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Meta-comment: Thank you. Online discussion would be much more productive if everyone clearly laid out the principles on which their viewpoint was based. Funda

Meta-comment: Thank you. Online discussion would be much more productive if everyone clearly laid out the principles on which their viewpoint was based. Fundamentally, there are only a few ways honest people can disagree: Different principles, different information, different interpretation, or just plain misunderstanding. (Meta-meta: This is the principle that I believe and based this comment on.) Much of what makes online (and offline) arguments so unproductive is confusion over where exactly people are disagreeing in the first place. There's no point in discussing whether someone did the right or wrong thing if you don't even agree on the principles by which that rightness or wrongness will be judged. If I disagree with one of your principles, we need the discussion to be at that level, or more likely, we simply must agree to disagree. If I think there's another principle you aren't considering, we can debate its relevance. If you're missing key information, I can provide it. If you're misinterpreting something, I can offer my alternate interpretation and justification for why I think it's better. In any case, if I disagree, it's clear how to proceed because your line of reasoning is clear. We can engage in a productive discussion without talking past each other. As it stands, I agree with you 100%, but more importantly, you have raised the bar for discussion on this contentious issue. Thank you again.

solipsism 7y ago
This is a bit Pollyanna. People aren't logic robots that start from first principles and then derive all knowledge from logical reasoning. People are emotional, irrational beings. Those of us who fancy ourselves rational are constantly involved in irrational motivated reasoning helping us maintain that desired worldview. Not to say we shouldn't try to live up to the ideal you set forth. We should do our best. But there's not some category of honest people among whom you can avoid human nature.
- elefantastisch 7y ago
  To the point of "honest people": I added "honest" in editing to distinguish from people who are just arguing because they like fighting and wouldn't agree if you told them 2 + 2 = 4. There are plenty of those online too, and their reasons for disagreeing clearly aren't covered by my "reasons people disagree" principle. But as I understood you, point taken. The distillation of principles, information, and interpretation into an opinion does not actually occur as idealized in my breakdown. I wouldn't disagree with that.
  - fragmede 7y ago
    More explictly: the hardest person to be honest with is yourself.
- Accujack 7y ago
  Hey, hey. Speak for yourself. ;-)
- iovrthoughtthis 7y ago
  I’m not so certain emotion and logic are so fundamentally separate you know. Perhaps logic is just our way of explaining our otherwise unexplainable decision making systems.
  - yazaddaruvala 7y ago
    My belief is that intuition and emotion are just complex sets of logic that we haven’t understood yet. Put in the time and focus, and one day it will just click.
    - lanstin 7y ago
      I think the emotions and really the whole operation of the mental states is reasonable, but not internally logical. They arise in predictable patterns from experiences and so on, but they can very easily override logic. To understand your emotions, you have to see and admit you aren't the nice logical person you might have expected.
    - zzzeek 7y ago
      they will be understood someday, but only by highly advanced mathematical models developed through machine learning. models which humans will not actually be capable of understanding.
      - hindsightbias 7y ago
        Decades ago, my coworkers and I would draw FSMs of our mgmt on the white board with cryptic lables. While they did get complicated they were understandable.
  - adamredwoods 7y ago
    It's biological (aka biological determination). There's the famous study of how judges handed out verdicts based on what or when they ate: https://www.pnas.org/content/108/17/6889 https://www.pnas.org/content/108/17/6889
- munificent 7y ago
  People are not robots, but in terms of reaching agreement between humans, "emotion" is more or less just a difference in priorities, which is one of the ways reasonable people can disagree. If we agree on the facts and we agree on their implications, but we still disagree, it's likely because we weight things differently. Emotions are simply a large component for how we weight things.
  - zzzeek 7y ago
    emotionalism is strongly linked to irrationality. once someone is irrational I'm not following how that can be reduced to a "difference in priorities". I'm an open source maintainer of some very popular projects. more in the early days, I was certainly irrational on a few occasions where someone called out things that I did wrong and I refused to see it. It wasn't like I had de-prioritized "making sure the code is not completely broken". my own fear that I was going to have to rethink a whole huge set of assumptions (which of course I had to do anyway) prevented me from working with people.
    - fsckboy 7y ago
      But rationality (in the human sense) is completely governed by emotion. Curiosity about an unsolved problem? that's emotional regulation of the brain. Satisfaction that a problem is solved? also emotion. Beauty in a better solution? emotion. This has significance, it's not just a restatement of "the problem" using different terminology. It's significant because the brain, like every other part of the body, evolved parsimoniously, and it does not have spare capacity lying around, so anything that "distracts" the emotional parts of the brain will diminish rational capacity. "Hangry" is not just a pun/quip about being hungry, it's empirically measurable, it affects outcomes. Debating rational topics with your rational friends, whether at work, at school, or after hours over a beer, it's fun (emotion), can be frustrating (emotion) but does it ever not get heated (more emotion)? The brain is an emotional organ. All the other organs are rational, they do what they do in entirely predictable and logical ways.
      - zzzeek 7y ago
- blueprint 7y ago
  What if it's actually only those who are honest who have human nature?
neosat 7y ago
In addition to the (great) framework you listed, there is another big factor - incentives. You may be aligned in principles, have the same info etc. but if your incentives are misaligned it can be hard to agree.
- mft_ 7y ago
  Thanks for this comment - mirrors my thought/question. I think the understanding incentivisation is hugely important in understanding human behaviour and choices, and this seemed an obvious omission. However, I was trying to process whether incentives are essentially part of your principles? i.e. if an incentive to do something against your principles is so strong that it wins out, doesn't that mean you've effectively abandoned (or changed) your principles along the way?
- ratherbefuddled 7y ago
  Surely a disagreement based on incentives is not an honest disagreement?
  - mongol 7y ago
    I think disagreement on incentives plays out as how prioritized something is viewed. I may agree that something is wrong, but not worth it for me to fix during a weekend because I don't get paid overtime for it. As an example.
- yamrzou 7y ago
  Aren’t incentives hidden principles?

