from today you meant.

curi:

i was criticizing you for laughing, not for the typo.

curi:

i was criticizing your attitude not your mistyping. again you're too tilted, incompetent or whatever to read.

curi:

that's common and fixable if you want to work at improving. it takes effort to gain skills. but it doesn't sound like you want to make progress.

curi:

re epistemology, does he mean that observing my desk is powerful evidence against evolution, which did not predict it? or only if i propose a theory of intelligent design which includes a prediction of my desk?

curi:

i wonder why he thinks "effortless" learning doesn't contradict my model. does he know that contradicts Popper?

curi:

he thinks my model merely fails to predict that some learning will be effortless? odd misconception.

curi:

conjecturing and refuting is effort.

curi:

there's no actual data that anyone learned anything effortlessly.

curi:

he was ignoring that my model interprets the data differently

curi:

1:20 PM] Critical Rationalist: Let me try to spell out the contradiction with a concrete example

curi:

there's also the dictionary meanings

curi:

curi:

I'm not contradicting you, I'm just saying you're totally wrong. - CR, 2020

curi:

A general learning capacity would work equally well through the life span, but language acquisition works optimally during a particular period of life

isn't he saying: curi's model would predict X, but the data is Y. isn't he referring to contradiction?

curi:

i still read this as as a misprediction issue where my model allegedly differs from empirical reality, and i think he was being dishonest to try to catch me in an error.

curi:

he wasn't talking about something where my model has no predictions, so that was an unreasonable elaboration. he gave a case which, besides the direct problems with it, doesn't apply here.

curi:

he had just stated a prediction himself (which is correct as a first approximation, though fails to consider some factors)

curi:

it was a poor claim about what my model predicts, but he did make such a claim and contradict it.

curi:

right after mentioning something, which i highlighted, that does contradict my model (the idea of effortless learning, which tbh i don't think any serious school of thought claims).

curi:

i don't think he thought his point through beyond his initial statement that he hadn't said contradict, and i said contradict

curi:

but he wasn't even paying enough attention to notice i didn't say he said that word.

curi:

i was describing his thinking, not making statements re his word use

curi:

note that none of the errors he made were rescuable by saying e.g. "oh i was speaking loosely, and reasonably, and meant..."

curi:

no additional clarifications of his statements would help them

curi:

they were actually wrong

curi:

it wasn't stuff like typos where he'd say "oh i didn't mean that, that text doesn't represent the ideas in my head perfectly"

curi:

they were all substantive thinking mistakes

curi:

he's partly trying to smear my criticism by making low quality criticism and then calling it parallel.

curi:

i wasn't trying to hurt him by correcting him about several things in a row. in retrospect i did hurt him. i avoided those sorts of corrections for quite a bit of discussion b/c i know most ppl dislike them and can't handle them, and he broadcast plenty of the usual signs that he would dislike it. however, he kept pushing me in picky ways, trying to get more details, etc. he was basically bluffing aggressively by pretending he wanted that sort of discussion to pressure me. he thought it was a game of chicken whereas, actually, i simply can discuss carefully and rigorously.

curi:

he pretended he was OK with it at first, and pretended it had been successful, but after these later comments he clearly wasn't.

curi:

he interpreted correction re social status and wanted to do this back to me:

curi:

He had turned to go. Francon stopped him. Francon’s voice was gay and warm:
“Oh, Keating, by the way, may I make a suggestion? Just between us, no offense intended, but a burgundy necktie would be so much better than blue with your gray smock, don’t you think so?”
“Yes, sir,” said Keating easily. “Thank you. You’ll see it tomorrow.”

curi:

curi:

but i didn't want to let him b/c he accused me of an intellectual error instead of using something unimportant to save face with

curi:

he wanted to save face in a more substantial way that denied the meaning of what had happened, as well as detracted from my intellectual reputation, whereas Francon didn't do that, he was just saying he's not a total pushover and he's still the boss.

curi:

both of which are true

curi:

anyway i didn't offer him a way out where he gets to be a competent person capable of rigorous intellectual discussion with an adequately low error rate to make progress. i don't think he's there yet. but he's too attached to already being there to try to fix it, so he's maf.

curi:

by trying to tear me down he was trying to show my criticisms were trivial and unimportant, no one is immune to that standard of pedantry, no one lives up to the standards of competence i propose, etc.

curi:

but when he tried to have that discussion, he was tilted to the point of making a lot more errors than before

curi:

and his judgment of what point he could safely win was grossly unreasonable

curi:

b/c he wasn't updating his thinking regarding the new info he had. he just kept trying to do what worked in the past.

curi:

sadly his career is posturing and social climbing re this stuff, he's really invested in that game

curi:

mb he'll come back and say i'm making erroneous assumptions, he's going to be a rich socialite, the phil MA with TA work is just a hobby

curi:

the thing i was actually trying to communicate re his thoughts was something i thought his perspective (as judged by his msgs) was not taking into account.

curi:

when he said Xq28 is a gene, and doubled down on it, he was trying to say it is in fact a single gene. which is wrong.

curi:

he was saying this in service of his claim that he was speaking strictly correctly

curi:

he chains his errors together – defending each with a new one

curi:

they aren't random. they're systematically biased

curi:

ppl don't like being outclassed. it's so fukt. i did like it when i talked with DD initially.

curi:

he's still in school and i've been a professional philosopher for a long time, and i have the best education/credentials in the field, but he can't take losing to me. he can only take (maybe) losing to ppl who he perceives as higher social status than he perceives me.

curi:

he did not discuss his social status judgments and their accuracy or relevance

curi:

the alleged asymmetry re AWALT and evo pscyh was interesting

curi:

i gave a short statement which he didn't accept. he gave one that i didn't accept.

curi:

the asymmetry was that i accepted that he hadn't accepted mine, and talked about how to solve this problem, how to make progress, what can be done. meanwhile, he did not accept that i hadn't accepted his.

curi:

so his ideas are better than mine because he denies reality.

curi:

he repeatedly tried to invoke this asymmetry, as if i'd accepted his examples in some significant way, when i hadn't.

curi:

he like couldn't face that his short, simple summary info was not convincing to me.

curi:

it works on everyone else!

curi:

despite the fact that he doesn't know the basic facts of the topic

curi:

which are, in his experience, not relevant to getting most ppl to agree that he's clever.

curi:

he thinks everything in evo psych is readily testable. but how would you test whether being more attracted to men in general leads to more children? survey questions will not measure degrees of attraction accurately. how does anyone know how their attraction levels in their head, on average, compare to those of other people? his general policy, which we saw re measuring mental corruption, was just use terrible proxies to measure things cuz testing > not testing.

curi:

it's bad enough trying to survey to accurately measure a mental state that we have no good way to quantify. it's much worse trying to get people to make relative comparisons between their mental states and other people's non-quantified mental states.

curi:

when we quantify attraction normally we do it relatively to our own experience. i was much more attracted to sue than sarah.

curi:

ppl will pick words to communicate. they will say "i am super attracted to Nadalie". but this reflects 1) relative comparisons to their other attractions 2) social incentives to brag about this, play it up or down, etc. 3) how much they use strong terms in general. and, ok, 4) some crude estimates re behavior. e.g. they were willing to put effort into a date, so they should be using stronger language than someone who isn't putting in effort. roughly like that.

curi:

these behaviors are affected by tons of factors other than attraction.

curi:

including: attraction can result in putting in less effort b/c of playing hard to get

curi:

this also all neglects different types of attraction. treats it as a single trait which it's really not.

curi:

this was covered in BoI re happiness

curi:

The connection with happiness would still involve comparing subjective interpretations which there is no way of calibrating to a common standard

curi:

etc

curi:

So how does explanation-free science address the issue? First, one explains that one is not measuring happiness directly, but only a proxy such as the behaviour of marking checkboxes on a scale called ‘happiness’. All scientific measurements use chains of proxies. But, as I explained in Chapters 2 and 3, each link in the chain is an additional source of error, and we can avoid fooling ourselves only by criticizing the theory of each link – which is impossible unless an explanatory theory links the proxies to the quantities of interest. That is why, in genuine science, one can claim to have measured a quantity only when one has an explanatory theory of how and why the measurement procedure should reveal its value, and with what accuracy.

curi:

but he reads BoI, likes it, doesn't notice it contradicts a field he likes, doesn't notice the field in general has no rebuttal, and then is surprised when a DD colleague doesn't make concessions re his claims about it

Critical Rationalist:

There is a lot to talk about in your last volley, including some very important issues related to philosophy of science. May is when my upcoming semester in grad school ends. When I come back, I might return to those issues.

But there is one distinction I want to make. It will be helpful when you and I have future conversations. There is a difference between not addressing something and refusing to address something. For example, you said “he did not discuss his social status judgments and their accuracy or relevance”. This is me not addressing something. I agree that there I things I did not address.

However, this is normal. For example, here are is one question of mine that you never answered:

The link between the theory and prediction is called an auxiliary assumption. Do you know what an auxiliary assumption is?

Make a theory, use some auxiliary assumptions (you still have not indicated if you understand what these are) to form predictions, then test the predictions.

Now, if I had failed to answer a question two times in a row, you would have been very critical of me. But again, that is still just not addressing something. When you failed to answer my question about auxiliary assumptions, I decided to be charitable and assume you had just not gotten around to it (you are free to answer now if you want). I would never criticize someone for simply not addressing something (as you did with the auxiliary assumption question). In a conversation this complex, people will sometimes get sidetracked, or other things happen.

It is not reasonable to condemn someone for not addressing something. What is reasonable is to expect people to not flatly refuse to address something. A blanket refusal to answer a question (i.e. a statement to the effect of “no, I will not answer your question”) is a hindrance to progress in a conversation. Crucially, at no point did I do this.

jordancurve:

It is not reasonable to condemn someone for not addressing something.

Unless I missed it, you didn't quote anyone doing this.

curi:

https://my.mindnode.com/tvuTuLmRpf7YbREDvBAhKDoFvi4wkBcPfDXje3bB @Critical Rationalist (should work on desktop. if on android, ask for a pdf export. if on ios, download the free mindnode app and open in that)

jordancurve:

I think it would be clearer to refer to him as CRist and reserve CR for critiical rationalism.

curi:

did i refer to him as CR?

curi:

oh the title

curi:

i didn't even think of the filename as something that woudl be shared

curi:

it's not part of the tree

Critical Rationalist:

I was trying to explain that evo psych makes testable predictions. How does would it help my case if Xq28 were a gene instead of a series of genes? I grant that it is a set of genes. Does that show that evo psych is not making testable predictions? If not, what does the fact that Xq28 is a set of genes show?

curi:

that is non-responsive to BoI c12

curi:

it's also non-responsive to the biased errors problem

Critical Rationalist:

How is it a biased error?

