7 ms·

I think the worst kind of intellectual DOS attacks are those with high compression rate. Those that sound vaguely plausible at first ("Just do away with ALL the

by b0rsuk 8y ago

I think the worst kind of intellectual DOS attacks are those with high compression rate. Those that sound vaguely plausible at first ("Just do away with ALL the taxes, people will sort it out and enterprise will skyrocket") but require many more words to refute. When the politician in question is also a fast talker, and has a master's degree in Philosophy, he can appear to be smarter because no one can keep up with him and it's by definition impossible to refute all compressed arguments in the same amount of time. A Polish politician I have in mind goes by initials JKM. My point: an intelligent, educated person can cross over to the dark side and it makes it all the way worse. Some people praise Dan Brown for his intelligence. So what, he doesn't write books for intelligent people. In the past, centralized media kinda kept those guys in check because it had higher respect for formal education. The "compressed argument" still worked very well for populists in space-constrained media like TV debates (time) and print (word limit). Now, the Pandora's box is open. To succeed in social media, you don't need to construct good arguments. Some charisma and a way with words will go a looong way. Ordinary people no longer seem to respect education, logic and wisdom. This is a problem because no one can be an expert at everything. In the end, we trust some people. What if a lot of people put trust not into expertise and experience, but into charismatic, cheeky figures? What if they prefer appeals to nationality, bloodline (son of a heroic activist)? Is there a strategy that works against populism and isn't intellectually dishonest?

raverbashing 8y ago
And even worse, "traditional media" is going downhill and promoting those same cheap arguments
leereeves 8y ago
Why should people respect formal education? Even in many "scientific" fields, standards are so low that most published research is wrong. The non-scientific parts of academia are dominated by in-group politics and shallow status seeking. And in much of academia, evidence is less important than ideology: research and researchers are banned not because they are wrong, but because their ideas are unacceptable. If academia wants respect, it should work on improving itself instead of trying to find a "strategy that works against populism". Edit: Citations > Why Most Published Research Findings Are False https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124 https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/jo... > Scientists Replicated 100 Psychology Studies, and Fewer Than Half Got the Same Results https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/scientists-replicated-100-psychology-studies-and-fewer-half-got-same-results-180956426/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/scientists-rep... > 1,500 scientists lift the lid on reproducibility https://www.nature.com/news/1-500-scientists-lift-the-lid-on-reproducibility-1.19970 https://www.nature.com/news/1-500-scientists-lift-the-lid-on... > Four studies found that the proportion of professors in the humanities who are Republicans ranges between 6 and 11 percent, and in the social sciences between 7 and 9 percent. > Conservatives can be spotted in the sciences and in economics, but they are virtually an endangered species in fields like anthropology, sociology, history and literature. One study found that only 2 percent of English professors are Republicans (although a large share are independents). https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/opinion/sunday/a-confession-of-liberal-intolerance.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/opinion/sunday/a-confessi... > In decisions ranging from paper reviews to hiring, many social and personality psychologists said that they would discriminate against openly conservative colleagues. The more liberal respondents were, the more they said they would discriminate. http://yoelinbar.net/papers/political_diversity.pdf http://yoelinbar.net/papers/political_diversity.pdf > When Inbar and Lammers contacted [social psychologists] ... they found that ... the climate in social psychology was harsh for conservative thinkers. ... Participants were asked about the environment in the field: How hostile did they think it was? Did they feel free to express their political ideas? As the degree of conservatism rose, so, too, did the hostility that people experienced. Conservatives really were significantly more afraid to speak out. > Over all, close to nineteen per cent [of social psychologists surveyed] reported that they would have a bias against a conservative-leaning paper...and thirty-seven and a half per cent, against choosing a conservative as a future colleague. https://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/social-psychology-biased-republicans https://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/social-psy...
- luc4sdreyer 8y ago
  You're making a lot of wild claims. >Even in many "scientific" fields, standards are so low that most published research is wrong. Citation needed. >And in much of academia, evidence is less important than ideology Citation needed. >research and researchers are banned not because they are wrong, but because their ideas are unacceptable. Citation needed. Maybe it has happened to a couple of people at a few screwed up universities, but you're implying this is common. EDIT: I predict you're going to use the exact methods described in the article to "win" the argument.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - titanix2 8y ago
    You can do your own research about that by yourself if you have a real interest in the topic. Anyway, here is a book about this issue in sociology (written by two researchers of the field): Gérald Bronner et Étienne Géhin (2017), Le Danger sociologique, Paris, Puf, 252 p.
    - ben_w 8y ago
      By “do your own research”, do you mean “repeat a statistically significant number of the various studies to find out how repeatable the results are”, or do you mean “read a book which convinced me”?
      - menckenjr 8y ago
        There's a third option - "do a meta-analysis of representative studies to determine true effect size".
        ben_w 8y ago
        I counted that as “repeat”, given that’s part of how this problem was first discovered. On reflection though, that only works when you know roughly how many negative results get published: part of the problem with unreproducable results is that negatives have been difficult to publish, biasing publications so that entirely competent and honest mistakes are much more common than one would expect from just the p-value.
jacquesm 8y ago
The best mental DOS attacks all center around the exact same thing: fear. Press the fear button and even generally well educated and intelligent people will start to act like complete morons.
- Erlich_Bachman 8y ago
  This doesn't really explain anything, does it? Fear is such a universal emotion that it can be present in any are of life, and more importantly not going anywhere any time soon. It can also be easily adjusted to any topic, because every topic can be viewed from the two perspectives - if something is good, we can strive towards it or be fearful of it's lack, and vice versa. The more important the topic, the more chances of being fearful about it.
  - jacquesm 8y ago
    Fear of the other has been one of the most powerful agents in terms of getting people to do things that they really should not (genocide, for one example). There is no flip side to that where fear of something else would counteract that. Many of those things that are influenced by a powerful emotion such as fear are like that, they only work one way or at best are very asymmetrical when you try to imagine the opposite. So it definitely explains something. Just look to history for some pretty good examples of the end results.
    - patrec 8y ago
      > There is no flip side to that where fear of something else would counteract that. This is so obviously untrue that I find it difficult to believe it would take you long to come up with counterexamples yourself if you tried.
      - jacquesm 8y ago
        I'm not seeing any counterexamples in your comment either.
richardhod 8y ago
The Gish Gallop is one named rhetorical tactic of this kind, which describes a subset of edgar you describe: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop
lp2019 8y ago
Some of the misunderstandings I see in this comment - 1. Winning a debate has something to do with political success. Not true. Connecting with people does. There are many ways (good and bad) to connect with people that have nothing to do with pandering to them. To get understand that deeper take a social psychology 101 course. 2. Centralized media produces better politicians/political debate. No it does not. Chomsky's classic "Manufacturing Constent" will give you a good model to think about the media. Or here's a modern iteration by Matt Taibbi - https://taibbi.substack.com/p/introduction-the-fairway https://taibbi.substack.com/p/introduction-the-fairway They will also show that winning a debate is not the point of the story. 3. Modern Populism created via social media/news media programmed to chase likes+views, and politicians pandering to their fan clubs is unbeatable and can't be intellectually honest. This is half true in the sense there is a modern dimension. Namely the Internet. Thanks to which Information(good and bad) is flowing at unprecedented and uncontrollable rates through the population. Everyone assumed this would be good thing but the last 10-15 years have shown the negative consequences. The good news is there are many lessons in how society handled such events in the past. History is full of these transition moments. They also show how populism was beaten or broke down. Decent coverage of the subject here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSacH_1BtVA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSacH_1BtVA
- jonnycomputer 8y ago
  Honestly, its hard to see this comment as actually addressing anything the OP your replied to said.