solipsism 7y ago

This is a bit Pollyanna. People aren't logic robots that start from first principles and then derive all knowledge from logical reasoning. People are emotional, irrational beings. Those of us who fancy ourselves rational are constantly involved in irrational motivated reasoning helping us maintain that desired worldview. Not to say we shouldn't try to live up to the ideal you set forth. We should do our best. But there's not some category of honest people among whom you can avoid human nature.

elefantastisch 7y ago
To the point of "honest people": I added "honest" in editing to distinguish from people who are just arguing because they like fighting and wouldn't agree if you told them 2 + 2 = 4. There are plenty of those online too, and their reasons for disagreeing clearly aren't covered by my "reasons people disagree" principle. But as I understood you, point taken. The distillation of principles, information, and interpretation into an opinion does not actually occur as idealized in my breakdown. I wouldn't disagree with that.
- fragmede 7y ago
  More explictly: the hardest person to be honest with is yourself.
Accujack 7y ago
Hey, hey. Speak for yourself. ;-)
iovrthoughtthis 7y ago
I’m not so certain emotion and logic are so fundamentally separate you know. Perhaps logic is just our way of explaining our otherwise unexplainable decision making systems.
- yazaddaruvala 7y ago
  My belief is that intuition and emotion are just complex sets of logic that we haven’t understood yet. Put in the time and focus, and one day it will just click.
  - lanstin 7y ago
    I think the emotions and really the whole operation of the mental states is reasonable, but not internally logical. They arise in predictable patterns from experiences and so on, but they can very easily override logic. To understand your emotions, you have to see and admit you aren't the nice logical person you might have expected.
  - zzzeek 7y ago
    they will be understood someday, but only by highly advanced mathematical models developed through machine learning. models which humans will not actually be capable of understanding.
    - hindsightbias 7y ago
      Decades ago, my coworkers and I would draw FSMs of our mgmt on the white board with cryptic lables. While they did get complicated they were understandable.
- adamredwoods 7y ago
  It's biological (aka biological determination). There's the famous study of how judges handed out verdicts based on what or when they ate: https://www.pnas.org/content/108/17/6889 https://www.pnas.org/content/108/17/6889
munificent 7y ago
People are not robots, but in terms of reaching agreement between humans, "emotion" is more or less just a difference in priorities, which is one of the ways reasonable people can disagree. If we agree on the facts and we agree on their implications, but we still disagree, it's likely because we weight things differently. Emotions are simply a large component for how we weight things.
- zzzeek 7y ago
  emotionalism is strongly linked to irrationality. once someone is irrational I'm not following how that can be reduced to a "difference in priorities". I'm an open source maintainer of some very popular projects. more in the early days, I was certainly irrational on a few occasions where someone called out things that I did wrong and I refused to see it. It wasn't like I had de-prioritized "making sure the code is not completely broken". my own fear that I was going to have to rethink a whole huge set of assumptions (which of course I had to do anyway) prevented me from working with people.
  - fsckboy 7y ago
    But rationality (in the human sense) is completely governed by emotion. Curiosity about an unsolved problem? that's emotional regulation of the brain. Satisfaction that a problem is solved? also emotion. Beauty in a better solution? emotion. This has significance, it's not just a restatement of "the problem" using different terminology. It's significant because the brain, like every other part of the body, evolved parsimoniously, and it does not have spare capacity lying around, so anything that "distracts" the emotional parts of the brain will diminish rational capacity. "Hangry" is not just a pun/quip about being hungry, it's empirically measurable, it affects outcomes. Debating rational topics with your rational friends, whether at work, at school, or after hours over a beer, it's fun (emotion), can be frustrating (emotion) but does it ever not get heated (more emotion)? The brain is an emotional organ. All the other organs are rational, they do what they do in entirely predictable and logical ways.
    - zzzeek 7y ago
blueprint 7y ago
What if it's actually only those who are honest who have human nature?

neosat 7y ago

In addition to the (great) framework you listed, there is another big factor - incentives. You may be aligned in principles, have the same info etc. but if your incentives are misaligned it can be hard to agree.

mft_ 7y ago
Thanks for this comment - mirrors my thought/question. I think the understanding incentivisation is hugely important in understanding human behaviour and choices, and this seemed an obvious omission. However, I was trying to process whether incentives are essentially part of your principles? i.e. if an incentive to do something against your principles is so strong that it wins out, doesn't that mean you've effectively abandoned (or changed) your principles along the way?
ratherbefuddled 7y ago
Surely a disagreement based on incentives is not an honest disagreement?
- mongol 7y ago
  I think disagreement on incentives plays out as how prioritized something is viewed. I may agree that something is wrong, but not worth it for me to fix during a weekend because I don't get paid overtime for it. As an example.
yamrzou 7y ago
Aren’t incentives hidden principles?