Critical Rationalist:

Does this error favour my side?

curi:

it says how in the tree

Critical Rationalist:

@curi did you understand my distinction between "not responding" and "refusing to respond"?

curi:

yes

Critical Rationalist:

I read the purple part of the tree.

Critical Rationalist:

I did say when explaining the evo psych theory that it talked about a specific gene. It in fact was about a set of genes. But that is still a testable prediction. It doesn't help my case to say it is one gene: saying "a set of genes" is still a testable prediction.

Critical Rationalist:

that is non-responsive to BoI c12

Critical Rationalist:

I agree. I haven't responded to that yet, just like you have not responded to the auxiliary hypothesis question. Note again the difference between "not responding" and "refusing to respond".

Freeze:

I think non-responsive in this context means something more like, This doesn't address the arguments that criticize it or offer better explanations

curi:

@Critical Rationalist did you delete messages from the log?

Critical Rationalist:

I deleted one of my messages that said "my last mistake"

curi:

Please don't delete anything here

Critical Rationalist:

Sounds good

Critical Rationalist:

I await a response to my above messages.

curi:

https://elliottemple.com/debate-policy

Critical Rationalist:

Since @curi has shared that tree here, I will say what I said in "Slow". I was trying to explain that evo psych makes testable predictions. I said this to @curi

Critical Rationalist:

I did say when explaining the evo psych theory that it talked about a specific gene. It in fact was about a set of genes. But that is still a testable prediction. It doesn't help my case to say it is one gene: saying "a set of genes" is still a testable prediction.

Critical Rationalist:

@curi has not responded in "slow". So I'll ask the question again here.

Critical Rationalist:

How does would it help my case if Xq28 were a gene instead of a series of genes? I grant that it is a set of genes. Does that show that evo psych is not making testable predictions? If not, what does the fact that Xq28 is a set of genes show?

jordancurve:

How does would it help my case if Xq28 were a gene instead of a series of genes?

It would help the case that you are familiar enough with the topic to discuss it without making blatantly false statements.

jordancurve:

Does that show that evo psych is not making testable predictions?

No, that's in BoI ch. 12.

jordancurve:

what does the fact that Xq28 is a set of genes show?

See above.

Critical Rationalist:

@jordancurve Does it have any relevance to my claim that evo psych makes testable predictions? What matters is not how familiar or smart I am, what matters is the ideas I put forward.

jordancurve:

Does [the fact that Xq28 is not a gene] have any relevance to my claim that evo psych makes testable predictions?

jordancurve:

Not that I know of.

Critical Rationalist:

The claim that evo psych makes testable predictions is what I was arguing for.

Critical Rationalist:

So you don't know of any way that my error was relevant to that^ claim.

jordancurve:

No, and I don't think anyone said your error was relevant to that claim.

Critical Rationalist:

In slow, this conversation happened

Critical Rationalist:

I asked this:

Critical Rationalist:

How is it (my gene mistake) a biased error?
Does this error favour my side?

Critical Rationalist:

@curi said this

Critical Rationalist:

it says how in the tree

jordancurve:

Indeed.

Critical Rationalist:

That was a direct response to me.

Critical Rationalist:

So, he thinks that this error favours my side.

jordancurve:

Yes.

jordancurve:

One of your "sides", to be more precise.

Critical Rationalist:

Please explain.

jordancurve:

It says so right in the purple node of the tree!

jordancurve:

Do you want to try to re-read it once more before I explain it?

Critical Rationalist:

But it does not favour my side in the sense that it shows that evo psych is testable.

jordancurve:

No it doesn't, but no one (except you?) thought it did

Critical Rationalist:

Xq28 is a set of genes. Granted. Does that mean evo psych isn't testable?

Critical Rationalist:

Does that count against my claim that evo psych is testable?

jordancurve:

I think I answerd this earlier. No. That argument comes from BoI ch 12

Critical Rationalist:

Good.

jordancurve:

Not that I know of, but I'm no expert.

curi:

@jordancurve check IMs

Critical Rationalist:

So my error (claiming that Xq28 is a single gene, instead of a set of genes) does not count against my argument that evo psych is testable.

jordancurve:

Again, not that I know of.

Critical Rationalist:

The Boi chp 12 argument is an interesting argument, one that I'm willing to answer.

jordancurve:

It counts against your claim that you didn't make any errors.

Critical Rationalist:

Yes 100%

Critical Rationalist:

But surely, what matters is not me, but the ideas I'm putting forward.

jordancurve:

If you make a claim about yourself, then you matter.

Critical Rationalist:

We all agree, don't we, that the ideas are what matter?

Critical Rationalist:

Yes, I've retracted that claim.

JustinCEO:

Truth is what matters. Errors lead one away from truth and have to be dealt with in a serious and systematic way in order to get at the truth effectively. Concessions and retractions of errors are not a serious and systematic solution to the thing giving rise to the errors in the first place. The errors CR has made in the discussions with curi are not mere unavoidable byproducts of human fallibility and will sabotage making discussion progress if not rigorously and thoroughly addressed

curi:

https://curi.us/2190-errors-merit-post-mortems

Critical Rationalist:

"Second, an irrelevant “error” is not an error... The fact that my measurement is an eighth of an inch off is not an error. The general principle is that errors are reasons a solution to a problem won’t work."

Critical Rationalist:

That's from @curi's post.

Critical Rationalist:

So, by his standard, this error has to be relevant. It has to be "a reason a solution to a problem won't work". Why does my error qualify as relevant in @curi's sense?

jordancurve:

It's relevant to your claim about not having made an error.

curi:

you don't understand the standard in the post. this is another example of the same kind of lack of rigor that the xq28 error was

Critical Rationalist:

"The small measurement “error” doesn’t prevent my from succeeding at the problem I’m working on, so it’s not an error."

Critical Rationalist:

The problem I was working on was showing that evo psych is testable

curi:

is "is Xq28 a gene?" a problem?

Critical Rationalist:

It was not the problem I was working on, no.

curi:

when i asked that question, and you answered, you were not working on that problem?

Critical Rationalist:

The problem I was working on was "is evo psych testable"

Critical Rationalist:

Not on the problem "is Xq28 a gene".

Critical Rationalist:

That is not a problem I'm working on.

jordancurve:

!

curi:

so your answer that it's not a gene was not an attempt to solve the problem "is Xq28 a gene?"?

JustinCEO:

Problems have subproblems and you can make mistakes at the subproblem level and that affects your ability to claim you have solved the higher level problem

JustinCEO:

Like if I make an addition error in a complicated mathematical expression

JustinCEO:

Boom answer wrong

Critical Rationalist:

No, it was an attempt to solve the problem of whether evo psych is testable. I try to answer all questions when having conversation about a topic.

Critical Rationalist:

So, by your standard, the gene mistake does not qualify as an error.

Critical Rationalist:

Now look. I don't care what you call it.

Critical Rationalist:

Error, mistaken definition, whatever

JustinCEO:

Hang on nobody's conceded

So, by your standard, the gene mistake does not qualify as an error.

Critical Rationalist:

I was trying to argue that evo psych was testable.

Critical Rationalist:

That is the problem we were trying to solve.

JustinCEO:

Don't try to move on before that gets thoroughly resolved

Critical Rationalist:

The problem I was trying to solve was whether evo psych was testable.

Critical Rationalist:

Whether Xq28 is one gene or many genes does not affect THAT^ claim.

curi:

you clearly don't understand what the post means re problems and problem solving. so you haven't understood the standard in the post. that would be ok if you weren't then trying to use your misunderstanding as a bludgeon to win a debating point.

Critical Rationalist:

@curi the post does not define the term "problem" or "problem-solving". The word "problem" only occurs twice.

jordancurve:

It's written for people familiar with CR

Critical Rationalist:

The problem that I was trying to solve was this: "is evo psych testable".

Critical Rationalist:

I am familiar with CR

JustinCEO:

Why didn't CR ask something like "Ok then what am I missing?" re: the post and curi's comments about not understanding the standard

Critical Rationalist:

Because sometimes when I ask @curi a question he refuses to answer.

Critical Rationalist:

But I will try with this one, since you've recommended that I do so.

curi:

http://fallibleideas.com/problems

curi:

among many other things. your denial of subproblems or working on multiple problems at once is contrary to the mainstream, quite bizarre, and not something you can expect to be covered preemptively.

curi:

anyway you interpreted something i wrote, using your intellectual framework assumptions, to conclude basically that i was contradicting myself. the more reasonable conclusion is different framework.

JustinCEO:

Ya I found the replies in that vein shocking

JustinCEO:

Shocking re:

among many other things. your denial of subproblems or working on multiple problems at once is contrary to the mainstream, quite bizarre, and not something you can expect to be covered preemptively.

curi:

among many other things

i meant that the link is one of many pieces of literature.

curi:

I am familiar with CR

right you were familiar enough with CR to know that a question is a type of problem, but some of your other comments had nothing to do with CR

jordancurve:

Because sometimes when I ask @curi a question he refuses to answer.

Yesterday you made a similar claim ("When you [curi] don't answer a question, it makes you look bad") and yet, when challenged, you were unable to quote a single question that curi didn't answer. Has that changed?

Critical Rationalist:

When I first heard about this group, I was excited to talk with other people who were familiar with Karl Popper. Despite being in a masters program in philosophy, I rarely encounter people who know his work closely. But the quality of discourse is on the whole negative (though there have been some exceptions). You have been obsessing over the fact that I said Xq28 is one gene instead of many genes, despite the fact that it is not relevant to the problem I was trying to solve (is evo psych testable). @curi will criticize me for failing to address things (despite the fact that I try my very best to answer every question). When it is pointed out that everyone (including him) sometimes fails to address things, he ignores it. For example, this is the fourth time I have prompted you to answer this question: "do you know what an auxiliary hypothesis is?" And as I have already pointed out several times, when I challenged him to provide a testable prediction that followed from his theory, he refused to do so. He claims that this claim "no women are immune to PUA" is testable" has been subject to empirical tests. However, in order to be an empirical test, it has to be a genuine attempt at falsification. I read @curi's most recent volley on this topic. What a Popperian should be able to say for his theory is this "if we observe x, then the theory is falsified". In the case of Einstein, he could answer this question concretely: if we see the starlight here, then the theory is falsified. I could do this for evo psych: "if male homosexuals do not invest more in their nieces and nephews, then the theory is falsified".

curi:

you aren't using this method or proposing a different one https://curi.us/2232-claiming-you-objectively-won-a-debate

Critical Rationalist:

@curi said that "any number of PUA attempts failing on her is compatible with AWALT. that doesn't mean those failures would be meaningless. we'd try to come up with explanations of the data." This is exactly the strategy that Marxists and Freudians used (which Popper criticized). When Marxist and Freudian predictions did not come true, they would explain away the apparent falsification. They would systematically protect their theory from refutation. The way to avoid doing this is to specify in advance what observations would count as falsification. @curi has not said what observations would count as falsification. Until he does so, he cannot claim that his theory is testable in a Popperian sense.

