Source

patio11: A thing that keeps me up at night is that there is almost certainly, today, something which might not be shaped like penicillin but has a similar level of impact, and which is really sweating the next thousand dollars. https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1183833891209019392

patio11: And it’s not sitting in isolation; it is almost indistinguishable from 899 experiments which will go nowhere and 100 outright frauds which, after they lead the nightly news, will have your funding body of choice dutifully make sure that penicillin needs more paper for its grants.

patio11: I don’t know if I have a solution for this at the moment, other than not laughing when someone starts a conversation with “I think I am working on something bigger the penicillin.”

patio11: And, in the maybe 30% of lifetimes where I meet someone doing that, hopefully I immediately say “Good news, I have exactly one relevant professional skill. Here is all the money. Make progress on it and I can find you more.”

curi42: @patio11 I think I'm working on something bigger than penicillin. It's improved methodology for rational discussion and thinking. However, it's hard to monetize, hard to get anyone to listen or use it, and hard to use funding to help the project.

curi42: Also SENS (anti-aging research) is working on things that I think have a good chance to be bigger than penecilin. Their progress is being slowed dramatically by limited research budget. https://www.sens.org

patio11: @curi42 Most successful examples I can think of of popularizing "I simply think better than you" involve using single player mode to dominate valuable competitive environments until the entire world says "Oh eff me that parlour trick actually works." Sometimes this takes decades.

patio11: A corollary to this is that if one cannot dominate valuable competitive environments in single player mode, one should decrease one's estimate that one thinks better than everyone else. Examples from history: statistical process control in Japan, bond & options pricing, etc.

curi42: @patio11 SPC is massively underdeveloped today. Eg https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14783363.2015.1050181?journalCode=ctqm20 "Until now, there has been a lack of a sound, structured review analysing past publications and guiding future research on the implementation of SPC in the food industry context (Dora et al., 2013b; Grigg, 1998)."

curi42: And "The application of continuous improvement methods and techniques in the food industry are not as advanced as other industries and hence there are very few publications on Six Sigma and Lean Six Sigma in the food industry"

curi42: SPC is not single player: "Employees’ high resistance and lack of statistical knowledge are the critical barriers faced by the food producers in adopting SPC." And even that review paper ignores Eli Goldratt's report about increasing bread sales 90% in The Choice.

curi42: Major SPC advancements as proof of concept of great thinking was tried by Eli Goldratt. He wanted to teach the world to think. Had charisma to get thru biz consulting social gates. Worked great as career but his SPC ideas, let alone rationality ideas, are neglected.

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I like patio11 but I didn't expect him to actually want to discuss the matter. It's sad though. Comment below if you want to discuss it.

This is an open discussion topic for social metaphysics issues. Below is a conversation log which you can use as an optional conversation starter. It'll give you some leads on issues you might want to talk about.

StEmperorAugustine:
This one is Think Club. They look similar. https://youtu.be/bDTp4yg3XTk?t=396

StEmperorAugustine:
I like this retired Fighter Pilot. Seems to value reason more than most ppl I've seen on this.

curi:
is there something you dislike about reading?

StEmperorAugustine:
I like reading. Why did you say I dislike it?

curi:
why watch a debate like that over reading?

StEmperorAugustine:
over reading what specifically? I like reading and watching debates both. Not one over the other. What I like about debates is watching how people come to hold certain opinions and how they engage in trying to convince the other, or defend their reasoning. Reading I do more if I want to really understand a concept better in more detail.

Justin:
https://fallibleideas.com/books

curi:
You could read more. It is a choice you're making. And there are written debates which are better organized, give more info in a clearer way, e.g. the FI archives.

StEmperorAugustine:
Ty Justin. That reading list is what I am working on already plus some others. Starting with that list tho

StEmperorAugustine:
Reading takes more effort

StEmperorAugustine:
sometimes If I feel like relaxing I watch these debates

curi:
So the answer to the question "is there something you dislike about reading?" is "yes"

StEmperorAugustine:
I like it until I am to tired. I don't want to be misleading by saying I dislike it. I really like it. I like playing soccer but eventually I get too tired to continue.

curi:
you're not being very logical

curi:
you're confusing dislike something about reading with disliking reading.

StEmperorAugustine:
oh no. Where did I mess up?

StEmperorAugustine:
aaaah

StEmperorAugustine:
yes

StEmperorAugustine:
Parts of reading that I might dislike

StEmperorAugustine:
but not as a whole

StEmperorAugustine:
hmm. I don't really see getting tired after a while as the same as disliking it

curi:
you see reading as harder (higher effort) which is a downside which is a problem sometimes

curi:
audio books and text to speech allow you to read by listening. would that solve the problem of making it more relaxing like listening to a video?

StEmperorAugustine:
I have tried it, It helps but it still takes effort to think about the concepts being presented, and I do tire eventually too

StEmperorAugustine:
tho I am getting a bit better at sticking with it longer

curi:
doesn't following a debate take effort? those verbal debates are harder to follow than most books, IMO, because they're poorly organized and inconclusive (lots of loose ends to remember like a list of points that weren't answered).

NikLuk:
I do audiobooks the most. It can be combined with another activity. I like walking outdoors - that is easy to combine with audiobooks.

The negative with this combo is sometimes I get distracted and have to rewind some. I do not think audiobooks on new content are as good as actually reading the same thing, as I tend to miss more listening. On the plus side is I can work through the material faster.

curi:
the debates also lack editing. books are edited to take unclear or confusing parts and make them easier to understand.

curi:
with FI debates, you can easily reread context to check things to help you follow it. with YT debates that's hard.

NikLuk:
Re debates I think most of the time people just talk by each-other and avoid addressing the harder questions.

StEmperorAugustine:
What you're saying makes sense. books should be easier to understand due to editing. It still take more effort to me than to just sit back and enjoy a debate.

curi:
the standard reason for that is people watch debates socially. what they like about it is the social interaction, which is easier for them to follow than the intellectual stuff.

StEmperorAugustine:
so possibly what I enjoy about them is not the ideas presented but how they are presented and their interactions with the other guy

curi:
Adam Friended's body language and voice tones tell a story, a narrative, all by themselves without even listening to any of the words.

StEmperorAugustine:
Yes there's a lot of useful knowledge in just facial expression, body language and tone of voice

curi:
i didn't mean it's useful. i think it's an irrational way of bypassing which arguments are good to manipulate audiences.

curi:
voice tones are not arguments and can be done regardless of whether what you're claiming is true or false

curi:
it's not truth seeking

StEmperorAugustine:
What about useful in the sense of learning to be more persuasive when talking to other people

curi:
by persuasive you mean manipulating them b/c they are persuaded by things other than truth?

Justin:
Social persuasion is not rational persuasion

StEmperorAugustine:
not as a replacement for having true arguements but as a supplement

curi:
so e.g. if you get a more fashionable haircut, ppl listen more? that's irrational and it's pandering to their bad ideas.

StEmperorAugustine:
I think presenting yourself in a certain manner matters. Idk if it is manipulation, maybe in the sense that it might make the other person more receptive to what you have to say, and actually listen

Justin:
What about big tits as a supplement to arguments

StEmperorAugustine:
I think those signal something entirely different than what I had in mind

Justin:
Might make ppl listen more tho

StEmperorAugustine:
Honeslty they probably would listen less

curi:
looking smart and being smart are different things. if you try to look smart, you're playing into ppl's prejudices instead of focusing on truth.

