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TheRat Chat

Example of how irrational people are and how hard it is to deal with. Think you're better at reason youreslf or better able to engage with people productively? Test your skills in discussions and share transcripts for critical analysis. If you never test how good you are, and take other steps to get good, you should assume you're highly irrational. Highly irrational is the default.

This is from the public Fallible Ideas Discord.


TheRat:

However, I reject your summary of the discussion.

JustinCEO:

hey Rat, do you think curi puts in a fair amount of effort in general re: explaining things carefully, doing things like making discussion trees, referring people to resources relevant to the point at hand, etc?

JustinCEO:

@TheRat

TheRat:

I think he does both things. Put a lot of effort in some things, and make unargued, unexplained assertions too.

JustinCEO:

Rat has their been any instance you can point to where there was no path forward, nothing you could have done to try to address some conversational impasse? Where curi left no route for making progress in the discussion? If you answer in the affirmative, link or quote please

TheRat:

and tilts when someone even slightly presses him to explain himself

TheRat:

like yesterday

TheRat:

called it "demanding' and nonsense of the sort

curi:

rat have you ever done this? https://curi.us/2232-claiming-you-objectively-won-a-debate

curi:

or ever used my debate policy?

JustinCEO:

@TheRat I suggest you consider whether an organized attempt to demonstrate what you regard as curi's unreasonableness (with quotes, discussion tree, whatever) might be a better use of your time than venting in the chat.

JustinCEO:

make it clear as day for us all if you can. the more clearly right you are, the easier your task should be.

TheRat:

I think the situation from yesterday is quite clear

curi:

oh that reminds me, the vegan never got back to me who was reading BoI and said he would write 3 blog posts then debate me (i said i'd take 3 instead of 20 for debate policy)

JustinCEO:

TheRat: I think he does both things. Put a lot of effort in some things, and make unargued, unexplained assertions too.

JustinCEO:

do you think there might be a relationship between the effort you put into some area and what sort of things you can quickly come to a correct judgment about within that area?

TheRat:

What's the relevance?

TheRat:

nobody cares about his alleged skills at coming to a conclusion. What matters is his explanations of his conclusions

TheRat:

which he fails to do

JustinCEO:

1:34 PM] TheRat: I think the situation from yesterday is quite clear

Do you think you explained why you regard the situation as clear, Rat?

TheRat:

Don't shift it

TheRat:

He made the assertions

TheRat:

ot me

JustinCEO:

Do you concede you've made assertions?

curi:

curi:

why is rat doing meta discussion?

curi:

he says meta sux?

TheRat:

Let me put it as clear as I can, and hopefully you'll see it but you have a blindspot for curi so I don't have high hopes. Curi makes assertions he refuses to explain, what efforts he puts in other areas or how good he is at getting to conclusions etc.. is utterly irrelevant. Does he explain his assertions? No. If he asserts "You don't know how to do X" and is asked for an explanation, saying "What is your system to do X" is not an explanation. It is a dodge. He already made the assertion "You don't know how to do X" and he refuses to explain himself. This is an ongoing pattern with curi I have labelled PatternB.

JustinCEO:

Rat do you concede making assertions or not

TheRat:

Irrelevant

JustinCEO:

humor me?

TheRat:

Yes, but after we have resolved the problem of PatternB

JustinCEO:

by "humor me?" i was asking for an immediate reply on that discrete issue

JustinCEO:

Y/N?

TheRat:

I don't want to go off topic because as we have seen that never works.

JustinCEO:

one char direct reply would be lower effort than non-substantive reply alternatives!

TheRat:

also let him defend himself. You shouldn't fight his battles

JustinCEO:

this isn't a battle

TheRat:

he's hurting you by making you his proxy, you aren't thinking for yourself.

TheRat:

its not good

JustinCEO:

you're being disrespectful and offensive

TheRat:

You've successfully derailed the conversation. I'll go back to

Curi makes assertions he refuses to explain, what efforts he puts in other areas or how good he is at getting to conclusions etc.. is utterly irrelevant. Does he explain his assertions? No. If he asserts "You don't know how to do X" and is asked for an explanation, saying "What is your system to do X" is not an explanation. It is a dodge. He already made the assertion "You don't know how to do X" and he refuses to explain himself. This is an ongoing pattern with curi I have labelled PatternB.

TheRat:

and I refuse to move from that until he addresses it. Or concedes he makes unargued assertions frequently.

TheRat:

I am under no delusions that he will do either.

JustinCEO:

maybe part of the reason you won't give a one character reply to me in good faith is that you view discussion as a battle

TheRat:

Irrelevant Justin, please refer to my quote.