Critical Rationalist:

This forum is no longer worth my time. I will be deleting my account. If any of you want to contact me for one on one discussion, please email me at davidangus1996@gmail.com

jordancurve:

jfc

curi:

[redpill] rationalization hamster

curi:

he doesn't want to debate to a conclusion in an organized way. he just wants to declare victory and hide.

jordancurve:

C R, you didn't have to go out like that!

Critical Rationalist:

It is too bad. I heard from people who were glad I had joined this group.

curi:

after conceding he made a bunch of errors, and never establishing any error by me, his conclusion is not "wow someone who is better at not making errors than me, amazing!" (which is a part of how i reacted to DD initially), it's just to ignore all the objetively established facts and be [redpill] solipsistic

Critical Rationalist:

I had moments where I enjoyed it do.

Critical Rationalist:

But it is not longer worth my time.

curi:

got any paths forward to go with that?

curi:

if you're wrong, how will you find out?

Critical Rationalist:

Yes, finish my masters degree in philosophy (where peer review is a part of the process of writing, so errors are caught), and then pursue a doctorate degree. That is my path forward. I thought this would be a fun outlet. I was wrong.

Critical Rationalist:

I'm not directing this at anyone personally. You are all free to email me with questions or discussion topics.

curi:

that's not a path forward

JustinCEO:

How will you find out if you're wrong about your judgment of this group and whether it's worth your time

JustinCEO:

Why not try discussing a small discrete and less controversial issue to conclusion instead of giving up totally

Critical Rationalist:

I'll have to live with that. I have ways of spending my time that I know are productive.

jordancurve:

That doesn't sound very critical rationalist.

Critical Rationalist:

My hypothesis that this group is a good use of my time has been falsified by the evidence.

jordancurve:

lol sigh

curi:

there are arguments the ways you're spending your time are not only not productive but counter-productive. you have not refuted them nor cited any refutation, but wish to ignore them with no way to fix it if you're wrong.

jordancurve:

Well, C R, I wish you would just take a break. Don't delete your account. Maybe you'll want to say something else some day. Why not leave the option open.

jordancurve:

Okay, we have your email if we want to contact you in the mean time.

jordancurve:

Like people say "delete your account" but I've never seen someone actually do it.

curi:

2:20 PM] Critical Rationalist: The Boi chp 12 argument is an interesting argument, one that I'm willing to answer.

I guess that was a lie?

JustinCEO:

😦

curi:

his parting shot included further statements ignoring the existence of those arguments

curi:

as if the state of the debate was me not answering him, rather than us waiting for his answer

curi:

he seems to be criticizing me for admitting duhem-quine applies to AWALT, on the implied basis that he doesn't think it applies to evo psych. he should read more Popper!

curi:

you will notice he has no solutions

curi:

no ideas about how to solve this problem

curi:

no reading recommendatiosn to fix us

curi:

no discussion methodology documents he thinks we should try using

curi:

popper says we can learn from each other, despite culture clash, by an effort.

curi:

but he just gives up with ppl who are willing to try more and in fact are bursting at the seams with dozens of proposed solutions

curi:

but he won't read ours nor suggest his own

curi:

that's a big asymmetry

jordancurve:

My hypothesis that this group is a good use of my time has been falsified by the evidence.

Come on. Really? He has to know, when he's not tilted, that evidence admits of multiple interpretations. Observations are theory-laden.

curi:

that's a bitter social comment which means "these guys aren't adequately falsificationists like real CRs"

jordancurve:

He didn't even seem to try to establish that the rival interpretations of the evidence were false.

JustinCEO:

"fun outlet" sounds like maybe he wasn't expecting tons of pushback and crit, given conventional views on what's fun

jordancurve:

*any rival interpretations

curi:

that's one of his main rationalizations to preserve his pretense of self-esteem

curi:

he didn't quote any unfun msg

curi:

he wanted to use unsourced paraphrases to attack msgs

curi:

[redpill] nothing personal, teehee

JustinCEO:

What are the [brackets] doing there exactly

curi:

tagging the msg. i'm gonna write a blog post to explain

JustinCEO:

Okay 👌

curi:

expressing a redpill perspective is different than expressing something i fully agree with

JustinCEO:

Ah

curi:

but i think worthwhile to consider

curi:

a little like /s is not your usual voice

JustinCEO:

Rite

curi:

@curi has not said what observations would count as falsification. Until he does so, he cannot claim that his theory is testable in a Popperian sense.

does he not know enough about BoI c12 to know that's covered there?

curi:

if so, why did he say BoI c12 is interesting and he'd be willing to answer, as if he knew what it said?

GISTE:

CRist makes a particular mistake repeatedly. He thinks that an interpretation of data using one theoretical framework can be used as evidence contradicting another theoretical framework. He did this a bunch in the discussion about the BOI model of the human mind, and in the discussion about PUA/AWALT. we tried to explain his error many times, but he did not get it, nor did he ask about it, nor did he criticize it.

curi:

think he'll learn about and fix the error from his MA + the peer review process?

GISTE:

well those things are not focussed on finding and fixing mistakes, so i'd guess no.

GISTE:

if he did learn about and fix that error, it would be despite his MA + peer review process, not because of it.

curi:

https://curi.us/2278-second-handedness-examples#15054

curi:

there was something else he said about other ppl telling him to join or msging him about his participation here but i didn't find it when searching

curi:

https://curi.us/2279-red-pill-comments#15055

curi:

OT C R dared claim familiarity with red pill and PUA while not knowing what a neg is, or AWALT, or a bunch of other standard terms

curi:

similar to how he didn't finish either of DD's books but initially presented himself as a knowledgeable fan

curi:

he has really low standards for knowing about something

curi:

shit test? mystery method? AFC? no? what have you heard of? no answer.

JustinCEO:

think he'll learn about and fix the error from his MA + the peer review process?

Peer review in fields like Philosophy is currently more about signaling a certain sort of conformity in language and method than it is about error correction

JustinCEO:

And also

JustinCEO:

There's political stuff like eg:

Metaphysics, traditionally a highly abstract and impractical area of inquiry, is the area of philosophy that has had perhaps the most high-profile political scuffles in the past few years. This is because there are significant political overtones to questions about the nature of race and ethnicity, or the nature of sex and gender. The Hypatia affair, which I wrote about for this magazine two years ago, crystallized many of the dynamics surrounding these issues. My contention is not that questions about race/ethnicity and sex/gender are improper for philosophical inquiry, but that philosophical inquiry is threatened by the political fervor that surrounds these questions. In the debates between gender-critical feminists and their detractors (who call them “Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists”), for instance, it is often taken as a given that the political demands of feminism should determine our views on the metaphysics of sex and gender; at issue is which version of feminism is given pride of place.

JustinCEO:

https://quillette.com/2019/07/26/the-role-of-politics-in-academic-philosophy/

curi:

sex, gender, race and ethnicity are not metaphysical issues

curi:

philosophers so confused

curi:

1:58 PM] Critical Rationalist: I agree. I haven't responded to that yet, just like you have not responded to the auxiliary hypothesis question. Note again the difference between "not responding" and "refusing to respond".

curi:

2:05 PM] Critical Rationalist: I await a response to my above messages.
[2:07 PM] curi: https://elliottemple.com/debate-policy

curi:

hen it is pointed out that everyone (including him) sometimes fails to address things, he ignores it. For example, this is the fourth time I have prompted you to answer this question: "do you know what an auxiliary hypothesis is?"

curi:

i did answer right there

curi:

not the first time he confused 1) not liking my answer 2) me not answering

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (9)

Can Social Dynamics Explain Conjunction Fallacy Experimental Results?

I posted this on Less Wrong too.

Is there any conjunction fallacy research which addresses the alternative hypothesis that the observed results are mainly due to social dynamics?

Most people spend most of their time thinking in terms of gaining or losing social status, not in terms of reason. They care more about their place in social status hierarchies than about logic. They have strategies for dealing with communication that have more to do with getting along with people than with getting questions technically right. They look for the social meaning in communications. E.g. people normally try to give – and expect to receive – useful, relevant, reasonable info that is safe to make socially normal assumptions about.

Suppose you knew Linda in college. A decade later, you run into another college friend, John, who still knows Linda. You ask what she’s up to. John says Linda is a bank teller, doesn’t give additional info, and changes the subject. You take this to mean that there isn’t more positive info. You and John both see activism positively and know that activism was one of the main ways Linda stood out. This conversation suggests to you that she stopped doing activism. Omitting info isn’t neutral in real world conversations. People mentally model the people they speak with and consider why the person said and omitted things.

In Bayesian terms, you got two pieces of info from John’s statement. Roughly: 1) Linda is a bank teller. 2) John thinks that Linda being a bank teller is key info to provide and chose not to provide other info. That second piece of info can affect people’s answers in psychology research.

So, is there any research which rules out social dynamics explanations for conjunction fallacy experimental results?

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (6)

Asch Conformity Could Explain the Conjunction Fallacy

I also posted this on Less Wrong.

This post follows my question Can Social Dynamics Explain Conjunction Fallacy Experimental Results? The results of the question were that no one provided any research contradicting the social dynamics hypothesis.

There is research on social dynamics. Asch’s conformity experiments indicate that wanting to fit in with a group is a very powerful factor that affects how people answer simple, factual questions like “Which of these lines is longer?” People will knowingly give wrong answers for social reasons. (Unknowingly giving wrong answers, e.g. carelessly, is easier.)

Conformity and other social dynamics can explain the conjunction fallacy experimental data. This post will focus on conformity, the dynamic studied in the Asch experiments.

This post assumes you’re already familiar with the basics of both the Asch and Conjunction Fallacy research. You can use the links if you need reminders.

First I’ll talk about whether conformity applies in the Conjunction Fallacy research setting, then I’ll talk about how conformity could cause the observed results.