StEmperorAugustine:
what about looking and being smart. Though "looking smart" is also not what I have in mind.

curi:
what's the upside there?

NikLuk:
Does the context not matter here? Say you're in advertising. Using more social would be beneficial, no? Was Jobs not good at the extra stuff making the releases more interesting for many people?

curi:
if ppl like non-arguments, they're wrong. if you want the practical result of more fans, it can work. if you want the truth, it's not helping.

curi:
advertising isn't truth seeking.

StEmperorAugustine:
Let's say I am making argument P. I can state argument P while being nervous, and looking messy, and mumbling etc.. Or I can make statement P with a good projected voice, a good sense of style, and clearly and confidently. The truth of P matter but how you deliver it does matter too. Like in a Job interview

Justin:
Matter for what

curi:
whether P or true or false is 100% separate from whether you looked messy when you said it.

NikLuk:

advertising isn't truth seeking.
Ok. Missed it was only about truth seeking. My bad.

StEmperorAugustine:
yes I am not arguing against that

curi:
so if ppl are focusing any attention on those things, it's bad, it's a distraction from the issues

curi:
it means less thought goes into what's true

StEmperorAugustine:
yes they are getting distracted from P which is what matters.

curi:
so it's bad to encourage that kind of thing, or to like that kind of thing, if the truth is what you value.

StEmperorAugustine:
if P is true regardless. Why is it not objectively better to present it properly and confidently?

curi:
who sounds confident or looks fashionable is a contest, a competition. the winners of that competition may have shitty ideas which then spread.

StEmperorAugustine:
not if the idea is the same

StEmperorAugustine:
in that scenario P is the statement that is true

curi:
the ppl who are best at sounding confident are not the ppl with the best ideas.

StEmperorAugustine:
ok but that's a different argument

curi:
if you have a good idea and also participate in that contest, you may be outcompeted at social stuff by someone with a worse idea. happens all the time.

StEmperorAugustine:
yes that can happen

curi:
competing at social stuff takes a ton of effort. it's a huge distraction. b/c that area is very competitive.

StEmperorAugustine:
well I am not arguing for competing at social stuff. Just at learning proper presentation. Only as secondary as presenting a proper idea.

curi:
and if you play that game, audiences spend some of their time not thinking about your argument, so fewer of them understanding what you said.

StEmperorAugustine:
secondary to*

curi:
what is proper and why is that proper?

StEmperorAugustine:
that I don't know

StEmperorAugustine:
being clear is proper vs mumbling

curi:
the way it actually works is there's no limit where you're good enough and you're done

StEmperorAugustine:
looking at your shoes vs at the audience

StEmperorAugustine:
that kind of thing

curi:
you can get to the 50th percentile or the 70th percentile at skill, or the 99th, and you can still climb higher socially

StEmperorAugustine:
I suppose you could but that's not really what I am arguing for.

curi:
there's nowhere to draw the line

StEmperorAugustine:
The line may be arbitrary but reality kind of imposes on you

curi:
there's no principle that says a certain skill at eye contact is important, but a higher skill at eye contact doesn't matter.

curi:
not reality. other people, and specifically the dumber ones, who you don't have to suck up to.

StEmperorAugustine:
there's so much time in the day, and you spend it building your argument. Once it is built then you can improve at presentation,

curi:
time is a scarce resource

StEmperorAugustine:
Indeed.

curi:
you could always put more time into truth seeking. any time on presentation is lost.

StEmperorAugustine:
I suppose it depends on the context too

Justin:
Augustine if you read FH u might have better understanding of FI view on social stuff

StEmperorAugustine:
Wouldn't your argument then depend on everyone having read FH then Justin?

curi:
you're changing topics a lot

StEmperorAugustine:
If I am presenting an idea and show up all disheveled, mumbled nervously through it, look at the shoes. Maybe the people who read FH are like right on. but somehow I doubt it

curi:
if your goal is truth seeking, what to do does not depend on how many audience members understand social dynamics rationally.

StEmperorAugustine:
that still doesn't tell me why presenting true argument P poorly is preferable than presenting it well. I mean presenting it as stating it in front of someone else or others.

curi:
https://youtu.be/bDTp4yg3XTk?t=3236 there are some examples here within 30s. e.g. Adam says "valuable" in a voice tone, does a shrug and does a voice tone at the end of the section right b4 the other guy talks again. those are just some of the more blatant ones.

curi:
Adam spends more than 50% of his mental effort, during a discussion, on thinking about (mostly subconsciously) what would impress dumb viewers, how to manipulate them, how to pander, etc. This gets more effort than his argument quality.

curi:
This is typical.

StEmperorAugustine:
The first thing people see is neither your personality nor your argument. A good first impression makes a difference. I agree that you should work on making argument P as strong as possible and that should be your focus. Then maybe you can put some effort in presentation. I still don't see the downside, but I do see the upsides. Could even be split 90% argument 10% presentation or move the dials there as needed.

Justin:
Augustine would you disregard someone's argument on some point if they didn't make eye contact etc?

StEmperorAugustine:
Depends on their argument

Justin:
!

curi:
Taking 10% of your effort away from truth is a downside.

curi:
Making eye contact in the socially normal way (an example Aug has given several times) takes a huge amount of effort. This effort is not recognized because the learning time and costs are mostly in early childhood. However, some people don't learn it then, are called "autistic", and are persecuted quite cruelly and extensively. The way people learn it in childhood is by learning to care more about how others think of them than about reality. It's part of a process where they learn not to prioritize truth, that they will be punished for not fitting in and need to prioritize that instead.

StEmperorAugustine:
But what if the truth of argument P is very important. Let's say if people adopted P the world would be a better place. Why would you not want more people to adopt P?

StEmperorAugustine:
Knowing that many do not hold your view on presentation

StEmperorAugustine:
and will judge based on that

curi:
People learn the "proper" way to do eye contact by learning to pay very close attention to the reactions they get from other people and then changing whenever they get negative reactions, and keep making changes until they get it right and get approval. This takes a huge amount of time and effort and the mentality is broadly incompatible with e.g. scientific thinking.

curi:
Aug you keep changing topics, we can't discuss everything at once.

StEmperorAugustine:
I have to go but once again I'd like to continue later.

StEmperorAugustine:
:slight_smile:

StEmperorAugustine:
ttyl

curi:
The things you're saying are everywhere but lots of ppl won't admit or say them in an intellectual context. They lie about how rational they are.

curi:
They're really bad though, but pretending not to think them just makes it harder to change.

curi:
One of the practical effects is ppl spend a lot of time engaging with lower quality material (in terms of ideas and truth seeking) b/c they want to watch ppl compete socially.

curi:
So they learn less.

curi:
ppl seek out material with e.g. facecam b/c they don't even know how to judge what's true, only how to judge social stuff.

StEmperorAugustine:
I've been thinking a bit about our discussion.

It is possible that we may be talking about two different things so I'll try to restate my position.

I agree that truth seeking is important, and that in an ideal world (even then I am not so sure that would be ideal) people would not care about how a message is delivered. But that is not how the world works.

People care about how the message is delivered as much as the message itself. For example, Jordan Peterson sells out large auditoriums in hundreds of cities around the globe. A lot of what he says is quite good, some is okay, other is standard self help stuff that people already know. But he is able to reach a large audience because he is a good speaker.

