8 ms·

Intellectual Denial of Service Attacks, Part 2

72 points by beepp 8y ago

jancsika 8y ago
> Because of an epidemic of suicides and mental health issues, the government should provide unlimited free candy to every citizen, to make everyone happier. I just noticed there are actually full performances on Youtube of Erik Satie's Vexations-- a piece written in the 1890s in which the player is asked to repeat a dissonant chorale theme 860 times. That is a common, effective, and ethical rhetorical tactic people use every day in conversation. It's common because people aren't automatons who must respond to every potential point of debate. It's effective because it forces the would-be debater to reveal information. Either they roll with the subject change and reveal their utterance as light novelty and disarm, or they attempt to switch the conversation back to their novelty, revealing themselves as a zealot (in this case). It's ethical because if anyone in the group wants to participate in that zealotry they can continue on the original topic. But everyone else has an easy out through the non-sequitur. And it works just as well if the initial utterance was a truth told to an ignorant crowd. Those who want to know more can break off without the entire group being forced to become students. Finally, if the interlocutor misjudged the situation, the non-sequitur is ignored and the conversation continues unabated. In all cases DOS is avoided. If a medium doesn't support this tactic you might want to question the efficacy of the medium.
- soneca 8y ago
  Sorry, I didn't understand your comment. Do you care explaining it a little bit more? "That is a common, effective, and ethical rhetorical tactic people use every day in conversation." What is a common, effective, rhetorical tactic? Repeating something dissonant forever? I do not follow
- jnicholasp 8y ago
  I think you forgot to write what should have been paragraph three of your comment, but from context I'm guessing that your proposed effective, ethical response to repeated nonsense is just to change the subject and see who goes with you on the new track?
chicob 8y ago
It feels great when I read something that, somehow, I always believed but could not exactly articulate. I know people that believe that, most of the time, the best way to respond to unreasonable or irrational petitions is to do it by means of answering the actual points made, even if completely unwarranted and time consuming. For instance, claims of some random paranormal effect should be put to the test with proper scientific investigation, like that would satisfy the claimant and not take us in a never-ending endeavour... Sometimes, the best way to answer the problem is to make use of well tested heuristics that, instead of going into the specific details, just make the elephant in room more evident: some problems are simply not well put, or some answers miss the point (e.g. the paranormal claim is pseudo-scientific therefore will never accept a negative result, whichever it may be; to feed the troll will not satiate the troll, etc).
- malms 8y ago
  Mm you should spend some time with in a flatearther fb group. Thats when i learnt the true sentence "dont wrestle with pigs, you get dirty and the pig likes it" ><
  - tomhoward 8y ago
    Isn’t the Flat Earth movement a 4chan troll?
    - malms 8y ago
      If only ^^. Look at the fb groups and all the videos on yt
      - tomhoward 8y ago
        I pay no attention this stuff so it's all unfamiliar to me, hence my curiosity I guess... But how do you know that the people you're interacting with on FB aren't trolls having a joke at your expense? I get that there are some people who take it seriously, but I'm not sure it'd be easy to tell the difference between a believer and a troll in an online forum.
PaulHoule 8y ago
I have a funny feeling that this guy is going to push an agenda, particularly with his "free candy" example. The trouble with the "the revolt of the masses" theme is that institutions are failing us, experts are frequently wrong, and if you want to see fake experts turn on cable news and there you are... Cokie Roberts is always warning democrats to turn the right or otherwise we'll have to have somebody like Pinochet purge the left (she won't tell you her husband was a foreign agent for the Pinochet regime.) All b.s. All the time was not invented by Facebook, look at how the rush Limbaugh show was reality free before the web was invented.
- atoav 8y ago
  Experts are frequently wrong, because they are frequently either not experts at all, misrepresented or haven’t learned not to make wild guesses on the media. The media doesn’t care about anything, they want a face who can act as an expert of the matter at hand, they don’t care if the expert has real expertise — they care if the expert can say something experty that simple minds understand. Everbody who has seen known experts in a field on TV knows that they will tell you afterwards that of that long interview session they just had to take the two sentences were you made the mistake of speculation. A mistake that stops many real experts from speculating on TV or stops them totally from ever doing TV stuff at all. Of course you will always find real experts who enjoy it to have their voice heard and their face seen, and they will abandon all ideals to get their egos massaged — these will be kept on fast-dial by TV producers.
- beepp 8y ago
  I certainly agree that experts of various calibers and professions are frequently wrong. However, if I have an agenda, I haven't figured out what it is yet ;)
nilskidoo 8y ago
As an alternative to a bad map or no map, sometimes alternative solutions get shot down over pure arrogance, as with Musk's clear jealousy of that swim team guy who saved the kids from the cave. Musk wanted to be the hero, that mattered to him more than actually saving anybody, and so he went out of his way to critique and defame. Instead of appreciating the job well done and lives saved, he inserted himself into the situation. Jealousy can be a powerful motive all by itself, and is too often weaponized. Also, I wonder where the dividing line between epistemic humility and thinking outside of boxes rests. I mean, is it purely circumstantial, or dependent upon personality traits?
conjectures 8y ago
There's definitely space for more thinking about epistemic security issues.
j_m_b 8y ago
"The map is not the territory" is an idea originating from Alfred Korzybski. He isn't even mentioned in this article.
- beepp 8y ago
  I have edited my post to rectify this. Thank you for the suggestion.
JTbane 8y ago
>Experts wielding their jargon and credentials as devices to shut up non-experts, even if non-experts have credible critiques and ideas to offer I don't know if I can agree with this: a layperson might make some ridiculous claim about vaccines causing autism, and a medical doctor absolutely has the right to dismiss them based on credentials.
- beepp 8y ago
  At this point, there is no _credible_ evidence I'm aware of that suggests vaccines cause autism. Hence, a doctor dismissing those claims is reasonable and expected. There is no claim here that non-experts necessarily have the same credibility as experts. My statement was more in reference to e.g. the use by some experts of esoteric and potentially inaccurate models to silence critique by overwhelming non-experts with jargon. "I spent years developing this model, what do you know?"
  - mistermann 8y ago
    > At this point, there is no _credible_ evidence I'm aware of that suggests vaccines cause autism. This is true, but is the data upon which the statistics "proving" no causative relationship at all between vaccines and autism completely comprehensive and absolutely correct? I wonder how many people who consider themselves educated on the matter of vaccines have bothered to actually do any significant reading on the subject. > Hence, a doctor dismissing those claims is reasonable and expected. Reasonable and expected sure, but objectively correct is another thing. Similarly, asserting that vaccines do cause autism is a very different thing than simply asking for evidence that they do not, ever, and wanting to know specific details on the source/methodology behind the evidence. Related, hat tip to lp2019 in the thread for part 1 of this essay: https://taibbi.substack.com/p/introduction-the-fairway https://taibbi.substack.com/p/introduction-the-fairway
    - beepp 8y ago
      I do not consider myself educated on the matter of vaccines and am ill-equipped to defend any position on either side :) To your point, proving a negative such as "vaccines definitively do NOT cause autism, ever" with 100% certainty is nontrivial. I simply haven't seen any compelling evidence that they are causally linked to autism, which is usually the claim.