Conformity in Groups

The Asch Conformity Experiments have people publicly share answers in a group setting. This was designed to elicit conformist behavior. Should we also expect conformist behavior in a different setting like the Conjunction Fallacy experiments setting? I suspect the different setting is a major reason people don’t connect the Asch and Conjunction Fallacy results.

I haven’t seen specific details of the Conjunction Fallacy research settings (in the text I read, details weren’t given) but I think basically people were given questionnaires to fill out, or something close enough to that. The setting is a bit like taking a test at school or submitting homework to a teacher. Roughly: Someone (who is not a trusted friend) will look over and judge your answers in some manner. In some cases, people were interviewed afterwards about their answers and asked to explain themselves.

Is there an incentive to conformity in this kind of situation? Yes. Even if there was no peer-to-peer interaction (not a safe assumption IMO), it’s possible to annoy the authorities. (Even if there were no real danger, how would people know that? They’d still have a reasonable concern.)

What could you do to elicit a negative reaction from the researchers? You could take the meta position that your answers won’t impact your life and choose the first option on every question. Effort expended on figuring out good answers to stuff should relate to its impact on your life, right? This approach would save time but the researchers might throw out your data, refuse to pay you, ask to speak with you, tell your professors about your (alleged) misbehavior (even if you didn’t violate any written rule or explicit request), or similar. You are supposed to abide by unwritten, unstated social rules when answering conjunction fallacy related questions. I think this is plenty to trigger conformity behaviors. It’s (like most of life) a situation where most people will try to get along with others and act in a way that is acceptable to others.

Most people don’t even need conformity behavior triggers. Their conformity is so automatic and habitual that it’s just how they deal with life. They are the blue pill normies, who aren’t very literal minded, and try to interpret everything in terms of its consequences for social status hierarchies. They don’t think like scientists.

What about the red pill autists who can read things literally, isolate scenarios from cultural context, think like a scientist or rationalist, and so on? Most of them try to imitate normies most of the time to avoid trouble. They try to fit in because they’ve been punished repeatedly for nonconformity.

(Note: Most people are some sort of hybrid. There’s a spectrum, not two distinct groups.)

When attending school people learn not to take questions (like those posed by the conjunction fallacy research) hyper literally. That’s punished. Test and homework questions are routinely ambiguous or flawed. What happens if you notice and complain? Generally you confuse and annoy your teacher. You can get away with noticing a few times, but if you complain about many questions on everything you’re just going to be hated and punished. (If people doubt this, we could analyze some public test questions and I can point out ambiguities and flaws.)

If you’re the kind of person who would start doing math when you aren’t in math class, you’ve gotten negative reactions in the past for your nonconformity. Normal people broadly dislike and avoid math. Saying “Hmm, I think we could use math to get a better answer to this.” is a discouraged attitude in our culture.

The Conjunction Fallacy research doesn’t say “We’re trying to test your math skills. Please do your best to use math correctly.” Even if it did, people routinely give misleading information about how literal/logical/mathematical they want things. You can get in trouble for using too much math, too advanced math, too complicated math, etc., even after being asked to use math. You can very easily get in trouble for being too literal after being asked to be literal, precise and rigorous.

So people see the questions and know that they generally aren’t supposed to sweat the details when answering questions, and they know that trying to apply math to stuff is weird, and most of them would need a large incentive to attempt math anyway, and the more rationalist types often don’t want to ruin the psychology study by overthinking it and acting weird.

I conclude that standard social behavior would apply in the Conjunction Fallacy research setting, including conformity behaviors like giving careless, non-mathematical answers, especially when stakes are low.

How Does Conformity Cause Bad Math?

Given that people are doing conformity behavior when answering Conjunction Fallacy research questions, what results should we expect?

People will avoid math, avoid being hyper literal, avoid being pedantic, not look very closely at the question wording, make normal contextual assumptions, and broadly give the same sorta answers they would if their buddy asked them a similar question in a group setting. Most people avoid developing those skills (literalism, math, ambiguity detection, consciously controlling the context that statements are evaluated in, etc.) in the first place, and people with those skills commonly suppress them, at least in social situations if not throughout life.

People will, as usual, broadly avoid the kinds of behaviors that annoy parents, teachers or childhood peers. They won’t try to be exact or worry about details like making probability math add up correctly. They’ll try to guess what people want from them and what other people will like, so they can fit in. They’ll try to take things in a “reasonable” (socially normal) way which uses a bunch of standard background assumptions and cultural defaults. That can mean e.g. viewing “Linda is a bank teller” as information a person chose to tell you, not as more like an out-of-context factoid chosen randomly by a computer, as I proposed previously.

Conformity routinely requires making a bunch of socially normal assumptions about how to read things, how to interpret instructions, how to take questions, etc. This includes test questions and similar, and most people (past early childhood) have past experiences with this. So many people won’t take conjunction fallacy questions literally.

People like the college students used in the research have taken dozens of ambiguous tests and had to figure out how to deal with it. Either they make socially normal assumptions (contrary to literalism and logic) without realizing they’re doing anything, or they noticed a bunch of errors and ambiguities but figured out a way to cope with tests anyway (or a mix like only noticing a few of the problems).

Conclusions

Conformity isn’t a straight error or bias. It’s strategic. It has upsides. There are incentives to do it and continue doing it (as well as major costs to transitioning to a different strategy).

If this analysis is correct, then the takeaway from the Conjunction Fallacy shouldn’t be along the lines of “People are bad at thinking.” It should instead be more like “People operate in an environment with complex and counter-intuitive incentives, including social dynamics.”

Social status hierarchies and the related social behaviors and social rules are one of the most important features of the world we live in. We should be looking to understand them better and apply our social knowledge more widely. It’s causally connected to many things, especially when there are interactions between people like interpretations of communications and requests from others, as is present in Conjunction Fallacy research.

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (3)

The Law of Least Effort Contributes to the Conjunction Fallacy

Continuing the theme that the “Conjunction Fallacy” experimental results can be explained by social dynamics, let’s look at another social dynamic: the Law of Least Effort (LoLE).

(Previously: Can Social Dynamics Explain Conjunction Fallacy Experimental Results? and Asch Conformity Could Explain the Conjunction Fallacy.)

The Law of Least Effort says:

the person who appears to put the least amount of effort out, while getting the largest amount of effort returned to him by others, comes across as the most socially powerful.

In other words, it’s higher status to be chased than to chase others. In terms of status, you want others to come to you, rather than going to them. Be less reactive than others.

Visible effort is a dominant issue even when it’s easy to infer effort behind the scenes. Women don’t lose status for having publicly visible hair and makeup which we can infer took two hours to do. You’re not socially permitted to call them out on that pseudo-hidden effort. Similarly, people often want to do learning and practice privately, and then appear good at stuff in front of their friends. Even if you can infer that someone practiced a bunch in private, it’s often socially difficult to point that out. Hidden effort is even more effective when people can’t guess that it happened or when it happened in the past (particularly childhood).

To consider whether LoLE contributes to the Conjunction Fallacy experimental results, we’ll consider three issues:

Is LoLE actually part of the social dynamics of our culture?
If so, would LoLE be active in most people while in the setting of Conjunction Fallacy research?
If so, how would LoLE affect people’s behavior and answers?

Is LoLE Correct Today?

LoLE comes from a community where many thousands of people have put a large effort into testing out and debating ideas. It was developed to explain and understand real world observations (mostly made by men in dating settings across many cultures), and it’s stood up to criticism so far in a competitive environment where many other ideas were proposed and the majority of proposals were rejected.

AFAIK LoLE hasn’t been tested in a controlled, blinded scientific setting. I think academia has ignored it without explanation so far, perhaps because it’s associated with groups/subcultures that are currently being deplatformed and cancelled.

Like many other social dynamics, LoLE is complicated. There are exceptions, e.g. a scientist or CEO may be seen positively for working hard. You’re sometimes socially allowed to put effort into things you’re “passionate” about or otherwise believed to want to work hard on. But the broad presumption in our society is that people dislike most effort and avoid it when they can. Putting in effort generally shows weakness – failure to avoid it.

And like other social dynamics, while the prevalence is high, not everyone prioritizes social status all the time. Also, people often make mistakes and act in low social status ways.

Although social dynamics are subtle and nuanced, they aren’t arbitrary or random. It’s possible to observe them, understand them, organize that understanding into general patterns, and critically debate it.

Is there a rival theory to LoLE? What else would explain the same observations in a different way and reject LoLE? I don’t know of something like that. I guess the main alternative is a blue pill perspective which heavily downplays the existence or importance of social hierarchies (or makes evidence-ignoring claims about them in order to virtue signal) – but that doesn’t make much sense in a society that’s well aware of the existence and prevalence of social climbing, popularity contests, cliques, ingroups and outgroups, etc.

Would LoLE Be Active For Conjunction Fallacy Research?

People form habits related to high status behaviors. For many, lots of social behavior and thinking is intuitive and automatic before high school.

People don’t turn off social status considerations without a significant reason or trigger. The Conjunction Fallacy experiments don’t provide participants with adequate motivation to change or pause their very ingrained social-status-related habits.

Even with a major reason and trigger, like Coronavirus, we can observe that most people still mostly stick to their socially normal habits. If people won’t context switch for a pandemic, we shouldn’t expect it for basically answering some survey questions.

It takes a huge effort and established culture to get scientists to be less social while doing science. And even with that, my considered opinion is that over 50% of working scientists don’t really get and use the scientific, rationalist mindset. That’s one of the major contributors to the replication crisis.

How Would LoLE Affect Answers?

Math and statistics are seen as high effort. They’re the kinds of things people habitually avoid due to LoLE as well as other social reasons (e.g. they’re nerdy). So people often intuitively avoid that sort of thinking even if they could do it.

Even many mathematicians or statisticians learn to turn that mindset off when they aren’t working because it causes them social problems.

LoLE encourages people to try to look casual, chill, low effort, even a little careless – the opposite of tryhard. The experimental results of Conjunction Fallacy research fit these themes. Rather than revealing a bias regarding how people are bad at logic, the results may simply reveal that social behavior isn’t very logical. Behaving socially is a different thing than being biased. It’s not just an error. It’s a prioritization of social hierarchy issues over objective reality issues. People do this on purpose and I don’t think we’ll be able to understand or address the issues without recognizing the incentives and purposefulness involved.

View this post on Less Wrong.