Another example, Job interviews. Most people get hired based on a 1on1 interview. They already have seen your resume, what they are looking for is how you present yourself. Are you someone they would be okay working with or talking to their customers.

It may be different for you because your job is to write philosophy articles. So you do not need to have charm perhaps. Although, even with philosophy articles you do have to worry about your presentation. Your website has to be readable, easy to navigate. Your sentences need to be clear and follow grammar rules to eliminate confusion.

All in all I think context matters. And as I said yesterday, if statement P is true. I would prefer that statement P is presented in a clear, unambigious, confident manner.

People think you should debate or explain stuff yourself, not cite books or articles. But the truth doesn’t depend on what ideas are in my head or what I remember. So they aren’t using a truth-seeking approach.

The proper way to deal with complex topics is to look at what’s already been figured out. Don’t reinvent the wheel. Try to research and understand the state of the debate. If you find something missing you can make an original contribution, add something new, but mostly you don’t do that for well-developed topics.

E.g. take economics and political philosophy. That’s a big, hard topic. Even most of what Rand, Mises or Reisman said about it wasn’t new. Partly they organized existing ideas and figured out which ones are important and how they fit together. They did add in some new ideas too. Most people add a lot less than that. And it’s harder today after them. Anyway, the point of debate/discussion isn’t really to add new ideas to the field. If you have a new idea, write it down. Then when you debate someone, your idea is a book or article that you can cite. So it’s just like citing a Mises book, it’s pointing at the existing literature and trying to figure out what the discussion tree looks like, what is answered and unanswered, refuted or not, etc. If you have an original idea and write it down so it’s part of the literature, then the general project of evaluating the literature is going to include evaluating your idea. Nothing changes.

People object to citations in discussion to address some practical problems. They include:

• Citing stuff you don’t understand or haven’t read.
• Citing a million things to overwhelm someone.
• Citing a new thing every time one is refuted.
• Judging cites by the author’s name or what his conclusion is.

The main problems here are appeals to authority and argument quantity over quality. The proper way to use cites is only to cite your best material on each issue, and if it’s refuted you don’t cite second best then third best, you start reconsidering. If your evaluation of the best material (in your opinion) was incorrect, your evaluation of other material is also suspect. Your way of evaluating needs to be reconsidered.

Discussion should be kind of like a research project where you each help the other guy look through the literature for your side. If I talk with a socialist, he can tell me the key chapters in Marx that, as a Mises-advocate, are relevant to me and he thinks Mises didn’t answer. There’s a ton of socialist literature and a socialist is a good person to help guide me to the best stuff and also, simultaneously, to the key stuff to criticize (or cite criticism of) to change his mind.

This does depend on your goal in discussion. Are you trying to figure out what’s true? Are you acting the part of scholar, researcher, intellectual trying to reach some conclusions? Then don’t do a literature-independent discussion. Alternatively, you might be practicing talking about ideas and practicing debating. If you’re just trying to practice explaining stuff, not actually trying to reach a conclusion in the field, then using little or no literature can make sense.

People routinely mix these two things up. They debate like it’s unserious practice, won’t consider literature, but also think, at the same time, that they are reaching conclusions and this is a reasonable way to form their opinions. They think it’s a serious debate that can figure out the right economics while, at the same time, that they don’t want to read Mises, don’t know of any refutations of Mises by anyone, etc. You can’t figure out the truth of economics in that manner.

Rewriting published material doesn’t make sense in general. Books are carefully written and edited. What I say in a discussion is going to be lower quality (unless it’s about a position lacking good literature).

So for well-developed topics (like economics but not AGI), most of your comments should be about how the literature fits together, how it applies to particular cases that come up, stuff like that. Like if Mises wrote a general principle and a guy has a question that it answers, usually what Mises wrote is not a direct answer to that exact question. So I can write 3 sentences explaining how Mises’ principle relates to the question and then cite what Mises wrote. Those 3 sentences by me help customize the general purpose material to a particular case. Those kinds of sentences are generally missing from the literature, but they’re very important because people have particular questions and don’t always see how the one-size-fits-many general statements in the literature answer their questions. Even if they’re good at that, maybe they figure it out 9 out of 10 times, but it’s still a big deal if I can help relate the literature to the remaining cases.

And there’s a lot of literature, so a socialist might not know which Mises book to look in to get an answer to a particular question, and maybe I can find the answer and find some key quotes a lot faster than him because I’m more familiar with Mises’ writing. So that’s something useful I can contribute to discussion, it’s a way I can be helpful. And similarly, he can help point me at socialist literature that addresses some specific questions I have because he knows where to find that better than I do.

Cites also improve discussion by providing more targets to criticize. If I cite a Mises book, now you have plenty of details about my position that you can point out errors in. In literature-excluding discussions, people will bring up their ideas and never give you enough details about what they mean. They aren’t rigorous enough about explaining, piece by piece, how their claims work. They often change their position mid discussion. Literature is a fixed target that’s suitable for critical analysis.

And how do you get your own position, alone, on a complex topic like economics? You learn some parts of the field and, for other parts, you don’t investigate it beyond a summary level. You don’t have time to go into everything because it’s such a big field. Even professional economists specialize and can’t cover everything. For someone like me who has read a lot of economics but it’s not my specialty, it’s not even close – there are tons of issues where I believe it’s been covered by Austrian economics, and I could look it up if it came up, and I have some kinda summary info about it which makes sense to me and fits with other ideas and principles I have, but I haven’t carefully checked all the details. That’s how it’s gotta be. It takes many people working together and writing books and so on to develop all the complexity and detail that goes into a position in economics. The field’s standards are so high that it’s too much for one person to cover it all. You can understand the main principles as one person, you can think rationally, you can investigate areas you think may be problematic, you can investigate areas that discussion and debate partners bring up, but you can’t just go step by step through every last thing in the field, detail by detail, there’s been too much thinking about economics done. So to get a position I look for a body of work that I think gets stuff right. Ideally I find one I’m 99% happy with and my position can be “Austrian economics + X, Y and Z” and just make a few changes based on my own ideas (as long as the changes are isolated, that’s OK. If I want to change some major economic principle, it’d end up changing hundreds of conclusions, so it’d be a big issue.)

Less ideally (it’s more work), I might use the ideas of one school of thought for one big part of the field and another school of thought for another big part. That’s what I do in philosophy. I have Critical Rationalism for the majority of epistemology but not all of it, and I have Objectivism for some other parts of epistemology and for several other major areas of philosophy, and I also have David Deutsch for some other stuff like jumps to universality. To do this, one has to create more supplemental material explaining what’s used for what. It’s more complicated than just agreeing with one school of thought (even with some minor customizations). It’s still far less work than developing all the ideas from scratch.

Developing ideas from scratch is, in general, bad. It’s like rewriting software from scratch. You end up creating a bunch of new bugs. The existing stuff has been exposed to a lot of critical thinking. Many errors/bugs have been fixed. If you start over, you might think you’re fixing all the problems, like now you know what you’re doing and will get everything right, but what actually happens is making tons of mistakes including tons of mistakes that were already made and fixed in the past.

If the existing ideas are inadequate, in general you should help improve them instead of just ignoring them and trying to develop new ideas. This is especially true for complicated, established fields like economics or philosophy. It’s less true for a very new field like AGI, but even then you shouldn’t be e.g. reinventing algorithms, data structures, or programming languages – there’s lots of existing stuff that’s worth using (even an imperfect programming language is generally far better than trying to make a new one).

