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>> EA appeals to exactly that kind of really-smart-person who is perfectly capable of convincing themselves that they're always right about everything. And from

>> EA appeals to exactly that kind of really-smart-person who is perfectly capable of convincing themselves that they're always right about everything. And from there, you can justify all kinds of terrible things. > Should we not talk ourselves into believing into stuff? Should smart people specifically avoid changing their beliefs out of fear of "justify all kinds of terrible things"? The GP is talking about self-deception. And yes, we should not deceive ourselves.

gruez 4y ago
Okay, but how does this translate into actionable advice? Nobody sets out to intentionally deceive themselves. Telling people that "we should not deceive ourselves" is basically as helpful as "don't be wrong".
- dkqmduems 4y ago
  It's called science.
  - gruez 4y ago
    That's the same problem as before. Outside of maybe fundamentalist religious people who think their religious text is the final word on everything, everybody agrees that "science" is the best way of finding out the truth. The trouble is that they disagree on what counts as science (ie. which scientists/institutions/studies to trust). When the disagreement is at that level, casually invoking "science" misses the point entirely.
    - tcmart14 4y ago
      Even then, some fundamentalist have "science." Kent Ham being an example here.
    - dkqmduems 4y ago
      Science doesn't care who does the science. It just takes time.
      - gruez 4y ago
        That might be true, but it's a non-sequitur because this thread is talking about the epistemic practices of a particular group. Whether "science" (the institution, method, or humanity in general) will eventually arrive at the truth is irrelevant.
        dkqmduems 4y ago
        Is it irrelevant? Did this group arrive at a scientifically validated set of conclusions? If not, move on.
    - epistemer 4y ago
      A big problem is we have gone from Feynman saying "science is the disbelief in experts" to "What experts say is true right now is the science".
      - jhbadger 4y ago
        Not really. Saying that relying on experts isn't needed is a common, self-deprecating thing scientists like to say, but it doesn't really work. Even Feynman wrote about having to deal with cranks who sent him letters in which the authors thought they had disproved relativity or something. Everybody's opinion isn't equal in science.
- mistermann 4y ago
  How about this: in swinger communities, they have safe words that they can use to transcend the playtime aspect of reality - how about we develop something similar for internet arguments, a term that is mutually agreed upon in advance, and when uttered by a participant it kicks off a well documented (and agreed upon) protocol where all participants downgrade System 1 thinking to zero and upgrade System 2 thinking to 11...and, all participants carefully monitor each other to ensure that people are executing the agreed upon plan successfully? This general approach works quite well (with practice) in many other domains, maybe it would also work for arguments/beliefs.
  - gruez 4y ago
    Wouldn't this devolve into name calling almost immediately? On internet arguments it's already implied that you're bringing forth logical points and not just spouting off what you feel in the heat of the moment. Invoking the safe word is basically a thinly veiled attempt at calling the other party irrational and emotional.
    - mistermann 4y ago
      > Wouldn't this devolve into name calling almost immediately? If it did, 1 week ban. Do it again: 2 week ban. All according to the well explained and agreed upon on a point by point basis in the terms of service that the user agreed to...except in this case, the TOS are actually serious, and not the colloquial meaning of "serious" that people have grown accustomed to. This would create substantial gnashing of teeth, but I anticipate before too long a few people would be able to figure it out (perhaps by RTFM), demonstrate how to speak and think properly, and a new norm would be established. Besides: if 95% of people simply cannot cut it, I don't see this as a major problem. Cream is valuable, milk is more trouble than it's worth. Two things that should never be underestimated: - the stupidity of humans - the ability of humans to learn > On internet arguments it's already implied that you're bringing forth logical points and not just spouting off what you feel in the heat of the moment. It's even worse: it is perceived as such! This is the problem though: people have never been taught how to reliably distinguish between opinions, "facts", facts, and the unknown (the latter is typically what catches genuinely smart people). So: offer an educational component, maybe integrated into the onboarding process. Too big of a hassle? Best of luck to you elsewhere (provide links to Reddit, Facebook, Hacker News, etc). > Invoking the safe word is basically a thinly veiled attempt at calling the other party irrational and emotional. Take a wild guess what response a comment of this epistemic quality (in the form that it is currently presented) would elicit under the standards I describe above. Besides: I doubt any unemotional, rational people exist on the planet. It is not a question of "if" someone has these shortcomings, it is a question of "to what degree" they suffer from them. And should we expect any different from people? We don't try to create any of these people, and it's not like they have anyone to emulate.