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (3)

Social Dynamics Summary Notes

These are some summary notes on social dynamics.

conformity
- try to fit in
- pandering
- pleasing people
- avoiding conflict
- do whatever the group thinks is high status
  - follow trends
- you need to already have friends. people are impressed by people who other people already like (pre-selection).
- have standard interests like the right TV shows, music, movies and sports. talk about those. don’t say weird stuff.
  - you’re allowed to have interests people think they should have. lots of people think they should be more into art galleries and operas. you can talk about that stuff to people who don’t actually like it but pretend they want to. they’ll be impressed you actually do that stuff which seems a bit inaccessible but valuable to them.
law of least effort
- being chased, not chasing
- people come to you
- opposite of tryhard
- less reactive
  - don’t get defensive or threatened (important for confidence too)
  - hold frame without showing visible effort
  - but also don’t let people get away with attacking you
- when you attack people, it should seem like the conflict isn’t your fault, was just a minor aside, no big deal to you, preferably you weren’t even trying to attack them
- people do what you say
- you don’t have to do what other people say
- you generally aren’t supposed to care that much about stuff. instead, be kinda chill about life
  - if you get ahead while appearing this way, it looks like success comes naturally to you. that impresses people. (it should not look like you got lucky)
confidence
- hide weakness
- pretend to be strong
- know what you’re doing, having a strong frame, have goals
- be able to lead
- best to already be leader of your social group, or at least high up like second in command
value
- DHVs (demonstrations of higher value, e.g. mentioning high value things in passing while telling a story)
- money, popularity, fame, social media followers, loyal friends, skills, knowledge, SMV (sexual market value, e.g. looks)
- abundance mentality
- well spoken, know other languages, can play an instrument or sing, cultured, can cook, etc.
- virtues like being moral and enlightened are important. these are group specific. some groups value environmentalism, being woke, anti-racist signaling, inclusive attitudes towards various out groups and low status people (poor people, immigrants, disabled, homeless, drug addicts), etc. other groups value e.g. patriotism, toughness, guns, Christianity and limited promiscuity.
trend setting
- this is hard and uncommon but possible somehow
- mostly only available for very high status people (~top status in a small group can work; it doesn’t have to be overall societal status)
non-verbal communications
- clothes send social signals
- voice tones
- eye contact
- body language
- posture
- leaning in or having people lean to you
congruence
- do not ever get caught faking social stuff; that looks really bad
compliance
- getting compliance from other people, while expending low effort to get it, it socially great.
  - it can especially impress the person you get compliance from, even more than the audience
plausible deniability
- there are often things (communications, actions) that a group understands but won’t admit that they understand the meaning of
- there are ways to insult someone but, if called on it, deny you were attacking them, and most people will accept your denial
- there are subtle, tricky rules about what is considered a covert attack that you’re allowed to deny (or e.g. a covert way to ask someone on a date, which you’re allowed to deny was actually asking them out if they say no) and what is an overt attack so denials would just make you look ridiculous.
- social combat heavily uses deniable attacks. deniability is also great for risky requests
- you’re broadly allowed to lie, even if most people know you’re lying, as long as it isn’t too obvious or blatant, so it’s considered deniable
- basically social dynamics have their own rules of evidence about what is publicly, socially known or established. and these rules do not match logic or common analytical skill. so what people know and what is socially proven are different. sometimes it goes the other way too (something is considered socially proven even though people don’t know whether or not it’s true).
  - many social climbing techniques use the mismatch between what is socially known to the group and what is actually known to individuals. it lets you communicate stuff so that people understand you but, as far as the social group is concerned, you never said it.

Overall, high status comes from appearing to fit in effortlessly, while wanting to not being pushed into it, and not having social problems, weaknesses or conflicts. You can also gain status from having something valuable, e.g. money, looks, fame, followers or access to someone famous. Besides extreme cases, you still need to do pretty well at social skill even when you have value. Value is an advantage but if you act low status that can matter more than the value. If you have a billion dollars or you’re a movie star, you can get away with a ton and people will still chase you, but if you just have a million dollars or you’re really hot, then you can’t get away with so much.

Desired attitude: You have your own life going on, which you’re happy with. You’re doing your thing. Other people can join you, or not. It isn’t that big a deal for you either way. You don’t need them. You have value to offer, not to suck up to them, but because your life has abundance and has room for more people. You already have some people and aren’t a loaner. You only would consider doing stuff with this new person because they showed value X – you are picky but saw something good about them, but you wouldn’t be interested in just anyone. (Elicit some value from people and mention it so it seems like you’re looking for people with value to offer. You can do this for show, or you can do it for real if you have abundance. Lots of high status stuff is acting like what people think a person with a great life would do, whether you have that or not. Fake it until you make it!)

People socially attack each other. In this sparring, people gain and lose social status. Insults and direct attacks are less common because they’re too tryhard/reactive/chasing. It’s better to barely notice people you don’t like, be a bit dismissive and condescending (without being rude until after they’re overtly rude first, and even then if you can handle it politely while making them look bad that’s often better).

If you sit by a wall and lean back, you look more locked in and stable, so it appears that people are coming to you. Then you speak just slightly too softly to get people to lean in to hear you better, and now it looks like they care what you say and they’re chasing you.

These notes are incomplete. The responses I’d most value are some brainstorming about other social dynamics or pointing out data points (observed social behaviors) which aren’t explained by the above. Alternatively if anyone knows of a better starting point which already covers most of the above, please share it.

View on Less Wrong.

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (11)

Discussion with gigahurt from Less Wrong

Discussion with gigahurt started here. He wrote (quoting me):

Disagreements can be resolved!

I see your motivation for writing this up as fundamentally a good one. Ideally, every conversation would end in mutual understanding and closure, if not full agreement.

At the same time, people tend to resent attempts at control, particularly around speech. I think part of living in a free and open society is not attempting to control the way people interact too much.

I hypothesize the best we can do is try and emulate what we see as the ideal behavior and shrug it off when other people don't meet our standards. I try to spend my energy on being a better conversation partner (not to say I accomplish this), instead of trying to make other people better at conversation. If you do the same, and your theory of what people want from a conversation partner accurately models the world, you will have no shortage of people to have engaging discussions with and test your ideas. You will be granted the clarity and closure you seek.

By 'what people want' I don't mean being only super agreeable or flattering. I mean interacting with tact, brevity, respect, receptivity to feedback, attention and other qualities people value. You need to appeal to the other person's interest. Some qualities essential to discussion, like disagreeing, will make certain folks back off, even if you do it in the kindest way possible, but I don't think that's something that can be changed by policy or any other external action. I think it's something they need to solve on their own.

Then I asked if he wanted to try to resolve one of our disagreements by discussion and he said yes. I proposed a topic related to what he'd written: what people want from a discussion partner and what sort of discussion partners are in shortage. I think our models of that are significantly different.

Post with gigahurt discussion tree and YouTube video playlist:

http://curi.us/2368-gigahurt-discussion-videos

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (89)

Social Dynamics Discussion Highlights

This post contains highlights from my discussion at The Law of Least Effort Contributes to the Conjunction Fallacy on Less Wrong. The highlights are all about social dynamics.

I view LoLE [Law of Least Effort] as related to some other concepts such as reactivity and chasing. Chasing others (like seeking their attention) is low status, and reacting to others (more than they're reacting to you) is low status. Chasing and reacting are both types of effort. They don't strike me as privacy related. However, for LoLE only the appearance of effort counts (Chase's version), so to some approximation that means public effort, so you could connect it to privacy that way.

I think basically some effort isn't counted as effort. If you like doing it, it's not real work. Plus if it's hidden effort, it usually can't be entered into evidence in the court of public opinion, so it doesn't count. But my current understanding is that if 1) it counts as effort/work; and 2) you're socially allowed to bring it up then it lowers status. I see privacy as an important thing helping control (2) but effort itself, under those two conditions, as the thing seen as undesirable, bad, something you're presumed to try to avoid (so it's evidence of failure or lack of power, resources, helpers, etc), etc.

Maybe another important thing is how your work is.... oriented. I mean, are you doing X to impress someone specific (which would signal lower status), or are you doing X to impress people in general but each of them individually is unimportant? A woman doing her make-up, a man in the gym, a professor recording their lesson... is okay if they do it for the "world in general"; but if you learned they are actually doing all this work to impress one specific person, that would kinda devalue it. This is also related to optionality: is the professor required to make the video? is the make-up required for the woman's job?

…

You can also orient your work to a group, e.g. a subculture. As long as its a large enough group, this rounds to orienting to the world in general.

…

I think orienting to a single person can be OK if 1) it's reciprocated; and 2) they are high enough status. E.g. if I started making YouTube videos exclusively to impress Kanye West, that's bad if he ignores me, but looks good for me if he responds regularly (that'd put me as clearly lower status than him, but still high in society overall). Note that more realistically my videos would also oriented to Kanye fans, not just Kanye personally, and that's a large enough group for it to be OK.

Do the PUAs really have a good model of an average human, or just a good model of a drunk woman who came to a nightclub wanting to get laid?

PUAs have evidence of efficacy. The best is hidden camera footage. The best footage that I’m aware of, in terms of confidence the girls aren’t actors, is Mystery’s VH1 show and the Cajun on Keys to the VIP. I believe RSD doesn’t use actors either and they have a lot of footage. I know some others have been caught faking footage.

My trusted friend bootcamped with Mystery and provided me with eyewitness accounts similar to various video footage. My friend also learned and used PUA successfully, experienced it working for him in varied situations … and avoids talking about PUA in public. He also observed other high profile PUAs in action IRL.

Some PUAs do daygame and other venues, not just nightclubs/parties. They have found the same general social principles apply, but adjustments are needed like lower energy approaches. Mystery, who learned nightclub style PUA initially, taught daygame on at least one episode of his TV show and his students quickly had some success.

PUAs have also demonstrated they’re effective at dealing with males. They can approach mixed-gender sets and befriend or tool the males. They’ve also shown effectiveness at befriending females who aren’t their target. Also standard PUA training advice is to approach 100 people on the street and talk with them. Learning how to have smalltalk conversations with anyone helps people be better PUAs, and also people who get good at PUA become more successful at those street conversations than they used to be.

I think these PUA Field Reports are mostly real stories, not lies. Narrator bias/misunderstandings and minor exaggerations are common. I think they’re overall more reliable than posts on r/relationships or r/AmITheAsshole, which I think also do provide useful evidence about what the world is like.

