“Y” is a strictly stronger claim than “If X, then Y”, but many people get more emotional with “If X, then Y.”
Consider “Most people around 2000 years ago had a lot of superstitions and usually believed wrong things” vs “Before Jesus Christ, people had a lot of superstitions and usually believed wrong things.”
In hindsight I wish I’d given your wording, not mine, but oh well
Well, my point wasn’t to prove you wrong. It was to see what people thought about a strong version of what you wrote: I couldn’t tell if that version was what you meant, which is why I asked for clarification. Larks seemed to think that version was plausible anyway.
I probably shouldn’t resurrect this thread. But I was reminded of it by yet another egregious example of bad reasoning in an EA-adjacent industry (maybe made by EAs. I’m not sure). So I’m going to have one last go.
To be clear, my issue with your phrasing isn’t that you used a stronger version of what I wrote, it’s that you used a weaker version of what I wrote, phrased in a misleading way that’s quite manipulative. Consider the following propositions:
A. “political partisans in the US are often irrational and believe false things” vs B. “Democrats are often irrational and believe false things.”
I claim that A is a strictly stronger claim than B (in the sense that an ideal Bayesian reasoner will assign lower probability to A than B), but unless it’s said is a epistemically healthy and socially safe context, B will get people much more angry in non-truth-seeking ways than A.
B is similar to using a phrasing like:
before EA the intersection of people who were very concerned about what was true, and people who were trying hard to make the world a better place, was negligible
instead of a more neutral (A-like)
the intersection of people who were very concerned about what was true, and people who were trying hard to make the world a better place, is negligible
Note again that the less emotional phrasing is actually a strictly stronger claim than the more emotional one.
Similarly, your initial question:
Do you mean: a) They don’t make truth-seeking as high a priority as they should (relative to, say, hands-on work for change)? b) They try to understand what’s true, but their feeble non-EA efforts go nowhere? c) They make zero effort to seek the truth? (“Not seeking truth”) d) They don’t care in the slightest what the truth is?
was very clearly (unintentionally?) optimized to really want me to answer “oh no I just meant a),” (unwritten: since that’s the socially safest thing to answer). Maybe this is unintentional, but this is how it came across to me.
A better person than me would have been able to successfully answered you accurately and directly despite that initial framing, but alas I was/am not mature enough.
(I’m not optimistic that this will update you since I’m basically saying the same thing 3 times, but occasionally this has worked in the past. I do appreciate your attempts to defuse the situation at a personal level. Also I think it bears mentioning that I don’t think this argument is particularly important, and I don’t really think less of you or your work because of it; I like barely know you).
“Y” is a strictly stronger claim than “If X, then Y”, but many people get more emotional with “If X, then Y.”
Consider “Most people around 2000 years ago had a lot of superstitions and usually believed wrong things” vs “Before Jesus Christ, people had a lot of superstitions and usually believed wrong things.”
Oh what an interesting coincidence.Well, my point wasn’t to prove you wrong. It was to see what people thought about a strong version of what you wrote: I couldn’t tell if that version was what you meant, which is why I asked for clarification. Larks seemed to think that version was plausible anyway.
I probably shouldn’t resurrect this thread. But I was reminded of it by yet another egregious example of bad reasoning in an EA-adjacent industry (maybe made by EAs. I’m not sure). So I’m going to have one last go.
To be clear, my issue with your phrasing isn’t that you used a stronger version of what I wrote, it’s that you used a weaker version of what I wrote, phrased in a misleading way that’s quite manipulative. Consider the following propositions:
I claim that A is a strictly stronger claim than B (in the sense that an ideal Bayesian reasoner will assign lower probability to A than B), but unless it’s said is a epistemically healthy and socially safe context, B will get people much more angry in non-truth-seeking ways than A.
B is similar to using a phrasing like:
instead of a more neutral (A-like)
Note again that the less emotional phrasing is actually a strictly stronger claim than the more emotional one.
Similarly, your initial question:
was very clearly (unintentionally?) optimized to really want me to answer “oh no I just meant a),” (unwritten: since that’s the socially safest thing to answer). Maybe this is unintentional, but this is how it came across to me.
A better person than me would have been able to successfully answered you accurately and directly despite that initial framing, but alas I was/am not mature enough.
(I’m not optimistic that this will update you since I’m basically saying the same thing 3 times, but occasionally this has worked in the past. I do appreciate your attempts to defuse the situation at a personal level. Also I think it bears mentioning that I don’t think this argument is particularly important, and I don’t really think less of you or your work because of it; I like barely know you).