It’s kinda like existing human knowledge is a million points but has flaws, and if you help get it up to a million and 500 points, you improved things. But if you start over, you aren’t actually helping for the first 999,999 points, you’re still behind, so you have to do so much work before starting over is useful. Yeah maybe if you reinvent 100,000 points from scratch there will be a big chunk there someone could use and combine with some existing knowledge, but if that’s what’s going to happen you might as well do that yourself (develop in, from day 1, as an improvement on some existing knowledge – as something that can be added to some existing knowledge and/or some changes to some existing ideas with problems – rather than ignoring existing knowledge and leaving it to someone else to convert your work to be relevant to other ideas humanity has).

It’s hard enough to work with existing knowledge and improve it. Most attempts actually make it worse. It’s hard to understand how existing knowledge works, what the problems are, and how you can make changes without breaking things. It’s much worse, though, to just take the field itself and try to solve it yourself without all the help and guidance of existing knowledge. Then you’re trying to outcompete thousands or millions of people’s cooperative efforts by yourself.

Most people trying to build up intellectual systems from scratch don’t know much about the literature. It’s related to the cliche that you need to know the rules (e.g. of English) before breaking them. If you don’t understand what’s already known and what’s good about it, you aren’t in a position to do things differently and do a good job. But once you do understand the literature well, and get a good grasp on what’s already known, then you’re in a good position to improve it. A lot of why people want to start over, instead of adding to existing knowledge, is specifically to skip the step of learning much about what’s already known. They’ll never accomplish much.

Discuss whatever.

If you post a link or quote, express an opinion about it, ask a question, say something. Also, if you think something is bad and are posting it for criticism, say so – the default expectation is you agree with, and have a positive opinion of, whatever you post. Or if it seems good to you but you're sharing it because you have doubts and want to find out if people have criticism, say that.

If you don’t have a debate policy, you have an unwritten, biased, inconsistent debate policy. Just like if you don’t have a philosophy, you still do, it just hasn’t been given much study or conscious consideration.

Public intellectuals use unwritten rules for who they talk to (gatekeeping, filtering) and how they talk during a discussion (how they think rational, productive discussion works).

Unwritten rules are confusing to others. They’re not predictable. If an intellectual had written gatekeeping rules, I could know “If I do X, Y and Z, I’ll get a discussion.” With unwritten rules, it’s unclear what’s even relevant (what helps at all), let alone what’s adequate, what’s enough.

Unwritten rules are usually applied inconsistently. They let people be biased and prevent accountability. They let people easily lie about the reasons for decisions (like not discussing with a critic).

Bias and dishonesty are hard problems. Instead of being confident we’re great at them, we should make it easier on ourselves. Written rules help keep us honest and prevent bias from affecting our discussions. We should be happy to find ways to combat bias and dishonesty rather than being so arrogant as to think that’s unnecessary. (Some people seem to think that doing anything about bias is like an admission of weakness, and admission that maybe they aren’t fully rational, so they’d rather take no anti-bias actions in order to deny they have any problem with bias.)

During discussions, people have unwritten rules for what they think should be replied to, what questions should be asked and answered, how much effort to use, whether links should be read or ignored, how conclusions are reached about sub-issues, in what circumstances the overall discussion should end. People who try to have discussions usually disagree about some of these things. Because neither side writes down or explains how they think this stuff works, it’s an ongoing source of conflict and misunderstanding. And then at some point someone gets frustrated and ends the discussion. Or they just end it because they’d rather do something else and that’s that – and then they also claim they’re really open to discussion and interested in ideas (just not that time, apparently, though they often make excuses like saying the other guy’s messages were low quality without providing conclusive specifics).

Going from unwritten, ad hoc, “I know it when I see it” type rules/behavior, to written, documented, policies procedures, methods and rules is a huge upgrade. It’s similar to going from “whatever the dictator says goes” (unwritten rules) to a system of law and order. The way intellectuals behave is really primitive compared even to governments (and I have a lot of criticisms of governments).

This is the unexamined life. People don’t know why they do things. They don’t know how they choose which discussions to have, what to do in the discussions, or when to end them. They don’t understand themselves. Writing down their discussion methods and policies is how they could both discuss better (figure out what their goals are, what they think is good discussion, share the idea with others, and try to do it) and also better examine their life, understand themselves, learn what they actually do (take some of their intuitions and whims and turn them into considered, written statements).

When people end debates, they usually don’t even try to make an objective claim that they won (or, impersonally, that particular arguments were adequate to reach particular conclusions). Here’s a standard form for an initial impasse statement which is worth knowing:

Here is my understanding of the situation: My arguments, X, Y and Z, were adequate to objectively establish my conclusion, C. Those arguments were conclusive. I said enough that you should be persuaded. A rational, unbiased observer would agree that those arguments won the debate and would tentatively accept the conclusion C. You gave no substantive replies to X, Y or Z (except for one reply to X, which was refuted by my reply X2, which you did not substantively respond to). You made no substantive arguments about C that I didn’t address. There are currently no open questions left. So you should concede, change your mind, and start learning about C. Or else, say something new to change the situation. But you won’t do any of those, which is an impasse.

Most people end discussions with less than this. Not an abbreviated version of it (which could be fine) but less content. They don’t even claim to have won the debate. If you can’t even make a statement like this, you have no business giving up on the discussion.

To have won a debate, you have to be able to claim to have won the debate. That’s necessary but insufficient. It’s required but it’s not enough. Your claim could be wrong. But if you don’t even have a claim like that, you didn’t win. That means making a claim like “In [quote] and [quote2] I gave compelling arguments. I tried several times to get you to engage with them. You didn’t. They were adequate that they should have persuaded a reasonable person.” Making a claim like that is the bare minimum needed to think you won the debate. Actually checking whether that claim is true is a more advanced step but most people don’t even make the claim. They don’t realize that’s the sort of thing that would indicate you won a debate. They don’t know that’s the goal.

Your goal in a debate is to objectively establish some claims. Make adequate arguments for why those claims are correct. Adequate means they should be persuasive to an intelligent, objective, neutral observer. People can easily be wrong about what’s objective or adequate but they should at least try to do this. But most people, in most debates, won’t even claim to have done it and seem to be unaware they were supposed to. People quit discussions without ever saying something like “I thought my argument X was adequate and your responses were missing the point. You’re not listening, dumb or biased or something so I’m going to move on.” That’s not great but it’s better than what people commonly do.

People usually stop discussing without even any claim to have provided information adequate to change the other person’s mind or help them learn better ideas. That’s irrational.

People usually end discussions without even claiming the other person did something specific wrong, was unreasonable about a particular issue, was irrational in a way they’ve stated (rather than just irrational in general), incorrectly judged any particular argument (with reasons the judgment is incorrect), or anything like that. Pointing out a specific, impersonal flaw with the discussion (rather than the person’s ideas) would also work. If you won’t point out any problem with the discussion or with the person, you’re in no position to end the discussion in your favor. And if you have no rational claim that you won, you should consider that you lost and you’re leaving to avoid facing superior ideas.

People often make general, non-specific comments about how bad the other person is or how dumb their arguments are. These do not attempt to rationally and objectively establish any particular claims about what happened in the discussion. They don’t provide a case for why they’re right which they could honestly think was conclusive.