by b0rsuk 8y ago

raverbashing 8y ago

And even worse, "traditional media" is going downhill and promoting those same cheap arguments

leereeves 8y ago

Why should people respect formal education? Even in many "scientific" fields, standards are so low that most published research is wrong. The non-scientific parts of academia are dominated by in-group politics and shallow status seeking. And in much of academia, evidence is less important than ideology: research and researchers are banned not because they are wrong, but because their ideas are unacceptable. If academia wants respect, it should work on improving itself instead of trying to find a "strategy that works against populism". Edit: Citations > Why Most Published Research Findings Are False https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124 https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/jo... > Scientists Replicated 100 Psychology Studies, and Fewer Than Half Got the Same Results https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/scientists-replicated-100-psychology-studies-and-fewer-half-got-same-results-180956426/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/scientists-rep... > 1,500 scientists lift the lid on reproducibility https://www.nature.com/news/1-500-scientists-lift-the-lid-on-reproducibility-1.19970 https://www.nature.com/news/1-500-scientists-lift-the-lid-on... > Four studies found that the proportion of professors in the humanities who are Republicans ranges between 6 and 11 percent, and in the social sciences between 7 and 9 percent. > Conservatives can be spotted in the sciences and in economics, but they are virtually an endangered species in fields like anthropology, sociology, history and literature. One study found that only 2 percent of English professors are Republicans (although a large share are independents). https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/opinion/sunday/a-confession-of-liberal-intolerance.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/opinion/sunday/a-confessi... > In decisions ranging from paper reviews to hiring, many social and personality psychologists said that they would discriminate against openly conservative colleagues. The more liberal respondents were, the more they said they would discriminate. http://yoelinbar.net/papers/political_diversity.pdf http://yoelinbar.net/papers/political_diversity.pdf > When Inbar and Lammers contacted [social psychologists] ... they found that ... the climate in social psychology was harsh for conservative thinkers. ... Participants were asked about the environment in the field: How hostile did they think it was? Did they feel free to express their political ideas? As the degree of conservatism rose, so, too, did the hostility that people experienced. Conservatives really were significantly more afraid to speak out. > Over all, close to nineteen per cent [of social psychologists surveyed] reported that they would have a bias against a conservative-leaning paper...and thirty-seven and a half per cent, against choosing a conservative as a future colleague. https://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/social-psychology-biased-republicans https://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/social-psy...

