[I don’t want to spam the Quick Takes section, so I’ll use this thread as a place to jot down some meta-ish notes on research and writing. (I might find a better place for this stuff later.)]
...
Some reasons I poke at words (i.e. when I ask “what do you mean by...?”[1])
I’m just caught up in pedantry / unnecessary nuance-finding
(I’m noticing a distinction that could be made, or some vagueness at the corners of this term, or a pathological example that doesn’t fit neatly into the category they’re trying to use ---- but it’s not actually that relevant or important)
I would personally value clarification / feel blocked by my uncertainty
I am just not following things / can’t picture what you mean / don’t know if you’re using this as some kind of jargon; I’m having trouble engaging with the rest without clarification here.
-> A variant of this makes it hard for me to engage with IMO-half-operationalized exercises or questions
like “what are your timelines” (to what?) or “rate this 1-10 on impact” (what do you mean by impact exactly?) or “how much influence do you think altruists/idealists have?” (...)
I’m trying to flag that a particular group of people will probably interpret the term in problematic ways
(i.e. not how you’re trying to use it)
I’m quickly reporting a bit of unprocessed “user feedback” about a reaction I notice in myself
Even if I can work through this myself, the doc can probably be improved here
I’ve noticed I feel confused and suspect that might be tracking a real issue with the terminology or with your argument
(or maybe I’m misinterpreting)
I can’t picture what this is meant to point to and don’t know if the (provisional?) use of the term is fake or not;
you may want to consider tabooing it, and I would probably personally appreciate it
[Probably others, may add later]
Tbc often the background generator of a comment like this (especially before I’ve written it out-- when I’m at the point of considering saying or writing something) is not an explicit thought, and certainly not something that cleanly maps into one of the above. Often it’s just a fuzzy intuition that something is off; things aren’t matching up/ they’re of the wrong type, or I’m struggling to keep a picture in mind (I’m just lost and can’t even start putting it together or I’m failing to make one that doesn’t look absurd, …), or I’m feeling something like triggered by the word (maybe because I’ve seen people talk past each other with it in frustrating ways, or because I have sometimes felt like it’s circular in the bad way), … This list was a quick attempt at noticing the differences later; I think I should train myself to notice more easily what’s going on, and in some cases I should process things more before posting or saying anything (and what to do will depend on the case I’m in).
==
(For “practical advice on threading the needle between pedantry and just vibing”, I remember liking this post btw, but I don’t remember exactly how relevant it was. Also stuff on inferential distances, maybe)
[I don’t want to spam the Quick Takes section, so I’ll use this thread as a place to jot down some meta-ish notes on research and writing. (I might find a better place for this stuff later.)]
...
Some reasons I poke at words (i.e. when I ask “what do you mean by...?”[1])
I’m just caught up in pedantry / unnecessary nuance-finding
(I’m noticing a distinction that could be made, or some vagueness at the corners of this term, or a pathological example that doesn’t fit neatly into the category they’re trying to use ---- but it’s not actually that relevant or important)
I would personally value clarification / feel blocked by my uncertainty
I am just not following things / can’t picture what you mean / don’t know if you’re using this as some kind of jargon; I’m having trouble engaging with the rest without clarification here.
-> A variant of this makes it hard for me to engage with IMO-half-operationalized exercises or questions
like “what are your timelines” (to what?) or “rate this 1-10 on impact” (what do you mean by impact exactly?) or “how much influence do you think altruists/idealists have?” (...)
I’m trying to flag that a particular group of people will probably interpret the term in problematic ways
(i.e. not how you’re trying to use it)
I’m quickly reporting a bit of unprocessed “user feedback” about a reaction I notice in myself
Even if I can work through this myself, the doc can probably be improved here
I’ve noticed I feel confused and suspect that might be tracking a real issue with the terminology or with your argument
(or maybe I’m misinterpreting)
I can’t picture what this is meant to point to and don’t know if the (provisional?) use of the term is fake or not;
you may want to consider tabooing it, and I would probably personally appreciate it
[Probably others, may add later]
Tbc often the background generator of a comment like this (especially before I’ve written it out-- when I’m at the point of considering saying or writing something) is not an explicit thought, and certainly not something that cleanly maps into one of the above. Often it’s just a fuzzy intuition that something is off; things aren’t matching up/ they’re of the wrong type, or I’m struggling to keep a picture in mind (I’m just lost and can’t even start putting it together or I’m failing to make one that doesn’t look absurd, …), or I’m feeling something like triggered by the word (maybe because I’ve seen people talk past each other with it in frustrating ways, or because I have sometimes felt like it’s circular in the bad way), … This list was a quick attempt at noticing the differences later; I think I should train myself to notice more easily what’s going on, and in some cases I should process things more before posting or saying anything (and what to do will depend on the case I’m in).
==
(For “practical advice on threading the needle between pedantry and just vibing”, I remember liking this post btw, but I don’t remember exactly how relevant it was. Also stuff on inferential distances, maybe)
e.g.
AGI/ …
“[the US] would want to … ; who are you thinking of here?”
[various bits of jargon]