I found this comment unhelpful because: (i) it reads like an implied ad hominem attack on Jeff’s argument: i.e. the only reason he wrote this is because he was attacked (and therefore we can ignore the conclusion), and (ii) it seems like an attack on SJWs which is really off-topic.
On (i): You say “don’t let them bring you down to their level”, with an implication that this has somehow happened in writing this post. However you don’t point to anything said here which is at a low level (and I don’t think there is anything). I think Jeff’s argument is actually very good and deserves to be appreciated more widely.
On (ii): Thinking, as Scott does, that SJWs sometimes do unfair/hostile things is fine. But that doesn’t mean it’s appropriate to bring into any conversation on privilege or social justice. Scott describes himself in the post you link to as “97% on board [with feminism]”. I suspect that the content of Jeff’s post falls firmly in that 97%. Bringing the 3% up here seems like another ad hominem attack, but this time on social justice.
it reads like an implied ad hominem attack on Jeff’s argument
I am genuinely bewildered and hurt you could come to this conclusion. According to wikipedia
ad hominem … means responding to arguments by attacking a person’s character
yet I was complimentary and supportive to Jeff! I said he should be proud of who he was and what he did. I can hardly see how I could have been more positive—though apparently I was already too positive as well, so I guess I should give up trying to be nice and just stick to QALY calculations.
And his conclusion is that he should Earn to Give—exactly what I spend 70 hours a week doing. So I’m not trying to sabotage his argument because I dislike the conclusion either. I think Earning to Give is great! So great that I don’t think it requires any apology or defense. It is morally praiseworthy.
I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply anything about your motivations (and I expected they were good), and I should have said that explicitly. I’m also sorry I hurt you. :(
I’ll try to explain the way in which it read like an ad hominem attack (which is not to say that it was one, but an explanation of why it engendered some negative reactions). Jeff presented an argument. You responded, saying something which sounded close to “I understand why you’ve written this post, but you can do better.” While this is supportive at a surface level, it also sounds like perhaps Jeff doesn’t really understand why he wrote the post, and if he did understand, maybe he wouldn’t agree with it. That was the chain which led me to say it looked like an ad hominem (I’m not sure whether the term exactly fits, but I don’t know a better one).
Note that none of these negative things were implied by what you said—it was all implicature. Because you wrote a reasonably long response which gave an alternative explanation for Jeff’s post while not engaging with the object-level content, a salient explanation was that you disagreed with the argument and were trying to put it down. I think if you’d cancelled the implicature by adding a statement like “I agree with the argument” or “I’m sure this isn’t the only reason you’ve written this” then you would have got rather less negative responses.
Sorry again for the confusion that comes in these online discussions.
Nice anti-apology, Owen. Since you are super-intelligent, you know the meaning of what people say even when they don’t know themselves, right? You still maintain that Dale implicated Jeff did something wrong. If that were the case then whenever anyone says to his friend, “Don’t let the haters you drag you to their level.” or “He ain’t worth it.” he is in fact insulting his friend by implicating he has done something wrong. The response I see to this advice is usually “Thanks, man. You’re a good friend.” Are all these people too stupid to know they are being insulted? Instead, the proper response to this common supportive advice should be “Stop insulting me by insinuating I did something wrong.” then?
You state that because Dale wrote a possible explanation for Jeff’s post without engaging the explicit statements Jeff made, he is showing his disapproval for Jeff’s post. That is not logical. If Dale wanted to make a point, he would have made it. Don’t put words in his mouth. If you told you’re girlfriend you wanted to eat and she said, “Don’t let yourself to hungry, now.” by your logic she is implicating that you did something wrong by allowing yourself to become hungry. Or if I told my friend, “I really want to go out tonight.” and he said, “I hear you. Not good to stay in all the time.”, he is implicating that I am doing something wrong by staying home too much? In both these example, as in Dale’s reply to Jeff, they are being sympathetic, not disapproving in any way. Don’t pass off your lack of understanding people as ignorance in someone else.
I was trying to draw a distinction between what Dale meant when writing it (which I don’t claim any problem with), and what people reading it might think was meant. Given that I wasn’t the only person who thought that the comment read problematically, it wasn’t just my failure to interpret: there was something suggestive in the wording. I was trying to explain what that feature of the wording was, as well as how it might be avoided by adding an extra statement that Dale agrees with.
Scott describes himself in the post you link to as “97% on board [with feminism]”.
A clarification. The author of the post is Scott Alexander. The subject of the post is Scott Aaronson. Alexander doesn’t describe himself as 97% on board with feminism; Aaronson does.
Sorry, you’re right. I’d remembered Scott Alexander saying:
I see a vision here of everybody, nerdy men, nerdy women, feminists, the media, whoever – cooperating to solve our mutual problems and treat each other with respect. Of course I am on board with this vision. As Scott Aaronson would put it, I am 97% on board.