luc4sdreyer 8y ago
You're making a lot of wild claims. >Even in many "scientific" fields, standards are so low that most published research is wrong. Citation needed. >And in much of academia, evidence is less important than ideology Citation needed. >research and researchers are banned not because they are wrong, but because their ideas are unacceptable. Citation needed. Maybe it has happened to a couple of people at a few screwed up universities, but you're implying this is common. EDIT: I predict you're going to use the exact methods described in the article to "win" the argument.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- titanix2 8y ago
  You can do your own research about that by yourself if you have a real interest in the topic. Anyway, here is a book about this issue in sociology (written by two researchers of the field): Gérald Bronner et Étienne Géhin (2017), Le Danger sociologique, Paris, Puf, 252 p.
  - ben_w 8y ago
    By “do your own research”, do you mean “repeat a statistically significant number of the various studies to find out how repeatable the results are”, or do you mean “read a book which convinced me”?
    - menckenjr 8y ago
      There's a third option - "do a meta-analysis of representative studies to determine true effect size".
      - ben_w 8y ago
        I counted that as “repeat”, given that’s part of how this problem was first discovered. On reflection though, that only works when you know roughly how many negative results get published: part of the problem with unreproducable results is that negatives have been difficult to publish, biasing publications so that entirely competent and honest mistakes are much more common than one would expect from just the p-value.

jacquesm 8y ago

The best mental DOS attacks all center around the exact same thing: fear. Press the fear button and even generally well educated and intelligent people will start to act like complete morons.

Erlich_Bachman 8y ago
This doesn't really explain anything, does it? Fear is such a universal emotion that it can be present in any are of life, and more importantly not going anywhere any time soon. It can also be easily adjusted to any topic, because every topic can be viewed from the two perspectives - if something is good, we can strive towards it or be fearful of it's lack, and vice versa. The more important the topic, the more chances of being fearful about it.
- jacquesm 8y ago
  Fear of the other has been one of the most powerful agents in terms of getting people to do things that they really should not (genocide, for one example). There is no flip side to that where fear of something else would counteract that. Many of those things that are influenced by a powerful emotion such as fear are like that, they only work one way or at best are very asymmetrical when you try to imagine the opposite. So it definitely explains something. Just look to history for some pretty good examples of the end results.
  - patrec 8y ago
    > There is no flip side to that where fear of something else would counteract that. This is so obviously untrue that I find it difficult to believe it would take you long to come up with counterexamples yourself if you tried.
    - jacquesm 8y ago
      I'm not seeing any counterexamples in your comment either.

richardhod 8y ago

The Gish Gallop is one named rhetorical tactic of this kind, which describes a subset of edgar you describe: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop

lp2019 8y ago

Some of the misunderstandings I see in this comment - 1. Winning a debate has something to do with political success. Not true. Connecting with people does. There are many ways (good and bad) to connect with people that have nothing to do with pandering to them. To get understand that deeper take a social psychology 101 course. 2. Centralized media produces better politicians/political debate. No it does not. Chomsky's classic "Manufacturing Constent" will give you a good model to think about the media. Or here's a modern iteration by Matt Taibbi - https://taibbi.substack.com/p/introduction-the-fairway https://taibbi.substack.com/p/introduction-the-fairway They will also show that winning a debate is not the point of the story. 3. Modern Populism created via social media/news media programmed to chase likes+views, and politicians pandering to their fan clubs is unbeatable and can't be intellectually honest. This is half true in the sense there is a modern dimension. Namely the Internet. Thanks to which Information(good and bad) is flowing at unprecedented and uncontrollable rates through the population. Everyone assumed this would be good thing but the last 10-15 years have shown the negative consequences. The good news is there are many lessons in how society handled such events in the past. History is full of these transition moments. They also show how populism was beaten or broke down. Decent coverage of the subject here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSacH_1BtVA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSacH_1BtVA

jonnycomputer 8y ago
Honestly, its hard to see this comment as actually addressing anything the OP your replied to said.