- strken 4y ago
  How about "don't go against conventional wisdom unless you have a good reason; the more conventional the wisdom, the better the reason needs to be"? Possibly combined with "be humble and give subject matter experts some credit, an hour on Google Scholar doesn't mean you've learned everything". If the conventional wisdom is "don't order research chemicals from a lab in China then self-inject them", then maybe a plan to get a peptide lab to manufacture cheap Semaglutide is dangerous, even if you can't explain exactly why it's dangerous (in this case it's probably pretty obvious). If, on the other hand, the conventional wisdom is "eat 6 - 11 servings of grain and 3 - 5 servings of vegetables a day", but many nutritionists are recommending less grain and there's new research out saying that much higher vegetable intake is good, maybe a plan to eat more vegetables and less bread is good.
  - gruez 4y ago
    > How about "don't go against conventional wisdom unless you have a good reason; the more conventional the wisdom, the better the reason needs to be"? Possibly combined with "be humble and give subject matter experts some credit, I have a feeling that this is basically the generic talking point to use when your opponent is more radical than you. The opposite would be you accusing your opponent as luddites or whatever because they're too bought into "conventional wisdom". Neither are actually helpful epistemically because the line for "good reason" is entirely arbitrary, and is easily colored by your beliefs. >an hour on Google Scholar doesn't mean you've learned everything". >If the conventional wisdom is "don't order research chemicals from a lab in China then self-inject them", then maybe a plan to get a peptide lab to manufacture cheap Semaglutide is dangerous, even if you can't explain exactly why it's dangerous (in this case it's probably pretty obvious). I think you're painting effective altruism with too broad a brush and giving them too little credit. I'm very skeptical that the typical effective altruist is ordering semaglutide from china or that the typical EA analysis on x-risk is based on "an hour on Google Scholar". >If, on the other hand, the conventional wisdom is "eat 6 - 11 servings of grain and 3 - 5 servings of vegetables a day", but many nutritionists are recommending less grain and there's new research out saying that much higher vegetable intake is good, maybe a plan to eat more vegetables and less bread is good. Hold on, all it takes to turn over "conventional wisdom" on nutrition is "many nutritionists" and "new research"? Does some well researched books like "The Precipice" or "What We Owe the Future" suffice here? I'm sure that among all the effective altruists out there, you can find among them "many" to support their claim?
- alan-crowe 4y ago
  One approach is to turn up the demand for intellectual rigor until it hurts. For example, I don't want to become a maths crank, so I am learning about computer proof checkers, Lean, ACL2, Coq, those things. But they are painful to use, it hurts! To broaden the applicability, consider that a clever person goes through life with their bullshit checker set to medium. Normies try to persuade him of stuff, and he quickly spots the flaws in their arguments. But a clever person doesn't lock the setting at medium. They adjust it to suit their adversary. If it is a negotiation for a large business deal, the skepticism gets turned up to a high level. One can imagine a situation in which an executive, Mr E, for company A discovers that company B has hired away one of company A's due diligence team. Whoops! Mr E thinks "They know what we look for, and will have made very sure that it looks good." One adjusts the setting of ones bullshit detector not just on the raw ability of ones adversary, but also to whether they have access to your thought processes, that they can use to outwit you. Assume for the sake of argument that the previous paragraph is for real. Adjusting your bullshit detectors to allow for an adversary reading your secrets is an option. Then it leads to actionable advice. How do you set your bullshit detector when you are trying to avoid deceiving yourself? You use the settings that you use when you fear that an adversary has got inside your head and knows how to craft an argument to exploit your weak spots.
TigeriusKirk 4y ago
I've never met anyone who didn't deceive themselves in significant ways.