When debating, you should try to make an objective case for some conclusions. You should get to a point where you can claim (in your own opinion) that your arguments were objective, rational and conclusive and the debate should now be over. If you don’t do that, don’t claim you conclusively won the debate. There’s a lot more needed, but this is a basic starting point that people often don’t even reach.

November 1, 2019 Climate Change Discussion in the Fallible Ideas Discord Chat

Kurapika(Mentally untouchable):
What do you guys think about the tree planting event going around on youtube?

JustinCEO:
No idea what you're referring to @Kurapika(Mentally untouchable)

JustinCEO:
Can u link?

Kurapika(Mentally untouchable):
@JustinCEO https://youtu.be/U7nJBFjKqAY

Kurapika(Mentally untouchable):
This is a trend on youtube.

JustinCEO:
Watched a minute of vid, seemed bad and dumb. Will say more later

JustinCEO:
They didn't explain who MrBeast is or why we should care. Or why this was a good project. Or alternate projects they considered. Or alternate ways of implementing this project they considered. They wasted much of first minute on playing music and showing ppl doing stuff in order to create a certain kind of social vibe and pull on the puppet strings of viewers. They figure their target audience will be more likely to donate if presented with a video with the right sort of vibe instead of leading with some kind of explanations. They're right.

StEmperorAugustine:

Watched a minute of vid, seemed bad and dumb.

Probably why you should not judge a book by its cover :). The video actually has a lot of cool explanations about trees and how to plant trees using drones. I thought it was not bad and not dumb :).

curi:
It’s part of a movement to destroy civilization tho

StEmperorAugustine:
How so?

curi:
Why plant trees?

StEmperorAugustine:
A nice way to reduce co2 and increase o2 :). It is volunteering work which is great for the soul and no coercion.

curi:
Why reduce co2?

StEmperorAugustine:
Save netherlands!

curi:
The narrative you haven’t said is global warming. The goals and meaning of the movement are well known. They want to shut down the modern economy with a scare story.

StEmperorAugustine:
I feel like that's true of some but probably not true of all. However, I haven't looked at it much, not to mention the science seems rather complicated so unless you're a climate science expert what do you do?

I know a lot of it is destructive especially if they intervene in the markets etc... but volunteer tree building seems fine to me. What are the downsides of tree planting?

curi:
They are doing video propaganda not just planting trees

curi:
They are wasting millions of dollars

curi:
The way ppl like volunteer work and charity is anti capitalist

curi:
You even implied that regular work is bad for the soul and coercive

StEmperorAugustine:
ugh it is :(. I think most people hate their jobs. Though coercive? eh Idk you can always leave but many people have limited options.

curi:
Re complicated science: the tree planters didn’t care about that. Didn’t research it or try to educate ppl about it. Just risked being wrong and dragging their fans with them

StEmperorAugustine:
They trust the scientists I suppose.

curi:
Which scientists? There are scientists on both sides

curi:
Seems more like they trust NYT CNN AOC imo

StEmperorAugustine:
Seems very one sided. https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/

StEmperorAugustine:
those are not NYT CNN and idk what AOC is.

curi:
That's corruption and the NYT, CNN and AOC are part of the cause of it. AOC is the green new deal person.

curi:
It seems one-sided in part b/c of ongoing suppression of dissent.

curi:
In part because they're dishonest.

curi:
And in part because of the broader context of what the media has said.

curi:
And by one-sided you don't really mean one-sided, you mean that one side is more popular than the other. Popularity isn't truth as any real scientist would tell you.

curi:
These are the kind of people who crusade for minorities ... but not scientific or intellectual minorities, who they try to suppress. They prefer to focus on e.g. skin color.

StEmperorAugustine:
https://skepticalscience.com/97-percent-consensus-robust.htm

curi:
That is propaganda.

StEmperorAugustine:

These are the kind of people who crusade for minorities ... but not scientific or intellectual minorities, who they try to suppress. They prefer to focus on e.g. skin color.

StEmperorAugustine:
this is true

curi:
It's propaganda which isn't even about co2 or warming. It's tangential or meta propaganda.

curi:
It's not even trying to be about science. It should be put out by pollsters not scientists.

curi:
what does NASA know about polling? not their expertise.

StEmperorAugustine:
Isn't this confating two issues though? The science of climate change and the proposed solutions. I agree that there is a lot of non-solutions and opportunism from the left using climate change as an excuse.

JustinCEO:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/alexepstein/2015/01/06/97-of-climate-scientists-agree-is-100-wrong/amp/

curi:

Isn't this confating two issues though?

which statement is doing that?

StEmperorAugustine:

That's corruption and the NYT, CNN and AOC are part of the cause of it. AOC is the green new deal person.

StEmperorAugustine:
how do you know that nasa and all these other organizations are the propaganda but Alex Epstein is not?

curi:
how does that comment conflate "The science of climate change and the proposed solutions. " ?

StEmperorAugustine:
Isn't the green new deal a proposed solution? if we can even call it that.

curi:
yes but what's wrong with a statement telling you who she is? you asked.

StEmperorAugustine:
I thought you issue with these people were what they were proposing and their scare mongering and stuff.

curi:
you're losing track of context

StEmperorAugustine:
but anyway, how do you know that Alex Epstein is not the propaganda?

curi:
re how to tell what's right, in short you make a discussion tree and look at what arguments and questions have not been answered. https://curi.us/2229-discussion-trees-with-example

curi:
if you made a discussion tree of this discussion, it'd help you avoid losing track of the purpose and context of statements.

StEmperorAugustine:
I really rather not do that tbh. Seems like a lot of work. I am skeptical of all things related climate change. Too political. I err on the side of trusting the consensus for this one. I don't think a non-expert is in a position to understand this matter. Unless it is cases like with the green new deal or w/e its called in where a lot of the solutions have nothing to do with the climate, then you can call bs on that even as a layman.

curi:
you can't know what consensus exists, or what is a safe conclusion, without any rough approximation of the discussion tree

StEmperorAugustine:
By discussion tree you mean our discussion or you mean the climate science discussion.

curi:
climate sci discussion

StEmperorAugustine:
Yeah that honestly seems like a huge project to undertake, having a hard time seeing the upside.

curi:
if you don't want to undertake it you should, in the mean time, remain neutral

curi:
you should say you don't know and try to avoid doing things that would be evil if either side was right

curi:
that's very hard in this case b/c of the sweeping, clashing claims

StEmperorAugustine:
yea I am pretty neutral about it. Leaning on the side of scientific consensus. Which is why I trust vaccines, the earth is not flath kind of thing.

curi:
that's not neutral, it's believing propaganda. you're being a promoter of certain claims and ideas.

curi:
you are modeling the 97% consensus claim, or a similar claim, as basically true and unanswered in the discussion tree

curi:
this is a very partisan model

curi:
your sense of what's neutral is highly related to what the mainstream media says.

curi:
your positions on vaccines and flat earth are also not neutral.

StEmperorAugustine:
thats true

StEmperorAugustine:
btw is your position that there is no climate change happening? Or that it is not man made? Or that you don't beleive the predictions? or that you disagree with the solutions presented?

curi:
the prediction models are terrible. very unreliable. we don't have exact knowledge but there's presently no reason to be catastrophically worried. and the solutions are so bad they'd be bad ideas even if all the factual claims about the problem were true.

curi:
long range weather forecasts are very hard.

StEmperorAugustine:
I think you're right about the solutions. I hope you're right about the other stuff.