There are also notable points of convergence, e.g. Feynman told a story ("You Just Ask Them?” in Surely You’re Joking) in which he got some PUA type advice and found it immediately effective (after his previous failures), both in a bar setting and later with a “nice” girl in another setting.

everyone lives in a bubble

I generally agree but I also think there are some major areas of overlap between different subcultures. I think some principles apply pretty broadly, e.g. LoLE applies in the business world, in academia, in high school popularity contests, and for macho posturing like in the Top Gun movie. My beliefs about this use lots of evidence from varied sources (you can observe people doing social dynamics ~everywhere) but also do use significant interpretation and analysis of that evidence. There are also patterns in the conclusions I’ve observed other people reach and how e.g. their conclusion re PUA correlates with my opinion on whether they are a high quality thinker (which I judged on other topics first). I know someone with different philosophical views could reach different conclusions from the same data set. My basic answer to that is that I study rationality, I write about my ideas, and I’m publicly open to debate. If anyone knows a better method for getting accurate beliefs please tell me. I would also be happy pay for useful critical feedback if I knew any good way to arrange it.

Business is a good source of separate evidence about social dynamics because there are a bunch of books and other materials about the social dynamics of negotiating raises, hiring interviews, promotions, office politics, leadership, managing others, being a boss, sales, marketing, advertising, changing organizations from the bottom-up (passing on ideas to your boss, boss’s boss and even the CEO), etc. I’ve read a fair amount of that stuff but it’s not my main field (which is epistemology/rationality).

There are also non-PUA/MGTOW/etc relationship books with major convergence with PUA, e.g. The Passion Paradox (which has apparently been renamed The Passion Trap). I understand that to be a mainstream book:

About the Author
Dr. Dean C. Delis is a clinical psychologist, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine, and a staff psychologist at the San Diego V.A. Medical Center. He has more than 100 professional publications and has served on the editorial boards of several scientific journals. He is a diplomate of the American Board of Professional Psychology and American Board of Clinical Neuropsychology.

The main idea of the book is similar to LoLE. Quoting my notes from 2005 (I think this is before I was familiar with PUA): “The main idea of the passion paradox is that the person who wants the relationship less is in control and secure, and therefore cares about the relationship less, while the one who wants it more is more needy and insecure. And that being in these roles can make people act worse, thus reinforcing the problems.”. I was not convinced by this at the time and also wrote: “I think passion paradox dynamics could happen sometimes, but that they need not, and that trying to analyse all relationships that way will often be misleading.” Now I have a much more AWALT view.

The entire community is selecting for people who have some kinds of problems with social interaction

I agree the PUA community is self-selected to mostly be non-naturals, especially the instructors, though there are a few exceptions. In other words, they do tend to attract nerdy types who have to explicitly learn about social rules.

Sometimes I even wonder whether I overestimate how much the grass is greener on the other side.

My considered opinion is that it’s not, and that blue pillers are broadly unhappy (to be fair, so are red pillers). I don’t think being good at social dynamics (via study or “naturally” (aka via early childhood study)) makes people happy. I think doing social dynamics effectively clashes with rationality and being less rational has all sorts of downstream negative consequences. (Some social dynamics is OK to do, I’m not advocating zero, but I think it’s pretty limited.)

I don’t think high status correlates well with happiness. Both for ultra high status like celebs, which causes various problems, and also for high status that doesn’t get you so much public attention.

I think rationality correlates with happiness better. I would expect to be wrong about that if I was wrong about which self-identified rational people are not actually rational (I try to spot fakers and bad thinking).

I think the people with the best chance to be happy are content and secure with their social status. In other words, they aren’t actively trying to climb higher socially and they don’t have to put much effort into maintaining their current social status. The point is that they aren’t putting much effort into social dynamics and focus most of their energy on other stuff.

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (0)

Analyzing Quotes Objectively and Socially

stucchio and Mason

stucchio retweeted Mason writing:

"Everything can be free if we fire the people who stop you from stealing stuff" is apparently considered an NPR-worthy political innovation now, rather than the kind of brain fart an undergrad might mumble as they come to from major dental work https://twitter.com/_natalieescobar/status/1299018604327907328

There’s no substantial objective-world content here. Basically “I disagree with whatever is the actual thing behind my straw man characterization”. There’s no topical argument. It’s ~all social posturing. It’s making assertions about who is dumb and who should be associated with what group (and, by implication, with the social status of that group). NPR-worthy, brain fart, undergrad, mumble and being groggy from strong drugs are all social-meaning-charged things to bring up. The overall point is to attack the social status of NPR by associating it with low status stuff. Generally smart people like stuchhio (who remains on the small list of people whose tweets I read – I actually have a pretty high opinion of of him) approve of that tribalist social-political messaging enough to retweet it.

Yudkowsky

Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote on Less Wrong (no link because, contrary to what he says, someone did make the page inaccessible. I have documentation though.):

Post removed from main and discussion on grounds that I've never seen anything voted down that far before. Page will still be accessible to those who know the address.

The context is my 2011 LW post “The Conjunction Fallacy Does Not Exist”.

In RAZ, Yudkowsky repeatedly brings up subculture affiliations he has. He read lots of sci fi. He read 1984. He read Feynman. He also refers to “traditional rationality” which Feynman is a leader of. (Yudkowsky presents several of his ideas as improvements on traditional rationality. I think some of them are good points.) Feynman gets particular emphasis. I think he got some of his fans via this sort of subculture membership signaling and by referencing stuff they like.

I bring this up because Feynman has a book title "What Do You Care What Other People Think?": Further Adventures of a Curious Character. This is the sequel to the better known "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!": Adventures of a Curious Character.

Yudkowsky evidently does care what people think and has provided no indication that he’s aware that he’s contradicting one of his heroes, Feynman. He certainly doesn’t provide counter arguments to Feynman.

Downvotes are communications about what people think. Downvotes indicate dislike. They are not arguments. They aren’t reasons it’s bad. They’re just opinions. They’re like conclusions or assertions. Yudkowsky openly presents himself as taking action because of what people think. It’s also basically just openly saying “I use power to suppress unpopular ideas”. Yudkowsky also gave no argument himself, nor did he endorse/cite/link any argument he agreed with about the topic.

Yudkowsky is actually reasonably insightful about social hierarchies elsewhere, btw. But this quote shows that, in some major way, he doesn’t understand rationality and social dynamics.

Replies to my “Chains, Bottlenecks and Optimization”

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Ze6PqJK2jnwnhcpnb/chains-bottlenecks-and-optimization

Dagon

I think I've given away over 20 copies of _The Goal_ by Goldratt, and recommended it to coworkers hundreds of times.

Objective meaning: I took the specified actions.

Social meaning: I like Goldratt. I’m aligned with him and his tribe. I have known about him for a long time and might merit early adopter credit. Your post didn’t teach me anything. Also, I’m a leader who takes initiative to influence my more sheep-like coworkers. I’m also rich enough to give away 20+ books.

Thanks for the chance to recommend it again - it's much more approachable than _Theory of Constraints_, and is more entertaining, while still conveying enough about his worldview to let you decide if you want the further precision and examples in his other books.

Objective meaning: I recommend The Goal.

Social meaning: I’m an expert judge of which Goldratt books to recommend to people, in what order, for what reasons. Although I’m so clever that I find The Goal a bit shallow, I think it’s good for other people who need to be kept entertained and it has enough serious content for them to get an introduction from. Then they can consider if they are up to the challenge of becoming wise like me, via further study, or not.

This is actually ridiculous. The Goal is the best known Goldratt book, it’s his best seller, it’s meant to be read first, and this is well known. Dagon is pretending to be providing expert judgment, but isn’t providing insight. And The Goal has tons of depth and content, and Dagon is slandering the book by condescending to it in this way. By bringing up Theory of Constraints, Dagon is signaling he reads and values less popular, less entertaining, less approachable non-novel Goldratt books.

It's important to recognize the limits of the chain metaphor - there is variance/uncertainty in the strength of a link (or capacity of a production step), and variance/uncertainty in alternate support for ideas (or alternate production paths).

Objective meaning (up to the dash): Goldratt’s chain idea, which is a major part of your post, is limited.

Social meaning (up to the dash): I’ve surpassed Goldratt and can look down on his stuff as limited. You’re a naive Goldratt newbie who is accepting whatever he says instead of going beyond Goldratt. Also calling chains a “metaphor” instead of “model” is a subtle attack to lower status. Metaphors aren’t heavyweight rationality (while models are, and it actually is a model). Also Dagon is implying that I failed to recognize limits that I should have recognized.

Objective meaning continued: There’s some sort of attempt at an argument here but it doesn’t actually make sense. Saying there is variance in two places is not a limitation of the chain model.

Social meaning continued: saying a bunch of overly wordy stuff that looks technical is bluffing and pretending he’s arguing seriously. Most people won’t know the difference.

Most real-world situations are more of a mesh or a circuit than a linear chain, and the analysis of bottlenecks and risks is a fun multidimensional calculation of forces applies and propagated through multiple links.

Objective meaning: Chains are wrong in most real world situations because those situations are meshes or circuits [both terms undefined]. No details are given about how he knows what’s common in real world situations. And he’s contradicting Goldratt who actually did argue his case and know math. (I also know more than enough math so far and Dagon never continued with enough substance to potentially strain either of our math skills sets).

Social meaning: I have fun doing multidimensional calculations. I’m better than you. If you knew math so well that it’s a fun game to you, maybe you could keep up with me. But if you could do that, you wouldn’t have written the post you wrote.

It’s screwy how Dagon presents himself as a Goldratt superfan expert and then immediately attacks Goldratt’s ideas.

Note: Dagon stopped replying without explanation shortly after this, even though he’d said how super interested in Goldratt stuff he is.

Donald Hobson

I think that ideas can have a bottleneck effect, but that isn't the only effect. Some ideas have disjunctive justifications.

Objective meaning: bottlenecks come up sometimes but not always. [No arguments about how often they come up, how important they are, etc.]

Social meaning: You neglected disjunctions and didn’t see the whole picture. I often run into people who don’t know fancy concepts like “disjunction”.

Note: Disjunction just means “or” and isn’t something that Goldratt or I had failed to consider.

Hobson then follows up with some math, socially implying that the problem is I’m not technical enough and if only I knew some math I’d have reached different conclusions. He postures about how clever he is and brings up resistors and science as brags.

I responded, including with math, and then Hobson did not respond.

TAG

What does that even mean?

Objective meaning: I don’t understand what you wrote.

Social meaning: You’re not making sense.

He did give more info about what his question was after this. But he led with this, on purpose. The “even” is a social attack – that word isn’t there to help with any objective meaning. It’s there to socially communicate that I’m surprisingly incoherent. It’d be a subtle social attack even without the “even”. He didn’t respond when I answered his question.

abramdemski

There is another case which your argument neglects, which can make weakest-link reasoning highly inaccurate, and which is less of a special case than a tie in link-strength.

Objective meaning: The argument in the OP is incomplete.

