Hi Elliot, I find this topic interesting but I’ve already spent more time on this thread than I intended to, so unfortunately this will likely be my last comment here. Hope it’s still useful data though.
It sounds like a summary of what you said is that (please feel free to correct) that the benefits of greater precision are much higher than most people think and are needed for learning certain important ideas, the cost of misprecision can be immoral and deeply violating to another person, the costs of learning are lower than they seem in the longterm, particularly for technical people, social incentives can push away from precision in ways that make you a worse thinker, and there are other important issues as well.
In the abstract, I agree to a large extent with all of those except for math or programming skills making textual precision or understanding easier in most relevant situations (I agree for literal copy-pasting, but I think it’s a pretty small part of the issue).
But I don’t think Lorenzo’s quotation use was bad or inaccurate. It was a bit ambiguous whether the quotes were meant to be direct or not, and decreasing the ambiguity would very likely have helped you, but there are also costs to doing so, this seems like an edge case, and it’s unclear to me how much or if to update.
To respond to a different comment of yours:
So, in my mind, the number one purpose and requirement of quotes is accuracy. But in your mind, quotation marks can just be used for other things, like giving an idea about a spirit, without worrying much about accuracy? Like, a use of a quotation might not be literally true, but as long as the spirit of what you’re doing seems good and accurate, that’s good enough? I’m trying to understand the norms/values disagreement going on.
For direct quotes, I agree the number one purpose and requirement is accuracy. But I also think using quotes for conveying the spirit of ideas is useful.
For direct quotes, I agree the number one purpose and requirement is accuracy. But I also think using quotes for conveying the spirit of ideas is useful.
Can’t people either omit quotation marks around paraphrases or, failing that, at least clearly label them as paraphrases? Why does anyone need quotation marks around paraphrases to convey the spirit of ideas? How do quotation marks help convey spirit? And how is any reader supposed to know that the text in quotations mark is not a “direct” quote?
There are standard practices for how to handle these things (bold added):
In writing, an “indirect quotation” is a paraphrase of someone else’s words: It “reports” on what a person said without using the exact words of the speaker. It’s also called “indirect discourse” and “indirect speech.”
An indirect quotation (unlike a direct quotation) is not placed in quotation marks. For example: Dr. King said that he had a dream.
The combination of a direct quotation and an indirect quotation is called a “mixed quotation.” For example: King melodiously praised the “veterans of creative suffering,” urging them to continue the struggle.
Back to sphor:
Hi Elliot, I find this topic interesting but I’ve already spent more time on this thread than I intended to, so unfortunately this will likely be my last comment here. Hope it’s still useful data though.
Would you like to have a serious conversation or debate with me about another topic, or not at all?
Would you like to have a serious conversation or debate with me about another topic, or not at all?
I’m not currently interested in participating in the sort of debate you mean, sorry. For what it’s worth though, I consider our exchanges to have been serious albeit brief and unstructured.
Hi Elliot, I find this topic interesting but I’ve already spent more time on this thread than I intended to, so unfortunately this will likely be my last comment here. Hope it’s still useful data though.
It sounds like a summary of what you said is that (please feel free to correct) that the benefits of greater precision are much higher than most people think and are needed for learning certain important ideas, the cost of misprecision can be immoral and deeply violating to another person, the costs of learning are lower than they seem in the longterm, particularly for technical people, social incentives can push away from precision in ways that make you a worse thinker, and there are other important issues as well.
In the abstract, I agree to a large extent with all of those except for math or programming skills making textual precision or understanding easier in most relevant situations (I agree for literal copy-pasting, but I think it’s a pretty small part of the issue).
But I don’t think Lorenzo’s quotation use was bad or inaccurate. It was a bit ambiguous whether the quotes were meant to be direct or not, and decreasing the ambiguity would very likely have helped you, but there are also costs to doing so, this seems like an edge case, and it’s unclear to me how much or if to update.
To respond to a different comment of yours:
For direct quotes, I agree the number one purpose and requirement is accuracy. But I also think using quotes for conveying the spirit of ideas is useful.
Can’t people either omit quotation marks around paraphrases or, failing that, at least clearly label them as paraphrases? Why does anyone need quotation marks around paraphrases to convey the spirit of ideas? How do quotation marks help convey spirit? And how is any reader supposed to know that the text in quotations mark is not a “direct” quote?
There are standard practices for how to handle these things (bold added):
https://www.thoughtco.com/indirect-quotation-writing-1691163
Back to sphor:
Would you like to have a serious conversation or debate with me about another topic, or not at all?
Hi Elliot, this is just a quick reply.
I’m not currently interested in participating in the sort of debate you mean, sorry. For what it’s worth though, I consider our exchanges to have been serious albeit brief and unstructured.
Relevant: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/gL7y22tFLKaTKaZt5/debate-about-biased-methodology-or-corentin-biteau-and?commentId=iFinowJ2XGWM6gidM