StEmperorAugustine:
Though if you are right, it would be terrible for public trust in our scientific institutions. So part of me hopes you're just really politically biased 😦

curi:

“You know, Dr. Stadler once said that the first word of ‘Free, scientific inquiry’ was redundant. He seems to have forgotten it. Well, I’ll just say that ’Governmental scientific inquiry’ is a contradiction in terms.”

curi:
Atlas Shrugged

curi:
our "scientific institutions" are already horribly broken and should not be trusted.

curi:
after massive intervention in the economy, the government has taken over as the primary funder of science, and the vast majority of scientific work done today is crap.

curi:
and that's part of where the global warming "consensus" comes from, btw: biased funding.

StEmperorAugustine:
That is terrible news. If you got cancer what would you even do, can't trust the scientific instiutions, doctors etc... what options are there? What a disaster 😦

curi:
our current cancer treatments are considerably better than nothing.

curi:
doctors give bad advice about many things

curi:
you should do your own research for anything important

curi:
i would research cancer a lot more if i had it

StEmperorAugustine:
how though. Can't trust the scientists that publish the research

StEmperorAugustine:
can't do your own

curi:
you can read papers

curi:
instead of trusting or not trusting the conclusions

curi:
you can figure out what the arguments about the issues are

curi:
what the data is

curi:
and think about it

StEmperorAugustine:
but you don't have any biomedical training do you?

curi:
you can discuss it and ask for criticism on FI. you can find other forums where some ppl may discuss some.

curi:
most papers can be evaluated with very little field expertise.

StEmperorAugustine:
You said most people in FI are programmers right?

StEmperorAugustine:
Oh I see

curi:
you can usually judge the quality of arguments without knowing the field, e.g. is it a correlation=causation type claim?

curi:
you can also learn some of the field.

curi:
how long does it take to get up to ~half the education they had? a month? their education was mostly wasting time.

curi:
if you're 10x or more better at learning and don't use school, you can catch up a fair amt quite fast.

curi:
maybe not half but u can be selective about which parts are relevant, leave out a bunch of stuff u don't need

curi:
like you can skimp on labwork skills if you wanna understand papers.

curi:
you may miss the occassional error about lab procedure but it's not a huge problem

curi:
i've had no trouble reading papers about neuroscience and serotonin without needing a month or even a day of study first.

StEmperorAugustine:
I think most people don't have the kind of time to do this sort of thing

curi:
you should make the time if you get cancer.

curi:
at least you should if it was just a time issue

curi:
most ppl don't have the skill for it. much bigger problem.

curi:
so, ought to learn philosophy before getting cancer.

StEmperorAugustine:
well yeah but you probably need to work as much as possible just to pay for that cancer treatment

curi:
ummm health insurance

StEmperorAugustine:
thats true

curi:
also if ur breadwinner ur spouse can look into it instead of you.

StEmperorAugustine:
I think the average person really has less choice, they kind of have to trust the experts

curi:
who gets to be labelled an "expert" and why?

curi:
that method sorta half-works for some things but is very bad for others like lots of political issues like whether minimum wage increases are a good idea.

JustinCEO:
http://justinmallone.com/2016/02/paul-krugman-is-terrible/

curi:
global warming is a political issue.

curi:
chemotherapy isn't

StEmperorAugustine:
many years of study and scientific literacy for one. Doctor goes through what, 4 years of Uni, 4-5 med, 7 of specialization. What does a waiter in East Florida do if they get cancer. Trust that Doctor seems like her option.

curi:
however i've researched some medical issues like birth control options and acutane side effects. expert doctor advice on those matters is very bad. they massively downplay risks, dangers and side effects, and play up effectiveness.

curi:
uni credentials are biased and corrupt. they aren't especially biased about cancer treatments but they are about politics. teachers and adminstrators push out students with certain ideas, punish them, falsify grades, deny funding, don't hire them, etc.

curi:
they encourage campus speakers with some ideas while suppressing others

curi:
and they will do this against majority viewpoints.

curi:
many of the positions getting this kind of biased use of power in their favor were minority positions when it started but are majority now due to decades of indoctrination from trusted authority figures.

curi:
in a free market system, which we don't have, if you got cancer you'd speak with several doctors before selecting one. just like you go talk to several lawyers about your case.

curi:
doctors vary quite a bit and blind trust in the first one you run into is unwise.

curi:
you claim doctors have scientific literacy. it appears that even medical researchers (only a fraction of them) create a majority of studies that don't replicate.

StEmperorAugustine:
THERE's NO HOPE 😦

curi:
there's lots of hope but it doesn't come from trust

curi:
gotta use your own mind, learn stuff, etc.

curi:
when you can't get to everything, you can form opinions about who has researched something with good methods already or what areas of our culture are less broken and more reliable.

curi:
for example i read Ending Aging by Aubrey de Grey and judged the argument and explanation quality in the book was good

curi:
so i have a positive opinion about his medical work and research in general, based not on trust but my critical judgment of his reasoning.

curi:
it's not that he has credentials but that i saw him do good thinking

StEmperorAugustine:
I see.

curi:
i'm sure some cancer doctors have good books or articles which are readable by advanced lay ppl, which could impress you, and which (if you had free choice of doctor) would be a much better way to choose a cancer treatment plan (consult that guy) than trusting a random doctor.

StEmperorAugustine:
What about like, before you cross a bridge. Do you trust the engineers that built it or do you have prior critical judgement of bridge builders in your area.

curi:
you, having read some of my articles, could expect me to be right about AdG without even reading his book, and you'd still have some judgment involved.

curi:
our bridge engineering standards aren't corrupt in ways that make our bridges collapse. that part of our culture isn't toooo bad. if anything i imagine they over-engineer. if a bridge was gonna collapse it'd prolly be b/c some shitty city govt hired dishonest contractors to actually build it.

curi:
btw i spoke with AdG about a paper he wrote as part of a debate with some guy about some scientific issue.

curi:
i agreed with him. he had good arguments

curi:
he believed that i was trusting his authority and reputation. he couldn't understand that i could actually evaluate the arguments in the debate myself, personally

curi:
he was unaware that they were actually 80% philosophy and more of what he wrote was in my field than his.

curi:
that kind of thing is common.

curi:
even if it was medical stuff, it's unreasonable for him to think i couldn't possibly have understood it. but it mostly wasn't and he didn't even know.

curi:
philosophy has logical priority for evaluating arguments in general. if the structure is "X implies Y, therefore I conclude Z" it doesn't matter what medical terms are contained in X, Y and Z.

curi:
scientists in all fields are inadequately trained in logic, philosophy, etc., so i can find errors like that throughout their papers.

curi:
they are always straying into my field, which they suck at.

curi:
to be fair, philosophers are, on avg, probably worse than physicists or mathematicians at such things.

StEmperorAugustine:
Interesting.

curi:
philosophy classes and professors are really fucking bad.

curi:
philosophy is the most important and most broken field.

curi:
so basically everyone in every science just wings it, improvises, dabbles in philosophy

curi:
they also trust some philosophy "experts" on some things like induction

curi:
but they also just make a bunch of philosophy claims of their own without thinking they should consult a philosopher for advice first, as they would consult a chemist if they made chemistry claims.

curi:
the situation is so broken ppl frequently don't recognize when they make philosophy claims (as they would recognize chemistry claims)

curi:
so, in short, i'm more qualified to read a paper on global warming than the author is

curi:
i'm missing less crucial expertise.