Social meaning: You missed something huge, which is not a special case, so your reasoning is highly inaccurate.

The way you are reasoning about systems of interconnected ideas is conjunctive: every individual thing needs to be true.

Objective meaning: Chain links have an “and” relationship.

Social meaning: You lack a basic understanding of the stuff you just said, so I’ll have to start really basic to try to educate you.

But some things are disjunctive: some one thing needs to be true.

Objective meaning: “or” exists. [no statement yet about how this is relevant]

Social meaning: You’re wrong because you’re an ignorant novice.

(Of course there are even more exotic logical connectives, such as implication or XOR, which are also used in everyday reasoning. But for now it will do to consider only conjunction and disjunction.)

Objective meaning: Other logic operators exist [no statement yet about how this is relevant].

Social meaning: I know about this like XOR, but you’re a beginner who doesn’t. I’ll let you save face a little by calling it “exotic”, but actually, in the eyes of everyone knowledgeable here, I’m insulting you by suggesting that for you XOR is exotic.

Note: He’s wrong, I know what XOR is (let alone OR). So did Goldratt. XOR is actually easy for me, and I’ve used it a lot and done much more advanced things too. He assumed I didn’t in order to socially attack me. He didn’t have adequate evidence to reach the conclusion that he reached; but by reaching it and speaking condescendingly, he implied that there was adequate evidence to judge me as an ignorant fool.

Perhaps the excess accuracy in probability theory makes it more powerful than necessary to do its job? Perhaps this helps it deal with variance? Perhaps it helps the idea apply for other jobs than the one it was meant for?

Objective meaning: Bringing up possibilities he thinks are worth considering.

Social meaning: Flaming me with some rather thin plausible deniability.

I skipped the middle of his post btw, which had other bad stuff.

johnswentworth

I really like what this post is trying to do. The idea is a valuable one. But this explanation could use some work - not just because inferential distances are large, but because the presentation itself is too abstract to clearly communicate the intended point. In particular, I'd strongly recommend walking through at least 2-3 concrete examples of bottlenecks in ideas.

This is an apparently friendly reply but he was lying. I wrote examples but he wouldn’t speak again.

There are hints in this text that he actually dislikes me and is being condescending, and that the praise in the first two sentences is fake. You can see some condescension in the post, e.g. in how he sets himself up like a mentor telling me what to do (and note the unnecessary “strongly” before “recommend”. And how does he know the idea is valuable when it’s not clearly communicated? And his denial re inferential distance is actually both unreasonable and aggressive. The “too abstract” and “could use some work” are also social attacks, and the “at least 2-3” is a social attack (it means do a lot) with a confused objective meaning (if you’re saying do >= X, why specify X as a range? you only need one number.)

The objective world meaning is roughly that he’s helping with some presentation and communication issues and wants a discussion of the great ideas. But it turns out, as we see from his following behavior, that wasn’t true. (Probably. Maybe he didn’t follow up for some other reason like he died of COVID. Well not that because you can check his posting history and see he’s still posting in other topics. But maybe he has Alzheimer’s and he forgot, and he knows that’s a risk so he keeps notes about stuff he wants to follow up on, but he had an iCloud syncing error and the note got deleted without him realizing it. There are other stories that I don’t have enough information to rule out, but I do have broad societal information about them being uncommon, and there are patterns across the behavior of many people.)

MakoYass

I posted in comments on different Less Wrong thread:

curi:

Are you interested in extended discussion about this, with a goal of reaching some conclusions about CR/LW differences, or do you know anyone who is?

MakoYass:

I am evidently interested in discussing it, but I am probably not the best person for it.

Objective meaning: I am interested. My answer to your question is “yes”. I have agreed to try to have a discussion, if you want to. However, be warned that I’m not very good at this.

Social meaning: The answer to your question is “no”. I won’t discuss with you. However, I’m not OK with being declared uninterested in this topic. I love this topic. How dare you even question my interest when you have evidence (“evidently”) that I am interested, which consists of me having posted about it. I’d have been dumb to post about something I’m not interested in, and you were an asshole to suggest I might be dumb like that.

Actual result: I replied in a friendly, accessible way attempting to begin a conversation, but he did not respond.

Concluding Thoughts

Conversations don’t go well when a substantial portion of what people say has a hostile (or even just significantly different) social (double) meaning.

It’s much worse when the social meaning is the primary thing people are talking about, as in all the LW replies I got above. It’s hard to get discussions where the objective meanings are more emphasized than the social ones. And all the replies I quoted re my Chains and Bottlenecks post were top level replies to my impersonal article. I hadn’t said anything to personally offend any of those people, but they all responded with social nastiness. (Those were all the top level replies. There were no decent ones.) Also it was my first post back after 3 years, so this wasn’t carrying over from prior discussion (afaik – possibly some of them were around years ago and remembered me. I know some people do remember me but they mentioned it. Actually TAG said later, elsewhere, to someone else, that he knew about me from being on unspecified Critical Rationalist forums in the past).

Even if you’re aware of social meanings, there are important objective meanings which are quite hard to say without getting offensive social meaning. This comes up with talking about errors people make, especially ones that reveal significant weaknesses in their knowledge. Talking objectively about methodology errors and what to do about them can also be highly offensive socially. Also objective, argued judgments of how good things are can be socially offensive, even if correct (actually it’s often worse if it’s correct and high quality – the harder to plausibly argue back, the worse it can be for the guy who’s wrong).

The main point was to give examples of how the same sentence can be read with an objective and a social meaning. This is what most discussions on rationalist forums where explicit knowledge of social status hierarchies is common look like to me. It comes up a fair amount on my own forums too (less often than at LW, but it’s a pretty big problem IMO).

Note: The examples in this post are not representative of the full spectrum of social behaviors. One of the many things missing is needy/chasing/reactive behavior where people signal their own low social status (low relative to the person they’re trying to please). Also, I could go into more detail on any particular example people want to discuss (this post isn’t meant as giving all the info/analysis, it’s a hybrid between some summary and some detail).

Update: Adding (on same day as original) a few things I forgot to say.

Audiences pick up on some of the social meanings (which ones, and how they see them, varies by person). They see you answer and not answer things. They think some should be answered and some are ignorable. They take some things as social answers that aren’t intended to be. They sometimes ignore literal/objective meanings of things. They judge. It affects audience reactions. And the perception of audience reactions affects what the actual participants do and say (including when they stop talking without explanation).

The people quoted could do less social meaning. They’re all amplifying the social. There’s some design there; it’s not an accident. It’s not that hard to be less social. But even if you try, it’s very hard to avoid any problematic social meanings, especially when you consider that different audience members will read stuff differently, according to different background knowledge, different assumptions about context, different misreadings and skipped words, etc.

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (14)

Social Dialog with Analysis

Communications and actions have two main interpretations: social and objective.

Objective interpretations look at the literal meaning. They use rational and scientific analysis. They try to avoid logical errors. They aim to account for all the evidence and contradict none. They don’t judge the truth of ideas by the attributes of the person who thought of or communicated the idea.

Social interpretations consider the speaker or actor in relation to other people. What is he trying to do to or get from others? How does the action/communication affect the status of the actor and others? Is someone being needy or reactive? Is someone showing weakness? Is someone socially attacking someone else? Is someone becoming more or less connected with something high or low status (e.g. tribe allegiance signals).

Social interpretations are allowed to focus on some evidence and ignore or contradict other evidence. They can be illogical and unscientific. Some evidence is impolite to use or mention. Some conclusions are jumped to on a basis like “since the social meaning of that action/communication is so strong and obvious, you must have done it intentionally and chosen that social meaning on purpose, no matter what you say about a misunderstanding or that you were focusing on an objective goal.”

Example (try to read hyper literally, and look at this really logically, in order to understand Sue’s perspective):

Joe: I don’t understand what you said.
Sue: What are you planning to do about that?
Joe: I just asked you to explain.
Sue: You didn’t make a request or ask a question.
Joe: I just did. wtf!

Joe is focused on the social world while Sue is in objective, logical mode. Joe expects that, when he speaks, Sue will guess what he wants from her and why he said it. Joe takes this for granted so much that he doesn’t notice the difference between him asking for something explicitly or via hints – he uses hints and thinks he asked. Sue thinks Joe’s statements provide information and that it isn’t her job to read Joe’s mind. Mind reading always runs into a bunch of ambiguity that’s hard to make guesses about, and the whole point of a conversation is for people to communicate their ideas themselves.

The conversation can easily get worse. Let’s continue it:

Sue: Quote?
Joe: “I don’t understand what you said.”

This is actually somewhat unrealistic. People like Joe often won’t quote at all or will misquote. Often they ambiguously explain which message like “the statement we’re talking about” or “the message that starts with ‘I’”. Sometimes they say that asking for quotes is unreasonable or unnecessary, or they stop replying. But let’s not get distracted by those problems.

Sue: Is that an imperative or interrogative sentence?
Joe: No.
Sue: What are the verb and grammatical subject?
Joe: “do understand” and “I”.

These are atypically accurate and patient grammar answers by Joe. Things could have gotten a lot worse here. They’re atypical because they’re objective-mode answers, not social-mode answers.

The social-mode meaning of “Is that an imperative or interrogative sentence?” is that Sue is acting like a teacher and putting Joe in an inferior student role. Sue asks the questions and Joe has the role of being questioned. Sue can initiate things of her choice and Joe has to react to Sue’s whims. She’s pushing this kind of framing on the situation. So typically someone like Joe will avoid answering the question in order to deny and push back against that framing. He’ll try to get Sue answering his questions or otherwise establish social power over her. He’ll avoid compliance on purpose. He might say something especially sophisticated to try to prove how grown up he is. He’ll think Sue is calling him dumb by asking him a fairly basic grammar question about the sort of thing he was supposed to have learned in school over 10 years ago.

Sue: So isn’t it a declarative statement about yourself?
Joe: You knew what I meant.

This doesn’t answer Sue’s question. It’s also asking for mind reading. It’s the sort of thing that only works with similar people. It’s a reasonable guess about most people from Joe’s subculture (they knew what he wanted and are being difficult on purpose), though there’s evidence throughout that Sue has a pretty different perspective on the world than Joe and genuinely found it problematic to assume instead of relying on communication. Joe’s attitude makes conversation very hard with people very different from himself. It’s bad at engaging with other frameworks or points of view.