gruez 4y ago

Okay, but how does this translate into actionable advice? Nobody sets out to intentionally deceive themselves. Telling people that "we should not deceive ourselves" is basically as helpful as "don't be wrong".

dkqmduems 4y ago
It's called science.
- gruez 4y ago
  That's the same problem as before. Outside of maybe fundamentalist religious people who think their religious text is the final word on everything, everybody agrees that "science" is the best way of finding out the truth. The trouble is that they disagree on what counts as science (ie. which scientists/institutions/studies to trust). When the disagreement is at that level, casually invoking "science" misses the point entirely.
  - tcmart14 4y ago
    Even then, some fundamentalist have "science." Kent Ham being an example here.
  - dkqmduems 4y ago
    Science doesn't care who does the science. It just takes time.
    - gruez 4y ago
      That might be true, but it's a non-sequitur because this thread is talking about the epistemic practices of a particular group. Whether "science" (the institution, method, or humanity in general) will eventually arrive at the truth is irrelevant.
      - dkqmduems 4y ago
        Is it irrelevant? Did this group arrive at a scientifically validated set of conclusions? If not, move on.
  - epistemer 4y ago
    A big problem is we have gone from Feynman saying "science is the disbelief in experts" to "What experts say is true right now is the science".
    - jhbadger 4y ago
      Not really. Saying that relying on experts isn't needed is a common, self-deprecating thing scientists like to say, but it doesn't really work. Even Feynman wrote about having to deal with cranks who sent him letters in which the authors thought they had disproved relativity or something. Everybody's opinion isn't equal in science.
mistermann 4y ago
How about this: in swinger communities, they have safe words that they can use to transcend the playtime aspect of reality - how about we develop something similar for internet arguments, a term that is mutually agreed upon in advance, and when uttered by a participant it kicks off a well documented (and agreed upon) protocol where all participants downgrade System 1 thinking to zero and upgrade System 2 thinking to 11...and, all participants carefully monitor each other to ensure that people are executing the agreed upon plan successfully? This general approach works quite well (with practice) in many other domains, maybe it would also work for arguments/beliefs.
- gruez 4y ago
  Wouldn't this devolve into name calling almost immediately? On internet arguments it's already implied that you're bringing forth logical points and not just spouting off what you feel in the heat of the moment. Invoking the safe word is basically a thinly veiled attempt at calling the other party irrational and emotional.
  - mistermann 4y ago
    > Wouldn't this devolve into name calling almost immediately? If it did, 1 week ban. Do it again: 2 week ban. All according to the well explained and agreed upon on a point by point basis in the terms of service that the user agreed to...except in this case, the TOS are actually serious, and not the colloquial meaning of "serious" that people have grown accustomed to. This would create substantial gnashing of teeth, but I anticipate before too long a few people would be able to figure it out (perhaps by RTFM), demonstrate how to speak and think properly, and a new norm would be established. Besides: if 95% of people simply cannot cut it, I don't see this as a major problem. Cream is valuable, milk is more trouble than it's worth. Two things that should never be underestimated: - the stupidity of humans - the ability of humans to learn > On internet arguments it's already implied that you're bringing forth logical points and not just spouting off what you feel in the heat of the moment. It's even worse: it is perceived as such! This is the problem though: people have never been taught how to reliably distinguish between opinions, "facts", facts, and the unknown (the latter is typically what catches genuinely smart people). So: offer an educational component, maybe integrated into the onboarding process. Too big of a hassle? Best of luck to you elsewhere (provide links to Reddit, Facebook, Hacker News, etc). > Invoking the safe word is basically a thinly veiled attempt at calling the other party irrational and emotional. Take a wild guess what response a comment of this epistemic quality (in the form that it is currently presented) would elicit under the standards I describe above. Besides: I doubt any unemotional, rational people exist on the planet. It is not a question of "if" someone has these shortcomings, it is a question of "to what degree" they suffer from them. And should we expect any different from people? We don't try to create any of these people, and it's not like they have anyone to emulate.