StEmperorAugustine:
Do you have any example of this?

curi:
i forget if i have one for global warming but there are several on my blog, in email archives. i analyze some serotonin stuff on YT.

curi:
i have a post on a grossly incompetent sam harris brain science paper

curi:
i've written about twin studies

StEmperorAugustine:
When I start reading a research paper. I just give up most of the time, they are written in such boring format and all the cite and numbers and math and graphs. Might as well be written in Chinese to me.

JustinCEO:
curi has read some on YT

JustinCEO:
U could watch and learn better approach

JustinCEO:
🙂

curi:
there's a generic skill of dealing with them which mostly works across fields. they aren't thatttt bad once u learn how to deal with them.

StEmperorAugustine:
awesome

curi:

Nevertheless, the existence of the expert consensus on human-caused global warming is a reality, as is clear from an examination of the full body of evidence. For example, Naomi Oreskes found no rejections of the consensus in a survey of 928 abstracts performed in 2004. Doran & Zimmerman (2009) found a 97% consensus among scientists actively publishing climate research. Anderegg et al. (2010) reviewed publicly signed declarations supporting or rejecting human-caused global warming, and again found over 97% consensus among climate experts. Cook et al. (2013) found the same 97% result through a survey of over 12,000 climate abstracts from peer-reviewed journals, as well as from over 2,000 scientist author self-ratings, among abstracts and papers taking a position on the causes of global warming.

curi:
this grossly ignores the possibility of systematic bias, suppression of speech and publication, etc., which is alleged by the other side. it's non-responsive to the counter arguments

curi:

In addition to these studies, we have the National Academies of Science from 33 different countries all endorsing the consensus.

curi:
you can see the argument quality from a statement like this. if 33 out of 33 academies endorse global warming, is that a good indicator 97% or more of more scientists agree?

curi:
as a first guess, i'd expect they endorse based on majority vote.

curi:
if 90% of scientists believe X, it'd be totally unsurprising for 100% of major, mainstream groups of scientists to have a majority that believe X.

curi:
i didn't read any other text from the page ( https://skepticalscience.com/97-percent-consensus-robust.htm ) and i already have enough info to judge they're dumb.

curi:
most ppl, when they argue, immediately make fools of themselves. doesn't take THAT much skill to see it IMO. you just think through what they say and mean and consider how it connects to their conclusion, and you look at some counter arguments and see how they handle them, and you check for bad logic and shit.

curi:
they link to this which claims earth getting warmer, blah blah

curi:
https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/WG1AR5_SPM_FINAL.pdf

curi:
the general context is we're at the tail end of an ice age. so i search the paper for "iceage", "ice age", "plei", "plio" and nada. maybe i have the wrong terms. one could try harder.

curi:
no "holo", one for "medie"

curi:

• Continental-scale surface temperature reconstructions show, with high confidence, multi-decadal periods during the Medieval Climate Anomaly (year 950 to 1250) that were in some regions as warm as in the late 20th century. These regional warm periods did not occur as coherently across regions as the warming in the late 20th century (high confidence). {5.5}

curi:
no "little"

curi:
it looks to me like they are failing to address basic facts. they just ignore them

curi:
no ceno, no Quaternary

curi:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleistocene

curi:
2.6 million years of winter ended 0.01 million years ago. irrelevant! not worth mentioning!

curi:
how much of a joke they are speaks to how biased the whole system is

curi:
tried age, era and epoch. doesn't help.

curi:
checked every use of "million". done searching.

curi:
the illusion is surface deep. besides the bad logic front and center, i click one source from https://skepticalscience.com/97-percent-consensus-robust.htm and it's got this massive problem with the first issue i check.

curi:
further, near the top

curi:
from the IPCC

curi:

The degree of certainty in key findings in this assessment is based on the author teams’ evaluations of underlying scientific understanding and is expressed as a qualitative level of confidence (from very low to very high) and, when possible, probabilistically with a quantified likelihood (from exceptionally unlikely to virtually certain). Confidence in the validity of a finding is based on the type, amount, quality, and consistency of evidence (e.g., data, mechanistic understanding, theory, models, expert judgment) and the degree of agreement1. Probabilistic estimates of quantified measures of uncertainty in a finding are based on statistical analysis of observations or model results, or both, and expert judgment2. Where appropriate, findings are also formulated as statements of fact without using uncertainty qualifiers. (See Chapter 1 and Box TS.1 for more details about the specific language the IPCC uses to communicate uncertainty).

curi:
this is epistemology. it's philosophy of science. it's my field, not theirs.

curi:
how to evaluate ideas, how to attain certainty, whether certainty comes in degrees, etc. are major epistemology topics.

curi:
my largest original contribution to the field, IMO, is basically an explanation of why their approach is irrational. https://yesornophilosophy.com

curi:
what is the role of evidence? how do you use it correctly? should you use probabilities? this is all the sort of stuff CR addresses. but they don't know anything about CR and don't care.

curi:
are they experts on Bayesian epistemology instead? no not that either.

curi:
they just plain aren't experts, by any measure, on the issues in this paragraph.

curi:
did they consult experts to help them with it? no.

curi:
re learning to read and question scientific papers, you're welcome to post them to curi or FI with questions

curi:
you will find ppl can comment on most papers, in any field, rather than just needing to leave it to the experts.

StEmperorAugustine:
Good idea.

curi:
https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/

curi:

curi:
this graph does one of the most basic ways of lying with statistics, which i read about in a middle school book report (yes, literally, not joking)

curi:
i went to the "Facts" menu, clicked "Evidence" to try to find out what is supposed to persuade me and get some scientific details, and i see this sort of propaganda instead

curi:
after that graph (anyone see the problem?) and one paragraph of text, their evidence page says:

curi:

curi:
that ain't evidence, it's appeal to authority

curi:

curi:
clicking on cite 4 does not improve things and does not lead to arguments, evidence or science for the claim that the change is driven largely by increased co2 and other human-made emissions.

curi:
this is just a propaganda website. no scientific rigor in sight.

curi:
and no need for climate science expertise to see this.

curi:
if you can find any claim which contradicts my position, and which does require climate science expertise to refute, i would be interested.

curi:
if you can't, perhaps you'll agree that says a lot about the debate.

curi:
i don't know one. i debate a lot of ppl and i've never found any pro-global-warming person who knows one.

curi:
these issues really don't take that long to deal with if u have the general purpose intellectual skills to deal with them at all

curi:
re hopeless: how easy it is to do better is very hopeful. 100 rational ppl could do so much.

StEmperorAugustine:
I am not in a position to know what claim contradicts your position so I likely would not find anything.

curi:
you're saying you're unable to find pro GW material that contradicts my claim their forecast models are unreliable junk

StEmperorAugustine:
Well I don't understand what would constitute reliable, nor understand their papers to tell the difference.

curi:
where did "reliable" come from?

curi:
o nvm

curi:
a good paper presenting a forecast model would say what standards to judge it with. it'd present standards and say how it meets them.

curi:
it'd solve your problem for you.

curi:
either self-contained or using a cite for more info.

curi:
if you can't tell – if you don't have the info to tell – that is their fault. they did it wrong.

curi:
they are supposed to present a persuasive case, not an incomplete, inconclusive case you can't judge.