72 points by beepp 8y ago

> Because of an epidemic of suicides and mental health issues, the government should provide unlimited free candy to every citizen, to make everyone happier. I just noticed there are actually full performances on Youtube of Erik Satie's Vexations-- a piece written in the 1890s in which the player is asked to repeat a dissonant chorale theme 860 times. That is a common, effective, and ethical rhetorical tactic people use every day in conversation. It's common because people aren't automatons who must respond to every potential point of debate. It's effective because it forces the would-be debater to reveal information. Either they roll with the subject change and reveal their utterance as light novelty and disarm, or they attempt to switch the conversation back to their novelty, revealing themselves as a zealot (in this case). It's ethical because if anyone in the group wants to participate in that zealotry they can continue on the original topic. But everyone else has an easy out through the non-sequitur. And it works just as well if the initial utterance was a truth told to an ignorant crowd. Those who want to know more can break off without the entire group being forced to become students. Finally, if the interlocutor misjudged the situation, the non-sequitur is ignored and the conversation continues unabated. In all cases DOS is avoided. If a medium doesn't support this tactic you might want to question the efficacy of the medium.

soneca 8y ago
Sorry, I didn't understand your comment. Do you care explaining it a little bit more? "That is a common, effective, and ethical rhetorical tactic people use every day in conversation." What is a common, effective, rhetorical tactic? Repeating something dissonant forever? I do not follow
jnicholasp 8y ago
I think you forgot to write what should have been paragraph three of your comment, but from context I'm guessing that your proposed effective, ethical response to repeated nonsense is just to change the subject and see who goes with you on the new track?

chicob 8y ago

It feels great when I read something that, somehow, I always believed but could not exactly articulate. I know people that believe that, most of the time, the best way to respond to unreasonable or irrational petitions is to do it by means of answering the actual points made, even if completely unwarranted and time consuming. For instance, claims of some random paranormal effect should be put to the test with proper scientific investigation, like that would satisfy the claimant and not take us in a never-ending endeavour... Sometimes, the best way to answer the problem is to make use of well tested heuristics that, instead of going into the specific details, just make the elephant in room more evident: some problems are simply not well put, or some answers miss the point (e.g. the paranormal claim is pseudo-scientific therefore will never accept a negative result, whichever it may be; to feed the troll will not satiate the troll, etc).

malms 8y ago
Mm you should spend some time with in a flatearther fb group. Thats when i learnt the true sentence "dont wrestle with pigs, you get dirty and the pig likes it" ><
- tomhoward 8y ago
  Isn’t the Flat Earth movement a 4chan troll?
  - malms 8y ago
    If only ^^. Look at the fb groups and all the videos on yt
    - tomhoward 8y ago
      I pay no attention this stuff so it's all unfamiliar to me, hence my curiosity I guess... But how do you know that the people you're interacting with on FB aren't trolls having a joke at your expense? I get that there are some people who take it seriously, but I'm not sure it'd be easy to tell the difference between a believer and a troll in an online forum.

