To be clear, I agree with a lot of the points that you’re making—the point of sketching out that model was just to show the sort of thing I’m doing; I wasn’t actually trying to argue for a specific conclusion. The actual correct strategy for figuring out the right policy here, in my opinion, is to carefully weigh all the different considerations like the ones you’re mentioning, which—at the risk of crossing object and meta levels—I suspect to be difficult to do in a low-bandwidth online setting like this.
Maybe it’ll still be helpful to just give my take using this conversation as an example. In this situation, I expect that:
My models here are complicated enough that I don’t expect to be able to convey them here to a point where you’d understand them without a lot of effort.
I expect I could properly convey them in a more high-bandwidth conversation (e.g. offline, not text) with you, which I’d be willing to have with you if you wanted.
To the extent that we try to do so online, I think there are systematic biases in the format which will lead to beliefs (of at least the readers) being systematically pushed in incorrect directions—as an example, I expect arguments/positions that use simple, universalizing arguments (e.g. Bayesian reasoning says we should do this, therefore we should do it) to lose out to arguments that involve summing up a bunch of pros and cons and then concluding that the result is above or below some threshold (which in my opinion is what most actual true arguments look like).
If there are lots of considerations that have to be weighed against each other, then it seems easily the case that we should decide things on a case by case basis, as sometimes the considerations might weigh in favor of downvoting someone for refusing to engage with criticism, and other times they weigh in the other direction. But this seems inconsistent with your original blanket statement, “I don’t think any person or group should be downvoted or otherwise shamed for not wanting to engage in any sort of online discussion”
About online versus offline, I’m confused why you think you’d be able to convey your model offline but not online, as the bandwidth difference between the two don’t seem large enough that you could do one but not the other. Maybe it’s not just the bandwidth but other differences between the two mediums, but I’m skeptical that offline/audio conversations are overall less biased than online/text conversations. If they each have their own biases, then it’s not clear what it would mean if you could convince someone of some idea over one medium but not the other.
If the stakes were higher or I had a bunch of free time, I might try an offline/audio conversation with you anyway to see what happens, but it doesn’t seem like a great use of our time at this point. (From your perspective, you might spend hours but at most convince one person, which would hardly make a dent if the goal is to change the Forum’s norms. I feel like your best bet is still to write a post to make your case to a wider audience, perhaps putting in extra effort to overcome the bias against it if there really is one.)
I’m still pretty curious what experiences led you to think that online discussions are often terrible, if you want to just answer that. Also are there other ideas that you think are good but can’t be spread through a text medium because of its inherent bias?
To be clear, I agree with a lot of the points that you’re making—the point of sketching out that model was just to show the sort of thing I’m doing; I wasn’t actually trying to argue for a specific conclusion. The actual correct strategy for figuring out the right policy here, in my opinion, is to carefully weigh all the different considerations like the ones you’re mentioning, which—at the risk of crossing object and meta levels—I suspect to be difficult to do in a low-bandwidth online setting like this.
Maybe it’ll still be helpful to just give my take using this conversation as an example. In this situation, I expect that:
My models here are complicated enough that I don’t expect to be able to convey them here to a point where you’d understand them without a lot of effort.
I expect I could properly convey them in a more high-bandwidth conversation (e.g. offline, not text) with you, which I’d be willing to have with you if you wanted.
To the extent that we try to do so online, I think there are systematic biases in the format which will lead to beliefs (of at least the readers) being systematically pushed in incorrect directions—as an example, I expect arguments/positions that use simple, universalizing arguments (e.g. Bayesian reasoning says we should do this, therefore we should do it) to lose out to arguments that involve summing up a bunch of pros and cons and then concluding that the result is above or below some threshold (which in my opinion is what most actual true arguments look like).
If there are lots of considerations that have to be weighed against each other, then it seems easily the case that we should decide things on a case by case basis, as sometimes the considerations might weigh in favor of downvoting someone for refusing to engage with criticism, and other times they weigh in the other direction. But this seems inconsistent with your original blanket statement, “I don’t think any person or group should be downvoted or otherwise shamed for not wanting to engage in any sort of online discussion”
About online versus offline, I’m confused why you think you’d be able to convey your model offline but not online, as the bandwidth difference between the two don’t seem large enough that you could do one but not the other. Maybe it’s not just the bandwidth but other differences between the two mediums, but I’m skeptical that offline/audio conversations are overall less biased than online/text conversations. If they each have their own biases, then it’s not clear what it would mean if you could convince someone of some idea over one medium but not the other.
If the stakes were higher or I had a bunch of free time, I might try an offline/audio conversation with you anyway to see what happens, but it doesn’t seem like a great use of our time at this point. (From your perspective, you might spend hours but at most convince one person, which would hardly make a dent if the goal is to change the Forum’s norms. I feel like your best bet is still to write a post to make your case to a wider audience, perhaps putting in extra effort to overcome the bias against it if there really is one.)
I’m still pretty curious what experiences led you to think that online discussions are often terrible, if you want to just answer that. Also are there other ideas that you think are good but can’t be spread through a text medium because of its inherent bias?