5 ms·

> And critically by “highly recommend it to you” I do not mean “I agree with all the takes.” I think contemporary society is willing itself into a state of incr

> And critically by “highly recommend it to you” I do not mean “I agree with all the takes.” I think contemporary society is willing itself into a state of incredible stupidity by people wanting to evaluating the worthwhileness of reading something purely on the basis of whether or not it’s correct. I think this is a very good point that I don't see raised very often.

sokoloff 6y ago
I find myself self-censoring on controversial topics far more often than I think is healthy for deep, mutual understanding. I have some friends with whom I could debate the James Damore memo, where Jordan Petersen is making some points based in reason and science, the extent to which “Defund the Police” is honest vs hyperbolic, or under what circumstances saying “All Lives Matter” or “Blue Lives Matter” is sensible vs incendiary. I have other friends with whom those discussions would be impossible. It is this group that we could probably learn more from each other, but the heat from the conversation vastly exceeds the light (for everyone, not just me).
- Bakary 6y ago
  What I see as the underlying problem is that most of those topics are fairly limited in scope. They are interpreted as controversial and potentially mind-expanding topics, but they are only controversial in the sense that sports teams are controversial. There might be mutual understanding, but it probably won't be that deep. We are mostly stuck in eternal bikeshedding.
  - sokoloff 6y ago
    As an example: to what extent could we influence the gender balance of computer science graduates (or appropriately-skilled entry-level applicants) with upstream efforts? That feels to me like a lot more than bikeshedding (assuming there's an answer other than "zero point zero zero")
    - Bakary 6y ago
      That's a good example. My current view on this is that it makes more sense to see it as a distribution of personality types and that gender is a red herring. It takes a fairly specific type of person to pursue computer science and coding for intrinsic reasons, and it is difficult enough that it takes some degree of intrinsic motivation to do well enough at it for it to be profitable. As it stands, the salary draw is already as high as it probably can be (in fact, I believe salaries to be in a bubble) in the US at least, and there are enough scholarships, programs, and free resources that almost anyone who is even somewhat motivated and not socio-economically crushed at the onset can start the process with some degree of ease and the expectation of high rewards at the end. Hence the extrinsic draw of the profession is already as strong as you could expect. There is still cultural stigma, but that is being erased naturally since programmers have a high socio-economic status for the most part and indoor activities are more and more popular and mainstream. The only real problem left is intrinsic motivation, and if it is tied to your personality type as per my hypothesis, I don't see how you could meaningfully change it. Or to be more precise, the mechanisms of change that are available to us are already well underway.
      - sokoloff 6y ago
        I agree with almost everything you say. > there are enough scholarships, programs, and free resources that almost anyone who is even somewhat motivated This might be the hinge upon which we could pivot though. Does everyone really have the at-home internet access, quiet location to focus for 60-90 minutes at a time, with a desk, screen, and keyboard such that adding a Raspberry Pi is enough to get started? I can literally reach out and touch my 2 27" monitors, my work laptop, my personal computer, a KVM switch, and a Mac for each of my primary-school age kids, each with their own 27" 4K monitor, keyboard, chair, etc. That, coupled with my career as a model of what "normal" is, makes it a lot more likely that they'll end up in computing than the average Cambridge, MA schoolkid. I don't think anything of what I described is "intrinsic" to them. If that's the case, there's chance for intervention to beneficially change things (rather than simply over-riding intrinsic preferences, which I think is bad.) > and not socio-economically crushed at the onset This is another one, of course, partially touched on above, and definitely inter-related.
