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If you're not careful with this it will turn out to be a general purpose cheat code whenever someone criticizes an idea that you don't want criticized. Just lik

If you're not careful with this it will turn out to be a general purpose cheat code whenever someone criticizes an idea that you don't want criticized. Just like how crackpots reply with "You just don't understand it" when someone criticizes their theories. Even if "Woke" ideas aren't originally stupid and twisted [citation needed], the woke ideas that are in power today are. Communism might have been "noble and intelligent" in 1840, but good luck convincing those living under it in 1970 of that.

epgui 4y ago
I’m not talking about communism, I’m talking mostly about diversity and inclusion stuff. But yes, you could apply the same to communism: just because a lot of people are saying stupid things about communism doesn’t mean that communism is bad. Communism could be bad or good, but it should be judged on the merits of its strongest conception. And I really don’t think steelmanning arguments is a slippery slope: if anything it’s an uphill battle that requires constant effort. My comment shouldn’t be intrepreted as serving as a shield against criticism, it should be interpreted as motivating a larger degree of good faith effort at the personal level.
- Banana699 4y ago
  My point is that this all irrelevant when ideas pose a threat to people. Ideas have real world consequences. It might seem easy for you to approach communism with good faith because it's a harmless ideology in your time and place, but those who lived a terrible life under it might disagree, and you can't really blame them. It's a bit rich to demand good faith out of people towards their aggressor. Also, good faith is a 2-way street. If a ridiculous drawing of a horse is defended by otherwise intelligent and honest people, yeah I might be interested what do they have in mind that makes them say so. If a ridiculous drawing of a horse is defended by a bunch of rage zombies who know no other disagreement strategy except censoring, bullying and otherwise exercising coercion, I'm guessing that whatever they have to say is not that high IQ or high utility. What's the point? Ideas are cheap, whatever intelligent or useful things those modern Puritans have to say have likely been said a thousand thousand times in much better and articulate forms.
  - epgui 4y ago
    I don't think anyone is suggesting that we need to tolerate aggression, or that we must entertain stupidities. The main message and lesson to take from this post is rather to not let the stupidities stand in the way of learning. The point is that if you pick any complicated topic, and try to learn about it by listening to proponents at random, 19 times out of 20 [1], you're going to land on a stupid explanation that doesn't even make sense. If your goal is to learn [2] then you should continue keeping an open mind until you land on that 1 out of 20, higher-quality version of the thing, and then give that one a chance. If the highest-quality version of the thing makes no sense, then you may be justified in discounting the idea. [3] This notion might seem obvious to some people, but from my experience, I can say that not everyone finds this obvious. [1] I just made up these numbers for demonstration purposes. [2] There are other goals in life too (eg.: surviving, escaping oppression, etc), but this is one possible goal and it's the one we're focusing on in this context. [3] But also, statistically speaking, it's very likely that we just don't understand the thing, so this is why I often like to say that one should be more skeptical of one's own understanding than of others (again, in contexts where the main goal is learning).

epgui 4y ago

I’m not talking about communism, I’m talking mostly about diversity and inclusion stuff. But yes, you could apply the same to communism: just because a lot of people are saying stupid things about communism doesn’t mean that communism is bad. Communism could be bad or good, but it should be judged on the merits of its strongest conception. And I really don’t think steelmanning arguments is a slippery slope: if anything it’s an uphill battle that requires constant effort. My comment shouldn’t be intrepreted as serving as a shield against criticism, it should be interpreted as motivating a larger degree of good faith effort at the personal level.

Banana699 4y ago
My point is that this all irrelevant when ideas pose a threat to people. Ideas have real world consequences. It might seem easy for you to approach communism with good faith because it's a harmless ideology in your time and place, but those who lived a terrible life under it might disagree, and you can't really blame them. It's a bit rich to demand good faith out of people towards their aggressor. Also, good faith is a 2-way street. If a ridiculous drawing of a horse is defended by otherwise intelligent and honest people, yeah I might be interested what do they have in mind that makes them say so. If a ridiculous drawing of a horse is defended by a bunch of rage zombies who know no other disagreement strategy except censoring, bullying and otherwise exercising coercion, I'm guessing that whatever they have to say is not that high IQ or high utility. What's the point? Ideas are cheap, whatever intelligent or useful things those modern Puritans have to say have likely been said a thousand thousand times in much better and articulate forms.
- epgui 4y ago
  I don't think anyone is suggesting that we need to tolerate aggression, or that we must entertain stupidities. The main message and lesson to take from this post is rather to not let the stupidities stand in the way of learning. The point is that if you pick any complicated topic, and try to learn about it by listening to proponents at random, 19 times out of 20 [1], you're going to land on a stupid explanation that doesn't even make sense. If your goal is to learn [2] then you should continue keeping an open mind until you land on that 1 out of 20, higher-quality version of the thing, and then give that one a chance. If the highest-quality version of the thing makes no sense, then you may be justified in discounting the idea. [3] This notion might seem obvious to some people, but from my experience, I can say that not everyone finds this obvious. [1] I just made up these numbers for demonstration purposes. [2] There are other goals in life too (eg.: surviving, escaping oppression, etc), but this is one possible goal and it's the one we're focusing on in this context. [3] But also, statistically speaking, it's very likely that we just don't understand the thing, so this is why I often like to say that one should be more skeptical of one's own understanding than of others (again, in contexts where the main goal is learning).