TheRat:

Since curi is clearly not afk but crying in his own channel, I can safely assume he is here and has read what I wrote. His inability to defend it here (this channel) I am willing to take as a concession that he is incapable of defending his assertions. And I can drop the matter of PatternB.

JustinCEO:

he tried to engage with you, just now

JustinCEO:

here

TheRat:

He failed to address the issue.

JustinCEO:

"crying in his own channel" you're being a really douchebag rat

JustinCEO:

super hostile flaming

TheRat:

Irrelevant Justin

TheRat:

please refer to my quote

JustinCEO:

You can't force a mind I guess. gl i'm afk

TheRat:

I accept your concession curi.

TheRat:

ill bbl

curi:

i wrote 2 msgs to rat and he hasn't responded yet... https://discordapp.com/channels/304082867384745994/304082867384745994/660595900346925077 [The link goes to the message "rat have you ever done this? https://curi.us/2232-claiming-you-objectively-won-a-debate"]

curi:

he's just baiting by lying

curi:

he thinks the nastier the accusations, the more social pressure he's exerting

curi:

and having them be false makes them extra annoying to facts-and-logic oriented ppl. bonus!?

curi:

and it's baiting by making it looks fairly easy to correct b/c it's simple, basic factual errors. but even this isn't actually fixable b/c he won't engage with reality.

TheRat:

I already said that asking me what I have done is not an explanation to your assertion

TheRat:

please read more carefully

curi:

if you think i've made an error, see https://elliottemple.com/debate-policy

TheRat:

Still not an explanation

TheRat:

Imagine if anyone thought that flew as an explanation. "Vaccines don't work." Why? "See my debate policy www.blogsmahfeels.com"


Elliot Temple on December 29, 2019

Messages (3)

I agree with our Rodent friend here.

curi thinks he can make unargued assertions and people asking him to defend himself are acting in bad faith.

Essentially curi would fail undergraduate philosophy 101.

I am glad that curi's feet were held to the fire, and he did not rise to the occassion. He lost every debate to several people. This was an illuminating experience for us all.

The Rat characterized curi accurately. Makes unargued assertions then links you to his debate policy as a way to deflect having to defend his arguments.

He should stop calling himself a philosopher and just call himself a self-help guru or something.


Howard Roark at 2:44 PM on December 30, 2019 | #14990 | reply | quote

#14990

HR wrote:

> I agree with our Rodent friend here.

He’s trying to sound cool by saying “Rodent” instead of the name “TheRat”. It’s a social climbing tactic. He's trying to get people on his side without explanations/arguments.

> curi thinks he can make unargued assertions and people asking him to defend himself are acting in bad faith.

This is an unargued assertion. Normally I’d ask for arguments/explanations but I’m not going to because I don’t expect this guy to engage me in a truth-seeking way.

> Essentially curi would fail undergraduate philosophy 101.

This is interesting for two reasons: (1) This statement is a social attack. It’s designed not for truth-seeking but for fooling the already-fooled. Failing an undergraduate philosophy 101 course is viewed as bad in our culture. (2) I think curi would actually fail an undergraduate philosophy 101 course, but I don’t think this for the same reasons as HR. I think he’d fail because the teachers would reject curi’s ideas unilaterally (ignoring curi’s ideas).

> I am glad that curi's feet were held to the fire, and he did not rise to the occassion. He lost every debate to several people. This was an illuminating experience for us all.

Some things I noticed:

- HR thinks pressuring people is good.

- No explanations or arguments. Nothing that has the potential to change anyone’s mind.

- Malevolent universe premise in action: HR does not want curi to succeed. He wants curi to fail. In contrast, a person operating under the benevolent universe premise would instead want curi to succeed (to rise to the occasion).

> The Rat characterized curi accurately. Makes unargued assertions then links you to his debate policy as a way to deflect having to defend his arguments.

This is either confused or deliberately dishonest. When curi links people to his debate policy (also his path’s forward policy, and I think there was another formal policy that gets at the same thing), the purpose is to help facilitate truth-seeking — to help go from disagreement to agreement.

> He should stop calling himself a philosopher and just call himself a self-help guru or something.

But curi doesn’t believe HR’s nonsense, so why should curi stop doing what he thinks is right? He shouldn’t. That would be second-handed.


44783 at 5:55 AM on January 19, 2020 | #15153 | reply | quote

Rodent

#15170

I always say rodent when I want to sound cool and get people on my side.


Anonymous at 2:09 AM on January 20, 2020 | #15174 | reply | quote

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