  - throwaway9980 6y ago
    I think these topics are deeper than that, but the way they are presented and discussed in modern society is shallow. The arguments are caricatures and merely tactics in a game of argumentation. They are not good faith discussions about important subjects.
- Hyp3rion 6y ago
  > I find myself self-censoring on controversial topics far more often than I think is healthy for deep, mutual understanding I've been finding more and more that I have to bite my tongue around people, even that I know also. The most upsetting part is when you see otherwise intelligent people fall into fallacious anti-patterns. One such anti-pattern that I see right now is black and white reasoning. For instance disagreeing with something being labelled racist means you support racism. Essentially, if you can shift the conversation from a complex topic (is this action racist) to a simple one (we shouldn't be racists) then it becomes easier to form an opinion and castigate your opponent. I have to wonder how much of this is the person on the other side trying to copout of a topic which they haven't thought about, versus the influence of twitter-like agitprop. I think it's likely a fusion of both.
  - nerdponx 6y ago
    I have to wonder how much of this is the person on the other side trying to copout of a topic which they haven't thought about, versus the influence of twitter-like agitprop. I think it's likely a fusion of both. You might be surprised to learn that it's often neither. This stuff is rooted in the decades-long academic tradition of critical race theory. Misapplication of that theory it might or might not be. But in the spirit of the topic of the article posted here, it might be worth looking at the academic origins of this movement. Here's a nice summary article https://spectator.us/topic/anti-racism-really-means-debate-white-fragility/ https://spectator.us/topic/anti-racism-really-means-debate-w... You might or might not agree with the ideas proposed therein. I certainly have mixed feelings about it. But you can't dismiss a movement as illegitimate without at least trying to understanding it. That said, people who really buy into critical race theory can be difficult to debate or discuss with, much like any other "extreme" or "total" view of the world. But you must respect the fact that, for many, this is not an academic debate but a life-or-death fight for justice, equality, and freedom. Don't dismiss what you don't understand. Feel free to disagree, but don't dismiss it.
    - Hyp3rion 6y ago
      I think you may have missed my point, and that quote you are using is just on the borderline of being taken out of context. Perhaps that's my fault for using the word 'agitprop' in place of groupthink, stunting, or something else less loaded. I'm not dismissing postmodernity and associated schools of thought, rather I'm dismissing lazily shoe-horning your opponents ideas into a more simplistic, easier to attack strawman. It might sound like postmodernism, but it definitely is not. Postmodern critical theory is about deconstruction, context and narrative structures -- the absolute opposite of black and white thinking and strawmaning. The latter is what I am dismissing. The sorts of bad faith strawmen I am referring to are about as close to postmodernism as new age woo peddlers' arguments are to quantum mechanics. It's debasing to the true theory to even call them misapplications. To your point, I dismiss this sort of behavior because I understand it.
jffhn 6y ago
I´ve always been curious about reading and listening to the most crazy people, for the same reason doctors are interested into studying the most pathological cases, such as split-brain patients: because it can teach you a lot about normal people too. On the same line, the tumultuous times in which french moralists such as La Rochefoucauld lived certainly helped them sharpen their remarks.
- fortran77 6y ago
  > I´ve always been curious about reading and listening to the most crazy people And that's exactly why I read the comment forums on Hacker News and elsewhere.
Terretta 6y ago