Asking multiple questions in a row amplifies the teacher/student dynamic. That increases the pressure on Joe to break out of it. Sue isn’t thinking about the social meaning of what she says, so she doesn’t control it, but Joe keeps looking for it and reacting to it. If Sue were to consider the social meaning of each of her statements before saying it, she’d find it much harder to converse. Like if asking clarifying questions is socially aggressive (both in a “you answer to me” sense and a “you were unclear” accusation sense), what should she do to fix it? You can’t just skip clarifying questions in general. And how many are needed is out of her control. Sue can try to minimize the number of clarifying questions Joe needs to ask her, but it’s up to Joe to minimize how many Sue needs to ask him.

Sue: I thought I did. I thought you were providing information about the state of your understanding.
Joe: I was asking for help.
Sue: But that isn’t what your words mean. Why don’t you use standard English to say what you mean?

Joe feels highly insulted. But from an objective perspective, it’s a reasonable thing to be wondering and talking about. Joe literally says X and then acts like he’d communicated Y. Why not just say what he means?

Joe: Why don’t you just put two and two together?

Joe doesn’t ask the question, asks a counter-question that’s socially insulting to Sue (it implies she’s being dumber than like a 4 year old who can’t add 2+2 correctly)

Sue: There are dozens of reasonable ways to proceed given the information you provided. That’s why I asked which one you were planning.

Even with such an insulting question that wasn’t meant to be answered, Sue still takes it at face value and tries to explain the answer.

Joe: Why won’t you just tell me what you meant?
Sue: You haven’t asked me to.

Again Sue immediately answers Joe’s question. She’s responsive and still operating with good will. She doesn’t care about who is reacting to who and how it looks for social power. And Joe’s tilted (since Sue’s first or second message in the example dialog) but Sue isn’t.

Joe: I just did.
Sue: When?
Joe: Right now. I just asked.
Sue: Quote?
Joe: “Why won’t you just tell me what you meant?”
Sue: I answered that question.

This is similar to how the dialog started. Things haven’t been sorted out. Even though Sue explained her perspective earlier, Joe still isn’t taking it into account and adjusting his communications and expectations. Sue, meanwhile, doesn’t know what to change to make things work better. She knows she’s logically right. She thinks Joe ought to try discussing in a way that isn’t logically wrong and that it’s easier to have conversations which build on that foundation. If Joe doesn’t have the skill to do that, he should try to learn it and ask for help instead of trying to have a conversation he’s incapable of handling productively.

Joe: After all this, I can’t get any answers out of you. Goodbye forever.

Objectively, Sue did answer all of Joe’s questions and was responsive to all direct, explicit requests. But Sue kept ignoring the social world meanings of both Joe’s and her own words.

In the social world, direct requests are often too pushy. People often phrase statements as questions to weaken them (“That is a dog?” which is expressing some uncertainty and making it easier for the person to disagree or confirm) and questions as statements (“I wonder if that’s a dog.” which is asking if the other person thinks it’s a dog).

Sue: I don’t understand why people come to discussion forums when they clearly don’t have a basic grasp of English and logic, and they also aren’t aiming to learn those things. What they’re doing will never work.
Joe: wtf! Leave me alone.
Sue: I did. I didn’t expect you to return. I’m just post morteming my discussion and hoping someone else may have insight. This has nothing to do with you.
Joe: You’re flaming me and attacking my reputation.
Sue: I’m just analyzing public evidence. If I made an error you can point it out. I’m not trying to flame; I’m aiming for accuracy. If you don’t want people to think about what you say, don’t post it. If you want to look good when analyzed, improve your skill level. Now leave me in peace. I’ve got several more thoughts to post.
Joe: You have no right! I didn’t sign up to be treated this way!
Sue: People thinking about and discussing things you said is exactly what you signed up for when you posted them.
Joe: [Leaves and holds a long-lasting grudge.]
Sue: When he said “You knew what I meant.” I was tolerant, lenient and generous by letting him change topics in the middle of my grammar point. Right as I was getting to a conclusion he ignored my question, seemingly because he knew he was about to lose the debate. I wasn’t rewarded for being so helpful. He didn’t reciprocate with good will towards me. Maybe I would have been better off repeating my question until he answered it, or pointing out that he wasn’t answering.
Sue: I don’t understand how, after a long conversation about how he hadn’t made a particular request, he still didn’t get it enough to realize he still hadn’t actually made that request. Which new statement did he think constituted a request to explain something to him?
Sue: Does anyone understand why most people are like this? I have such good will but it never seems to be enough. On my initiative, I asked about his plans, thinking perhaps to help with them. My reward was that he derailed the conversation. And as usual he doesn’t want to discuss what went wrong. He did begin the process of clearing up misunderstandings, but he was creating new misunderstandings faster than we could resolve stuff. Why won’t people just calm down and use English in a simple, correct way? Why do they rush through conversations and make huge messes and then give up?
Sue: What is life like for such a person? Do none of his conversations work? What happens when two Joes talk? Is it pure chaos or does it seem to work, somehow? Maybe if they both say and want sufficiently stereotyped things they can stay on the same page with almost no communication, merely by assuming stereotypes.
Sue: Why is no one else talking? Is this a dead forum? Does no one here care about trying to understand how to have rational conversations with typical people? Don’t you guys run into problems like these and want to figure out what to do about them? Or are you all similar to Joe and hiding it with your silence?
Joe: [Reads all this and intensifies his grudge.]

It could easily go worse than this more quickly. But I wanted to draw it out a bit and show the ongoing perspective clashes.

The other people on the forum are more attuned to the social world than Sue.

Sue doesn’t think that attuning to the social world more herself will actually result in intellectual progress on topics like science, epistemology, AGI, etc. People need to think objectively to contribute to those topics anyway.

Routinely, people’s social status is inaccurate in some way. Then the truth threatens the status. What could Sue do when talking to people who need to admit weakness and try to learn some stuff but who prefer to dishonestly pretend to be better than they are and who don’t want Sue to speak the truth? What’s to be done with such people besides detecting and ignoring them (and maybe criticizing them if they’re public figures)?

Lots of people try to debate sorta like Sue but they aren’t actually very good at logic themselves. Joe has experience with that. He’s dealt with people who are mostly focused on social, and screw up logic, but they do some Sue stuff as an act. He assumes Sue is like that too. He doesn’t actually have the skill to judge whether Sue got anything wrong or not. But Joe thinks he does. So what happens is Joe will misunderstand something, think Sue made a mistake, and conclude that Sue isn’t as logical as she thinks she is. From Joe’s pov, Sue seems to be about as good at logic as Joe or worse – because whenever she uses superior skill there’s a good chance that Joe doesn’t get it, and when Joe doesn’t get it there’s a good chance that he attributes the error to Sue. (These things are not a matter of random chance. But if you look at many similar events, you’ll find sometimes it goes one way and sometimes the other. And it’s too hard to analyze the detailed causality.)

Most real discussions have a lot of intentional social by both parties. This is a stylized example that turns up the contrast between characters. Actually what sort of social counts as “intentional” is a tricky question. Most of it is automated in childhood. Most social by adults is done without conscious intention at the time they do it. So “I wasn’t trying to social you” is no defense – in the past you learned how to do that kind of social to people and practiced it until it was second nature. You’re responsible for that! This explains part of why people have trouble turning it off. And it explains why people assume that most social is intentional in the sense of there was an intent in the past when the person learned to do it. They aren’t doing it now randomly or accidentally. The main excuse is “autism” which is the most standard term for a person who didn’t learn, practice and automate a bunch of social dynamics (or somehow managed to stop and change), so then they might actually honestly not be playing the social game.

This is all complicated by the social rules of evidence. Lots of social dynamics are deniable even when everyone knows they were done on purpose. You did them right and people approve, so you’re allowed to get away with them rather than be called out for the social manipulations (if the call out is sufficiently socially savvy it can often work, but just a blunt, direct logic-focused callout doesn’t work). So it’s common that everyone knows social happened and it wasn’t an accident, but everyone pretends not to know.

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (23)

Social Maneuvering

People prefer giving orders to taking them. They prefer granting permission (or not) to having to ask permission. They prefer questioning others over being questioned. They prefer more pressure on others to answer to them, and less pressure on themselves to answer to others.

People try to figure out how to achieve these things. This begins in early childhood when they discover that their parents have social (and physical) power over them. Then they have to answer to their teachers, to babysitters, to the parents at a friend’s house they’re visiting, to adult relatives, and more.

They find at the peer level that some people get what they want more, are listened to more, are respected more, and so on. Doing better with peers is realistically achievable in the short term.

They find they look weak when they’re insecure, needy, unconfident, reactive, seeking approval from others, acting like a follower not a leader, etc. They learn how to act to get others to put in more effort than they do, to have people come to them, to get approval while looking like you aren’t trying to get approval, to hide their effort, to make comments highlighting others’ weaknesses without being considered an aggressor, to recognize and follow trends a little on the early side. They learn to hide weakness and ignorance. They learn to be dishonest. Some things are not even really considered dishonest, socially, they’re just normal. But they aren’t how a scientist thinks. A scientist volunteers relevant info in pursuit of truth instead of looking for opportunities to withhold unfavorable info. And in short, doing anything less than an idealized scientist would is dishonest to some extent.

People discover there are both formal and informal social power structures. Being a teacher, parent or boss is a formal position. It’s an explicit label. The leader of a group of friends is an informal position. There’s no contract or clear rules. It can just change as opinions change.

Sometimes formal and informal social power have a mismatch. A general may not have the respect of the soldiers he gives orders to. A boss may struggle to get his subordinates to listen to him – formally he’s in charge but informally people don’t see him that way.

Mismatches aren’t terribly common. People whose informal social power is significantly below their formal position often get replaced. More often, people don’t get positions in the first place if they don’t have an appropriate informal social status. Mismatches are often caused by giving out positions due to favoritism instead of merit, e.g. getting a position for one’s child who didn’t (socially) earn it (and often didn’t earn it on objective world merit, like knowledge and skill, either). Sometimes mismatches develop over time – things started out OK but a person lost respect or got undermined or something over time. Status can be unstable. People often get promotions to positions they’re expected to probably be able to handle, but there’s no guarantee and it doesn’t always work out.

However, mismatches are extremely common when no one cares what the subordinates think or want. If the subordinates are there voluntarily – e.g. customers or people who could get a different job or transfer to a different division in the company – it puts pressure against mismatches. However, when the subordinates are children, prison inmates, involuntary psychiatry patients, or the elderly in an old folks home, then the people in power may be hated by their subordinates and stay in power anyway. This is also a big problem with the government and its citizens – there is some accountability but generally not enough.

Anyway, people learn how to behave so they do well in terms of informal social status. There are incentives and benefits there, and it’s also one of the main things that leads to gaining and keeping formal social status.

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (2)

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