AllAmericanBreakfast's Shortform

DirectedEvolution

This is a special post for quick takes by DirectedEvolution. Only they can create top-level comments. Comments here also appear on the Quick Takes page and All Posts page.

Duncan deleted my comment on their interesting post, Obligated to Respond, which is their prerogative. Reposting here instead.

if a hundred people happen to glance at this exchange then ten or twenty or thirty of them will definitely, predictably care—will draw any of a number of close-to-hand conclusions, imbue the non-response with meaning

Plausible, but I am not confident in this conclusion as stated or in its implications given the rest of the post. I can easily imagine other people who are confident in the opposite conclusions. Let's inventory the layers of assumptions behind this post's central claim that ignoring an internet comment has very high negative stakes.

First, it depends on the idea that there's a default way that nonresponse is interpreted that you can't really control. But part of the effect of reputation/status is to influence how others perceive your actions, including your choice to respond or not respond. Perhaps it's possible to cultivate an image as a person who maintains their equilibrium and only engages with comments they find interesting.
Setting that side, people still have to read the comment, update on what it says, and also update on the fact that you haven't yet responded to it in order for the comment to have influence. "If a hundred people glance at this exchange" is a big if, and "10-30% of those who glance will care" is a huge assumption.
Not only do people have to notice you didn't respond, they have to interpret it as a mark against you, rather than as a positive sign (you didn't get sucked in to arguing with a dumb comment) or neutral (maybe you had other things to do, hadn't seen it yet, didn't feel like responding, etc). Just because people "care" doesn't mean they think ignoring the comment reflects poorly on you.
Not only does the comment have to directly negatively impact your reputation, the impact has to outweigh any positive side effects. What if someone else does the arguing for you, or the fact people are commenting at all gets you more positive attention, or you get a positive reputation as a person who's tolerant of criticism?

From your linked Facebook post:

The vast majority of people—well over half—seem truly crazy and dangerous to me. Like being-trapped-on-a-bus-with-a-gorilla kind of crazy and dangerous—it's probably going to be fine, especially if I stay very quiet and don't make any sudden moves, but my continued existence is basically at the whim of this insensible incomprehensible alien entity that cannot actually be predicted or reasoned with and is capable of dismembering me.

I would posit that if you mean this literally, this is a symptom of an extremely unusual and highly dysfunctional anxiety disorder that you may want to seek treatment for if you aren't already. I think that the advice in your posts needs to be interpreted in the context of being from a person who feels this way. You may want to reflect on how the untested assumptions you're making about how the world works, especially the social world, may be a product of your extreme anxiety.

2DirectedEvolution1y

You're entitled to your opinion as well as to exercise your mod powers as you see fit. I would note that Duncan remains the only individual to directly engage with the object-level content of the paragraph in question, beyond to comment on whether they approve or disapprove of it or to (accurately) characterize it as psychologizing. Duncan's clearly angry about it, and while I'm insensitive enough to have (re)posted the original, I'm not insensitive enough to try and draw them into further discussion on the matter since it appears that shutting off discussion is their preferred strategy in this situation. Questions I think are relevant to directly engaging the object-level content include: * When is psychologizing appropriate or inappropriate in general? * What makes it appropriate or inappropriate in this case? * Setting aside questions of appropriateness, which can include concerns about hurt feelings and community health, is the connection I was drawing between the Obligated to Respond post and the "800 pound gorilla" comment relevant, accurate, or illuminating? These are some of the questions I'm interested in discussing with respect to this topic.

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/XPv4sYrKnPzeJASuk/basics-of-rationalist-discourse-1#10__Hold_yourself_to_the_absolute_highest_standard_when_directly_modeling_or_assessing_others__internal_states__values__and_thought_processes_

Setting aside questions of appropriateness, which can include concerns about hurt feelings and community health, is the connection I was drawing between the Obligated to Respond post and the "800 pound gorilla" comment relevant, accurate, or illuminating?

No. The "if —> then" of the comment is valid, in that if your characteri... (read more)

12mesaoptimizer1y

I consider the banning of Said as a canary in the coal mine. I do not think it is worth the effort for people to call out non-alignment posts they consider confused, badly written, or just downright dumb. (Alignment posts are an exception, mainly because I see people like John Wentworth and Steven Byrnes write really good counter-argument comments, and there's little to no drama or pushback by the post authors when it comes to such highly technical posts.)

AllAmericanBreakfast's Shortform

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AllAmericanBreakfast's Shortform

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