Saw some surprising / not-surprising statistics on Nielsen television ratings of the U.S. Senate impeachment hearings. - CNN/MSNBC viewership ratings were constant throughout the proceedings. - FOX viewership ratings were high for opinion commentary before, during breaks, and after, but dropped to nominal any time house impeachment managers presented evidence. Fox viewership quite literally tuned out the opposing viewpoint, while MSNBC/CNN viewership did not. If “contemporary society” is learning self-government on the job as we transition to a relatively post-toil socio-economy, how can mistakes be mostly constructive so it’s safe to learn? > “It only remains for men to create a good organization for the state... and to arrange it in such a way that their self-seeking energies are opposed to one another, each thereby neutralising or eliminating the destructive effects of the rest... As hard as it may sound, the problem of setting up a state can be solved even by a nation of devils (so long as they possess understanding).” — Kant, Political Writings : https://books.google.com/books?id=v7v3CwAAQBAJ&pg=PT79&lpg=PT79&dq=%22the+problem+of+setting+up+a+state+can+be+solved+even+by+a+nation+of+devils%22&source=bl&ots=D7n6bl_eln&sig=ACfU3U0RbgJrfdftxb6-FTwpXXBVAeMIxw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjnwJOu_LbgAhUo7IMKHYiJCYYQ6AEwBXoECAEQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22the%20problem%20of%20setting%20up%20a%20state%20can%20be%20solved%20even%20by%20a%20nation%20of%20devils%22&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=v7v3CwAAQBAJ&pg=PT79&lpg=P... ‘Possessing understanding’ cannot be parenthetical.
- coldtea 6y ago
  >Fox viewership quite literally tuned out the opposing viewpoint, while MSNBC/CNN viewership did not. If you think that, you're a partisan that has tuned out the opposing viewpoint :-) I mean, the reason MSNBC/CNN viewership didn't tune out during the time "house impeachment managers presented evidence" was because that was already their own viewpoint.
  - Terretta 6y ago
    The Nielsen ratings timelines show a fact not a motive. It is factual that viewers of one channel tuned out during an opposing viewpoint, viewers of the other two channels did not tune out during an opposing viewpoint. Your assertion may be why MSNBC/CNN didn't tune out during house presentations, but doesn't explain why they didn't tune out during defense presentations. --- Meanwhile, research on "approach-avoidance" behavioral patterns suggests there is a partisan difference in the degree of partisanship one needs one's sources to exhibit: There's also good evidence that this kind of "selective exposure" is disproportionately powerful among Republicans. "One study found that adding the FNC logo to a news story increased the probability that Republicans would choose to read the story by 25 percentage points, whereas adding CNN’s logo or NPR’s logo reduced the chance by 10 points," Grossmann and Hopkins write. "No equally strong effects occurred among Democrats." http://pcl.stanford.edu/research/2009/iyengar-redmedia-bluemedia.pdf http://pcl.stanford.edu/research/2009/iyengar-redmedia-bluem... The concern I'm raising is not that, but this: "Thus, as the audience become polarized over matters of politics and public policy, rational media owners stand to gain market share by injecting more rather than less political bias into the news (Gentzkow & Shapiro, 2006). ... A further implication of voters’ increased exposure to one-sided news coverage is an ‘‘echo chamber’’ effect—the news serves to reinforce existing beliefs and attitudes." The system needs a way to systematically correct for this.
Wowfunhappy 6y ago
He goes further: > But even more so, social media incentivizes the wrong kind of reading. Today you read someone from a rival school of thought in order to find the paragraph or sentence that, when pulled out of context and paired with a witty Twitter quip, will garner you lots of little hearts. I’m as guilty of doing this as anyone. A lot of very smart people have poured a lot of time and energy into making you want to collect those little hearts. > That said, the way you learn things and get smarter is to read strong writers and try to understand what they’re saying [...] and why it is people believe that.