strken 4y ago
How about "don't go against conventional wisdom unless you have a good reason; the more conventional the wisdom, the better the reason needs to be"? Possibly combined with "be humble and give subject matter experts some credit, an hour on Google Scholar doesn't mean you've learned everything". If the conventional wisdom is "don't order research chemicals from a lab in China then self-inject them", then maybe a plan to get a peptide lab to manufacture cheap Semaglutide is dangerous, even if you can't explain exactly why it's dangerous (in this case it's probably pretty obvious). If, on the other hand, the conventional wisdom is "eat 6 - 11 servings of grain and 3 - 5 servings of vegetables a day", but many nutritionists are recommending less grain and there's new research out saying that much higher vegetable intake is good, maybe a plan to eat more vegetables and less bread is good.
- gruez 4y ago
  > How about "don't go against conventional wisdom unless you have a good reason; the more conventional the wisdom, the better the reason needs to be"? Possibly combined with "be humble and give subject matter experts some credit, I have a feeling that this is basically the generic talking point to use when your opponent is more radical than you. The opposite would be you accusing your opponent as luddites or whatever because they're too bought into "conventional wisdom". Neither are actually helpful epistemically because the line for "good reason" is entirely arbitrary, and is easily colored by your beliefs. >an hour on Google Scholar doesn't mean you've learned everything". >If the conventional wisdom is "don't order research chemicals from a lab in China then self-inject them", then maybe a plan to get a peptide lab to manufacture cheap Semaglutide is dangerous, even if you can't explain exactly why it's dangerous (in this case it's probably pretty obvious). I think you're painting effective altruism with too broad a brush and giving them too little credit. I'm very skeptical that the typical effective altruist is ordering semaglutide from china or that the typical EA analysis on x-risk is based on "an hour on Google Scholar". >If, on the other hand, the conventional wisdom is "eat 6 - 11 servings of grain and 3 - 5 servings of vegetables a day", but many nutritionists are recommending less grain and there's new research out saying that much higher vegetable intake is good, maybe a plan to eat more vegetables and less bread is good. Hold on, all it takes to turn over "conventional wisdom" on nutrition is "many nutritionists" and "new research"? Does some well researched books like "The Precipice" or "What We Owe the Future" suffice here? I'm sure that among all the effective altruists out there, you can find among them "many" to support their claim?
alan-crowe 4y ago
One approach is to turn up the demand for intellectual rigor until it hurts. For example, I don't want to become a maths crank, so I am learning about computer proof checkers, Lean, ACL2, Coq, those things. But they are painful to use, it hurts! To broaden the applicability, consider that a clever person goes through life with their bullshit checker set to medium. Normies try to persuade him of stuff, and he quickly spots the flaws in their arguments. But a clever person doesn't lock the setting at medium. They adjust it to suit their adversary. If it is a negotiation for a large business deal, the skepticism gets turned up to a high level. One can imagine a situation in which an executive, Mr E, for company A discovers that company B has hired away one of company A's due diligence team. Whoops! Mr E thinks "They know what we look for, and will have made very sure that it looks good." One adjusts the setting of ones bullshit detector not just on the raw ability of ones adversary, but also to whether they have access to your thought processes, that they can use to outwit you. Assume for the sake of argument that the previous paragraph is for real. Adjusting your bullshit detectors to allow for an adversary reading your secrets is an option. Then it leads to actionable advice. How do you set your bullshit detector when you are trying to avoid deceiving yourself? You use the settings that you use when you fear that an adversary has got inside your head and knows how to craft an argument to exploit your weak spots.

TigeriusKirk 4y ago

I've never met anyone who didn't deceive themselves in significant ways.