Truth seeking requires things like arguments, criticism and debate – and people who take responsibility for doing truth seeking. Without attempts to organize those things and make them happen following standardized methods, I don’t think EA will be very effective. Substitutes like curation or voting are never going to get similar results.
I don’t know of standardised methods that I think are likely to more reliably generate that, and I am worried about rushing standardisation prematurely. But this worry is far from insurmountable, and I’d be happy to hear suggestions for things that should be standardised. You have any? : )
Yes I’ve been posting suggestions here and no one has engaged seriously or offered any substantive criticism, e.g. I posted about my debate policy, my suggestion of an anti-misquoting norm, my explanation that rationality policies parallel the rule of law, a long list of sample policies, and some explanation of how people should take individual responsibility for their ideas and it’s very hard to get anywhere with a group like EA when it’s no one’s job or responsibility to deal with criticism so everyone can individually just ignore it. There’s also a continuity problem where basically each individual tends to see a random selection of what I post, which makes it hard to explain anything long, complicated and based on some different background knowledge than most people here believe or are familiar with. I agree that standardizing methods is a work in progress rather than finished, but it seems most people are not working on it, don’t want to, and don’t want to debate the matter. Do you want to try to have a serious discussion over time and try to reach some conclusions?
Hmm, not sure how that job would work, but if someone could be paid to fix all of EAs coordination problems, that’d probably be worth the money. It is the responsibility of anyone who wishes to assume that responsibility. And if they can, I really hope they do.
I’m a very slow reader, but do you wish to discuss (or debate it!) over a video call sometime? I’m eager to learn things from someone who’s likely to have a different background on the questions I’m interested in. : )
I doubt that’s going to work, but I can ask some questions about your proposal to check. My first question is whether you had in mind a public or private call.
Mh, I had in mind both, and wanted to leave it up for interpretation. A public debate about something could be cool because I’ve never done that, but we’d need to know what we’re supposed to disagree about first. Though, I primarily just wish to learn from you, since you have a different perspective, so a private call would be my second offer.
I consider calls inconvenient and inferior to writing, but I’ll view it as a cultural difference and try to be flexible. So I’ll do a recorded call, which I might put on YouTube, if we can agree on a time. Your listed times don’t work for me but you seem to use this forum at later times. Would noon (US Pacific time) or later work for you? Nov 21?
I certainly take you seriously, Elliot. However, I am strapped for time so I have not been able to review your video or more of your introductory material on debate trees. I’m stll leaning towards using a simpler set of nodes to describe an argument, and am hoping to find a basic graphical step-by-step of an actual example to let me step through your model in my mind, and compare what you do with what I would otherwise do.
EDIT: Oh, my informal debate policy at this point is to engage if I otherwise have resources to do so and the person is being a scout about an interesting topic (using Galef’s scout and soldier model). If they are being a soldier, I’ll supply them information if that’s in my interest. If they’re being manipulative instead of a scout or soldier, I might still supply them information but I don’t consider myself in an actual debate. At most, I’ll spend a little time clarifying my position (to avoid intentional misinterpretations when that’s feasible) then move on.
I partition behaviors into manipulative and truth-building, and partition truth-building behaviors into scout and soldier behaviors. By “behavior” I mean external behaviors that indicate internal processing indicative of scout or soldier mindset. I cannot actually debate someone being manipulative. Obviously, if my behavior is manipulative, then it doesn’t qualify as genuine debate either.
Truth seeking requires things like arguments, criticism and debate – and people who take responsibility for doing truth seeking. Without attempts to organize those things and make them happen following standardized methods, I don’t think EA will be very effective. Substitutes like curation or voting are never going to get similar results.
I don’t know of standardised methods that I think are likely to more reliably generate that, and I am worried about rushing standardisation prematurely. But this worry is far from insurmountable, and I’d be happy to hear suggestions for things that should be standardised. You have any? : )
Yes I’ve been posting suggestions here and no one has engaged seriously or offered any substantive criticism, e.g. I posted about my debate policy, my suggestion of an anti-misquoting norm, my explanation that rationality policies parallel the rule of law, a long list of sample policies, and some explanation of how people should take individual responsibility for their ideas and it’s very hard to get anywhere with a group like EA when it’s no one’s job or responsibility to deal with criticism so everyone can individually just ignore it. There’s also a continuity problem where basically each individual tends to see a random selection of what I post, which makes it hard to explain anything long, complicated and based on some different background knowledge than most people here believe or are familiar with. I agree that standardizing methods is a work in progress rather than finished, but it seems most people are not working on it, don’t want to, and don’t want to debate the matter. Do you want to try to have a serious discussion over time and try to reach some conclusions?
Hmm, not sure how that job would work, but if someone could be paid to fix all of EAs coordination problems, that’d probably be worth the money. It is the responsibility of anyone who wishes to assume that responsibility. And if they can, I really hope they do.
I’m a very slow reader, but do you wish to discuss (or debate it!) over a video call sometime? I’m eager to learn things from someone who’s likely to have a different background on the questions I’m interested in. : )
I doubt that’s going to work, but I can ask some questions about your proposal to check. My first question is whether you had in mind a public or private call.
Happy to either, but I’ll stay off-camera if it’s going to be recorded. Up to you, if you wish to prioritise it. : )
You didn’t answer my question.
I’m confused. You asked whether I had in mind a public or private call, and I said I’d be fine with either. Which question are you referring to?
You didn’t say which one you had in mind.
Mh, I had in mind both, and wanted to leave it up for interpretation. A public debate about something could be cool because I’ve never done that, but we’d need to know what we’re supposed to disagree about first. Though, I primarily just wish to learn from you, since you have a different perspective, so a private call would be my second offer.
I consider calls inconvenient and inferior to writing, but I’ll view it as a cultural difference and try to be flexible. So I’ll do a recorded call, which I might put on YouTube, if we can agree on a time. Your listed times don’t work for me but you seem to use this forum at later times. Would noon (US Pacific time) or later work for you? Nov 21?
Yes! That should work fine. That’s 21:00 CET for me. See you then!
My email is emrik.asheim@gmail.com btw.
Ok what software? Is there an EA-related discord to meet and talk on?
My email is curi@curi.us
I certainly take you seriously, Elliot. However, I am strapped for time so I have not been able to review your video or more of your introductory material on debate trees. I’m stll leaning towards using a simpler set of nodes to describe an argument, and am hoping to find a basic graphical step-by-step of an actual example to let me step through your model in my mind, and compare what you do with what I would otherwise do.
EDIT: Oh, my informal debate policy at this point is to engage if I otherwise have resources to do so and the person is being a scout about an interesting topic (using Galef’s scout and soldier model). If they are being a soldier, I’ll supply them information if that’s in my interest. If they’re being manipulative instead of a scout or soldier, I might still supply them information but I don’t consider myself in an actual debate. At most, I’ll spend a little time clarifying my position (to avoid intentional misinterpretations when that’s feasible) then move on. I partition behaviors into manipulative and truth-building, and partition truth-building behaviors into scout and soldier behaviors. By “behavior” I mean external behaviors that indicate internal processing indicative of scout or soldier mindset. I cannot actually debate someone being manipulative. Obviously, if my behavior is manipulative, then it doesn’t qualify as genuine debate either.