sokoloff 6y ago

I find myself self-censoring on controversial topics far more often than I think is healthy for deep, mutual understanding. I have some friends with whom I could debate the James Damore memo, where Jordan Petersen is making some points based in reason and science, the extent to which “Defund the Police” is honest vs hyperbolic, or under what circumstances saying “All Lives Matter” or “Blue Lives Matter” is sensible vs incendiary. I have other friends with whom those discussions would be impossible. It is this group that we could probably learn more from each other, but the heat from the conversation vastly exceeds the light (for everyone, not just me).

Bakary 6y ago
What I see as the underlying problem is that most of those topics are fairly limited in scope. They are interpreted as controversial and potentially mind-expanding topics, but they are only controversial in the sense that sports teams are controversial. There might be mutual understanding, but it probably won't be that deep. We are mostly stuck in eternal bikeshedding.
- sokoloff 6y ago
  As an example: to what extent could we influence the gender balance of computer science graduates (or appropriately-skilled entry-level applicants) with upstream efforts? That feels to me like a lot more than bikeshedding (assuming there's an answer other than "zero point zero zero")
  - Bakary 6y ago
    That's a good example. My current view on this is that it makes more sense to see it as a distribution of personality types and that gender is a red herring. It takes a fairly specific type of person to pursue computer science and coding for intrinsic reasons, and it is difficult enough that it takes some degree of intrinsic motivation to do well enough at it for it to be profitable. As it stands, the salary draw is already as high as it probably can be (in fact, I believe salaries to be in a bubble) in the US at least, and there are enough scholarships, programs, and free resources that almost anyone who is even somewhat motivated and not socio-economically crushed at the onset can start the process with some degree of ease and the expectation of high rewards at the end. Hence the extrinsic draw of the profession is already as strong as you could expect. There is still cultural stigma, but that is being erased naturally since programmers have a high socio-economic status for the most part and indoor activities are more and more popular and mainstream. The only real problem left is intrinsic motivation, and if it is tied to your personality type as per my hypothesis, I don't see how you could meaningfully change it. Or to be more precise, the mechanisms of change that are available to us are already well underway.
    - sokoloff 6y ago
      I agree with almost everything you say. > there are enough scholarships, programs, and free resources that almost anyone who is even somewhat motivated This might be the hinge upon which we could pivot though. Does everyone really have the at-home internet access, quiet location to focus for 60-90 minutes at a time, with a desk, screen, and keyboard such that adding a Raspberry Pi is enough to get started? I can literally reach out and touch my 2 27" monitors, my work laptop, my personal computer, a KVM switch, and a Mac for each of my primary-school age kids, each with their own 27" 4K monitor, keyboard, chair, etc. That, coupled with my career as a model of what "normal" is, makes it a lot more likely that they'll end up in computing than the average Cambridge, MA schoolkid. I don't think anything of what I described is "intrinsic" to them. If that's the case, there's chance for intervention to beneficially change things (rather than simply over-riding intrinsic preferences, which I think is bad.) > and not socio-economically crushed at the onset This is another one, of course, partially touched on above, and definitely inter-related.
- throwaway9980 6y ago
  I think these topics are deeper than that, but the way they are presented and discussed in modern society is shallow. The arguments are caricatures and merely tactics in a game of argumentation. They are not good faith discussions about important subjects.
Hyp3rion 6y ago
> I find myself self-censoring on controversial topics far more often than I think is healthy for deep, mutual understanding I've been finding more and more that I have to bite my tongue around people, even that I know also. The most upsetting part is when you see otherwise intelligent people fall into fallacious anti-patterns. One such anti-pattern that I see right now is black and white reasoning. For instance disagreeing with something being labelled racist means you support racism. Essentially, if you can shift the conversation from a complex topic (is this action racist) to a simple one (we shouldn't be racists) then it becomes easier to form an opinion and castigate your opponent. I have to wonder how much of this is the person on the other side trying to copout of a topic which they haven't thought about, versus the influence of twitter-like agitprop. I think it's likely a fusion of both.
- nerdponx 6y ago
  I have to wonder how much of this is the person on the other side trying to copout of a topic which they haven't thought about, versus the influence of twitter-like agitprop. I think it's likely a fusion of both. You might be surprised to learn that it's often neither. This stuff is rooted in the decades-long academic tradition of critical race theory. Misapplication of that theory it might or might not be. But in the spirit of the topic of the article posted here, it might be worth looking at the academic origins of this movement. Here's a nice summary article https://spectator.us/topic/anti-racism-really-means-debate-white-fragility/ https://spectator.us/topic/anti-racism-really-means-debate-w... You might or might not agree with the ideas proposed therein. I certainly have mixed feelings about it. But you can't dismiss a movement as illegitimate without at least trying to understanding it. That said, people who really buy into critical race theory can be difficult to debate or discuss with, much like any other "extreme" or "total" view of the world. But you must respect the fact that, for many, this is not an academic debate but a life-or-death fight for justice, equality, and freedom. Don't dismiss what you don't understand. Feel free to disagree, but don't dismiss it.
  - Hyp3rion 6y ago
    I think you may have missed my point, and that quote you are using is just on the borderline of being taken out of context. Perhaps that's my fault for using the word 'agitprop' in place of groupthink, stunting, or something else less loaded. I'm not dismissing postmodernity and associated schools of thought, rather I'm dismissing lazily shoe-horning your opponents ideas into a more simplistic, easier to attack strawman. It might sound like postmodernism, but it definitely is not. Postmodern critical theory is about deconstruction, context and narrative structures -- the absolute opposite of black and white thinking and strawmaning. The latter is what I am dismissing. The sorts of bad faith strawmen I am referring to are about as close to postmodernism as new age woo peddlers' arguments are to quantum mechanics. It's debasing to the true theory to even call them misapplications. To your point, I dismiss this sort of behavior because I understand it.

jffhn 6y ago

I´ve always been curious about reading and listening to the most crazy people, for the same reason doctors are interested into studying the most pathological cases, such as split-brain patients: because it can teach you a lot about normal people too. On the same line, the tumultuous times in which french moralists such as La Rochefoucauld lived certainly helped them sharpen their remarks.

fortran77 6y ago
> I´ve always been curious about reading and listening to the most crazy people And that's exactly why I read the comment forums on Hacker News and elsewhere.