But the thing he’s claiming to be 97% on board with isn’t feminism. My bad.
I found this comment unhelpful because: (i) it reads like an implied ad hominem attack on Jeff’s argument: i.e. the only reason he wrote this is because he was attacked (and therefore we can ignore the conclusion), and (ii) it seems like an attack on SJWs which is really off-topic.
On (i): You say “don’t let them bring you down to their level”, with an implication that this has somehow happened in writing this post. However you don’t point to anything said here which is at a low level (and I don’t think there is anything). I think Jeff’s argument is actually very good and deserves to be appreciated more widely.
On (ii): Thinking, as Scott does, that SJWs sometimes do unfair/hostile things is fine. But that doesn’t mean it’s appropriate to bring into any conversation on privilege or social justice. Scott describes himself in the post you link to as “97% on board [with feminism]”. I suspect that the content of Jeff’s post falls firmly in that 97%. Bringing the 3% up here seems like another ad hominem attack, but this time on social justice.
I am genuinely bewildered and hurt you could come to this conclusion. According to wikipedia
yet I was complimentary and supportive to Jeff! I said he should be proud of who he was and what he did. I can hardly see how I could have been more positive—though apparently I was already too positive as well, so I guess I should give up trying to be nice and just stick to QALY calculations.
And his conclusion is that he should Earn to Give—exactly what I spend 70 hours a week doing. So I’m not trying to sabotage his argument because I dislike the conclusion either. I think Earning to Give is great! So great that I don’t think it requires any apology or defense. It is morally praiseworthy.
I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply anything about your motivations (and I expected they were good), and I should have said that explicitly. I’m also sorry I hurt you. :(
I’ll try to explain the way in which it read like an ad hominem attack (which is not to say that it was one, but an explanation of why it engendered some negative reactions). Jeff presented an argument. You responded, saying something which sounded close to “I understand why you’ve written this post, but you can do better.” While this is supportive at a surface level, it also sounds like perhaps Jeff doesn’t really understand why he wrote the post, and if he did understand, maybe he wouldn’t agree with it. That was the chain which led me to say it looked like an ad hominem (I’m not sure whether the term exactly fits, but I don’t know a better one).
Note that none of these negative things were implied by what you said—it was all implicature. Because you wrote a reasonably long response which gave an alternative explanation for Jeff’s post while not engaging with the object-level content, a salient explanation was that you disagreed with the argument and were trying to put it down. I think if you’d cancelled the implicature by adding a statement like “I agree with the argument” or “I’m sure this isn’t the only reason you’ve written this” then you would have got rather less negative responses.
Sorry again for the confusion that comes in these online discussions.
Nice anti-apology, Owen. Since you are super-intelligent, you know the meaning of what people say even when they don’t know themselves, right? You still maintain that Dale implicated Jeff did something wrong. If that were the case then whenever anyone says to his friend, “Don’t let the haters you drag you to their level.” or “He ain’t worth it.” he is in fact insulting his friend by implicating he has done something wrong. The response I see to this advice is usually “Thanks, man. You’re a good friend.” Are all these people too stupid to know they are being insulted? Instead, the proper response to this common supportive advice should be “Stop insulting me by insinuating I did something wrong.” then?
You state that because Dale wrote a possible explanation for Jeff’s post without engaging the explicit statements Jeff made, he is showing his disapproval for Jeff’s post. That is not logical. If Dale wanted to make a point, he would have made it. Don’t put words in his mouth. If you told you’re girlfriend you wanted to eat and she said, “Don’t let yourself to hungry, now.” by your logic she is implicating that you did something wrong by allowing yourself to become hungry. Or if I told my friend, “I really want to go out tonight.” and he said, “I hear you. Not good to stay in all the time.”, he is implicating that I am doing something wrong by staying home too much? In both these example, as in Dale’s reply to Jeff, they are being sympathetic, not disapproving in any way. Don’t pass off your lack of understanding people as ignorance in someone else.
Hi Austen,
I was trying to draw a distinction between what Dale meant when writing it (which I don’t claim any problem with), and what people reading it might think was meant. Given that I wasn’t the only person who thought that the comment read problematically, it wasn’t just my failure to interpret: there was something suggestive in the wording. I was trying to explain what that feature of the wording was, as well as how it might be avoided by adding an extra statement that Dale agrees with.
A clarification. The author of the post is Scott Alexander. The subject of the post is Scott Aaronson. Alexander doesn’t describe himself as 97% on board with feminism; Aaronson does.
Sorry, you’re right. I’d remembered Scott Alexander saying:
But the thing he’s claiming to be 97% on board with isn’t feminism. My bad.