PaulHoule 8y ago

I have a funny feeling that this guy is going to push an agenda, particularly with his "free candy" example. The trouble with the "the revolt of the masses" theme is that institutions are failing us, experts are frequently wrong, and if you want to see fake experts turn on cable news and there you are... Cokie Roberts is always warning democrats to turn the right or otherwise we'll have to have somebody like Pinochet purge the left (she won't tell you her husband was a foreign agent for the Pinochet regime.) All b.s. All the time was not invented by Facebook, look at how the rush Limbaugh show was reality free before the web was invented.

atoav 8y ago
Experts are frequently wrong, because they are frequently either not experts at all, misrepresented or haven’t learned not to make wild guesses on the media. The media doesn’t care about anything, they want a face who can act as an expert of the matter at hand, they don’t care if the expert has real expertise — they care if the expert can say something experty that simple minds understand. Everbody who has seen known experts in a field on TV knows that they will tell you afterwards that of that long interview session they just had to take the two sentences were you made the mistake of speculation. A mistake that stops many real experts from speculating on TV or stops them totally from ever doing TV stuff at all. Of course you will always find real experts who enjoy it to have their voice heard and their face seen, and they will abandon all ideals to get their egos massaged — these will be kept on fast-dial by TV producers.
beepp 8y ago
I certainly agree that experts of various calibers and professions are frequently wrong. However, if I have an agenda, I haven't figured out what it is yet ;)

nilskidoo 8y ago

As an alternative to a bad map or no map, sometimes alternative solutions get shot down over pure arrogance, as with Musk's clear jealousy of that swim team guy who saved the kids from the cave. Musk wanted to be the hero, that mattered to him more than actually saving anybody, and so he went out of his way to critique and defame. Instead of appreciating the job well done and lives saved, he inserted himself into the situation. Jealousy can be a powerful motive all by itself, and is too often weaponized. Also, I wonder where the dividing line between epistemic humility and thinking outside of boxes rests. I mean, is it purely circumstantial, or dependent upon personality traits?

conjectures 8y ago

There's definitely space for more thinking about epistemic security issues.

j_m_b 8y ago

"The map is not the territory" is an idea originating from Alfred Korzybski. He isn't even mentioned in this article.

beepp 8y ago
I have edited my post to rectify this. Thank you for the suggestion.

JTbane 8y ago

>Experts wielding their jargon and credentials as devices to shut up non-experts, even if non-experts have credible critiques and ideas to offer I don't know if I can agree with this: a layperson might make some ridiculous claim about vaccines causing autism, and a medical doctor absolutely has the right to dismiss them based on credentials.

beepp 8y ago
At this point, there is no _credible_ evidence I'm aware of that suggests vaccines cause autism. Hence, a doctor dismissing those claims is reasonable and expected. There is no claim here that non-experts necessarily have the same credibility as experts. My statement was more in reference to e.g. the use by some experts of esoteric and potentially inaccurate models to silence critique by overwhelming non-experts with jargon. "I spent years developing this model, what do you know?"
- mistermann 8y ago
  > At this point, there is no _credible_ evidence I'm aware of that suggests vaccines cause autism. This is true, but is the data upon which the statistics "proving" no causative relationship at all between vaccines and autism completely comprehensive and absolutely correct? I wonder how many people who consider themselves educated on the matter of vaccines have bothered to actually do any significant reading on the subject. > Hence, a doctor dismissing those claims is reasonable and expected. Reasonable and expected sure, but objectively correct is another thing. Similarly, asserting that vaccines do cause autism is a very different thing than simply asking for evidence that they do not, ever, and wanting to know specific details on the source/methodology behind the evidence. Related, hat tip to lp2019 in the thread for part 1 of this essay: https://taibbi.substack.com/p/introduction-the-fairway https://taibbi.substack.com/p/introduction-the-fairway
  - beepp 8y ago
    I do not consider myself educated on the matter of vaccines and am ill-equipped to defend any position on either side :) To your point, proving a negative such as "vaccines definitively do NOT cause autism, ever" with 100% certainty is nontrivial. I simply haven't seen any compelling evidence that they are causally linked to autism, which is usually the claim.