Terretta 6y ago

Saw some surprising / not-surprising statistics on Nielsen television ratings of the U.S. Senate impeachment hearings. - CNN/MSNBC viewership ratings were constant throughout the proceedings. - FOX viewership ratings were high for opinion commentary before, during breaks, and after, but dropped to nominal any time house impeachment managers presented evidence. Fox viewership quite literally tuned out the opposing viewpoint, while MSNBC/CNN viewership did not. If “contemporary society” is learning self-government on the job as we transition to a relatively post-toil socio-economy, how can mistakes be mostly constructive so it’s safe to learn? > “It only remains for men to create a good organization for the state... and to arrange it in such a way that their self-seeking energies are opposed to one another, each thereby neutralising or eliminating the destructive effects of the rest... As hard as it may sound, the problem of setting up a state can be solved even by a nation of devils (so long as they possess understanding).” — Kant, Political Writings : https://books.google.com/books?id=v7v3CwAAQBAJ&pg=PT79&lpg=PT79&dq=%22the+problem+of+setting+up+a+state+can+be+solved+even+by+a+nation+of+devils%22&source=bl&ots=D7n6bl_eln&sig=ACfU3U0RbgJrfdftxb6-FTwpXXBVAeMIxw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjnwJOu_LbgAhUo7IMKHYiJCYYQ6AEwBXoECAEQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22the%20problem%20of%20setting%20up%20a%20state%20can%20be%20solved%20even%20by%20a%20nation%20of%20devils%22&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=v7v3CwAAQBAJ&pg=PT79&lpg=P... ‘Possessing understanding’ cannot be parenthetical.

coldtea 6y ago
>Fox viewership quite literally tuned out the opposing viewpoint, while MSNBC/CNN viewership did not. If you think that, you're a partisan that has tuned out the opposing viewpoint :-) I mean, the reason MSNBC/CNN viewership didn't tune out during the time "house impeachment managers presented evidence" was because that was already their own viewpoint.
- Terretta 6y ago
  The Nielsen ratings timelines show a fact not a motive. It is factual that viewers of one channel tuned out during an opposing viewpoint, viewers of the other two channels did not tune out during an opposing viewpoint. Your assertion may be why MSNBC/CNN didn't tune out during house presentations, but doesn't explain why they didn't tune out during defense presentations. --- Meanwhile, research on "approach-avoidance" behavioral patterns suggests there is a partisan difference in the degree of partisanship one needs one's sources to exhibit: There's also good evidence that this kind of "selective exposure" is disproportionately powerful among Republicans. "One study found that adding the FNC logo to a news story increased the probability that Republicans would choose to read the story by 25 percentage points, whereas adding CNN’s logo or NPR’s logo reduced the chance by 10 points," Grossmann and Hopkins write. "No equally strong effects occurred among Democrats." http://pcl.stanford.edu/research/2009/iyengar-redmedia-bluemedia.pdf http://pcl.stanford.edu/research/2009/iyengar-redmedia-bluem... The concern I'm raising is not that, but this: "Thus, as the audience become polarized over matters of politics and public policy, rational media owners stand to gain market share by injecting more rather than less political bias into the news (Gentzkow & Shapiro, 2006). ... A further implication of voters’ increased exposure to one-sided news coverage is an ‘‘echo chamber’’ effect—the news serves to reinforce existing beliefs and attitudes." The system needs a way to systematically correct for this.

Wowfunhappy 6y ago

He goes further: > But even more so, social media incentivizes the wrong kind of reading. Today you read someone from a rival school of thought in order to find the paragraph or sentence that, when pulled out of context and paired with a witty Twitter quip, will garner you lots of little hearts. I’m as guilty of doing this as anyone. A lot of very smart people have poured a lot of time and energy into making you want to collect those little hearts. > That said, the way you learn things and get smarter is to read strong writers and try to understand what they’re saying [...] and why it is people believe that.