StEmperorAugustine:
Do you have an example of a paper that meets that standard? could be in any field

curi:
DD's physics papers

curi:
this looks like it'd qualify http://web.gps.caltech.edu/~vijay/Papers/Chemistry/Donovan-Husain-70.pdf

StEmperorAugustine:
Anything easier to understand 😅 ?

curi:

curi:
first one i clicked

curi:
first search i did

StEmperorAugustine:

The marked difference in the chemical behavior exhibited by
the first singlet states of atomic oxygen and sulfur relative to
their ground states has been the subject of a large number of
investigations. However, data on the reactivity of the electronically excited states of other nonmetal atoms, particularly
those atoms that may lead to bond formation following reaction, are relatively limited. Historically, the work on atomic
oxygen and sulfur, principally in the ID2 state, followed extensive and detailed studies on photosensitization by metal
atoms in which the atoms, excited electronically by resonance
radiation, passed on their energy by collisions of the second
kind, thus being deactivated to the ground state or a lower
lying state.

StEmperorAugustine:
first like 3 sentences and my brain checked out already

StEmperorAugustine:
no idea what this is saying lol

curi:
the GW ppl claim, essentially, to have a bunch of papers like that on their side, and none against.

curi:
this is a lie.

curi:
their papers are much easier to read btw

curi:
if it were true, it shouldn't be that hard for you to find some such papers

curi:
they would presumably be shared and promoted

curi:
here's the first sentence of section 2 of the chemistry paper

curi:

Before proceeding with a detailed discussion of individual reactions it is convenient to summarize the general considerations necessary for a qualitative description of potential surfaces and the manner in which these influence the course of reaction.

curi:
in other words: b4 going into the details, we'll tell you how to judge read and think about the details. just the thing i said a good paper would have.

StEmperorAugustine:
oh

curi:
the paper is quite technical. it looks good tho and it doesn't appear to stray into philosophy.

curi:
so i have a positive opinion despite not knowing most of the technical stuff at all

StEmperorAugustine:
so compared to this paper, https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/048002

StEmperorAugustine:
where it doesn't have a bit in where it tells you how to judge and think about the details

StEmperorAugustine:
that's a bad sign

curi:
that paper is not science

curi:
they are straying into the field of pollsters

curi:
sentence 3:

curi:

A survey of authors of those papers (N = 2412 papers) also supported a 97% consensus.

curi:
the first half of the first sentence is notable

curi:

The consensus that humans are causing recent global warming is shared by 90%–100% of publishing climate scientists

curi:
they added a qualifier before "climate scientists" which you don't normally see

curi:
and there's this:

curi:

based on 11 944 abstracts of research papers, of which 4014 took a position on the cause of recent global warming.

curi:
doesn't mention the abstracts being by different ppl

curi:
anyway this issue is stupid and it's unscientific to be going around claiming popularity instead of truth

curi:
would be better to look at a paper related to climate and warming

curi:

An accurate understanding of scientific consensus, and the ability to recognize attempts to undermine it, are important for public climate literacy. Public perception of the scientific consensus has been found to be a gateway belief, affecting other climate beliefs and attitudes including policy support

curi:
god that's psychology. social science not hard science.

curi:

Consequently, it is important that scientists communicate the overwhelming expert consensus on AGW to the public

curi:
that's a political and moral conclusion, not a scientific one. it relates to values etc

curi:

From a broader perspective, it doesn't matter if the consensus number is 90% or 100%. The level of scientific agreement on AGW is overwhelmingly high because the supporting evidence is overwhelmingly strong.

curi:
that is an unargued assertion

curi:
you can't find out WHY ppl believe X by counting how many abstracts say they believe X.

curi:
as you can see, it's much easier to read this than the chemistry

curi:
they say lots of stuff you can understand without expertise about e.g. gasses

curi:
how many PUBLISHING scientists believe X is a dumb thing to count in an atmosphere where ppl denying X can get fired for it and papers denying X are often rejected or, more often, not funded in the first place.

curi:
ppl aren't even safe wearing MAGA hats

curi:
published papers with belief X says more about the beliefs of the ppl who run the journals than about the (other) scientists. (in this case, not for all journals, fields, issues). essentially they are just assuming, as an unstated premise, there's no bias here.

StEmperorAugustine:
Hmm. These are great points.

I have to go though. 😦 ttyl. Got a ton of HW to do🤢 . We are going on a trip 🤣 so I can't do it tomorrow or Sunday, and I've been procrastinating the heck of out of it.

StEmperorAugustine:
bye!

curi:
cu

Tips for tracking discussions well:

1. Write down a tree diagram (or, equivalently, a bullet point outline with nesting).
2. Whenever you write stuff and get a reply, note down anything you’d written which the reply didn’t address. Also note down stuff the other guy said which you didn’t answer. With this method, the open issues are the things on your list plus the stuff in the latest post. (This is simplest in a two person discussion where you take turns writing one message at a time.)
3. Get better at remembering stuff in discussions.

More on (1) and (3) below.

Trees and Outlines

Here’s an explanation of discussion tree diagrams with an example. And here’s another explanation below (actually written first, even though posted second):

Here’s an example tree diagram:

You can create tree diagrams with pen and paper or with various software options (some are mentioned in my other post on discussion trees).

Trees like this are always equivalent to outlines with nesting. Nesting X under Y in an outline is the same as drawing a line from X to Y in a tree (with Y below or to the right of X, depending on whether it’s a top-to-bottom or left-to-right tree). You can do both trees and outlines to get comfortable with how they’re the same. Both represent parent/child relationships (that’s standard terminology) where some things are attached underneath others. For discussion trees, replies are the children which you put under the thing they reply to. The “parent comment”, like on Reddit, is the thing being replied to.

Example outline which is equivalent to the tree:

• Family Thanksgiving
  • Plan Meals
    • Pintrest
    • Web Search
    • Old Favorites
      • Mashed Potatoes
      • Stove Top brand stuffing
      • Cranberry sauce
    • Traditions
      • Deep Fried Turkey
  • Go Shopping
    • Food Shopping
      • Turkey
      • Ham
    • Other Shopping
      • Table settings
      • Chairs

To outline well, you need to be able to write short summaries. E.g. take a three paragraph argument and condense it to one sentence for your outline. This is a skill you can practice by itself.

Remembering Stuff

With practice you can remember more stuff without writing it down. This isn’t automatic. It’s something you can work on or not. It helps to try to remember stuff, and to reread the conversation to look up stuff you did not remember. And it helps to consider it important when someone refers to something you’d forgotten, and go reread it and take note of your memory error (try to find patterns and causes for your memory errors).

A related thing to practice is remembering what you say or read in general. You can quiz yourself on this. After reading something, try to write down what it said without looking at it. Start with shorter stuff (or break longer things into parts, like reading one paragraph at a time). If you get good at this and find it easy, do it with longer stuff and/or do it after a delay (can you remember it 5 minutes later without rereading? 20min? 3 hours? 3 days? 3 weeks?). And do it with your own stuff too. After you write something, try to write the same thing again later. See how accurate you can be for longer stuff and after longer wait times. You can do this with spoken words that you hear or speak, but you won’t be able to check your accuracy unless they were recorded.

People often don’t clearly know what they just read, or can’t keep it in their head long enough to write a reply (e.g. if you spend 30min writing a reply, you need to either remember the text you’re replying to that long or reread it at least once to refresh your memory). People often partially forget, partially remember, and don’t realize the accuracy loss happened (and don’t realize they should selectively reread key parts to double check that they remembered those accurately).

It’s also good if you can clearly remember what you said 1-3 days ago, which someone just replied to. You’ll often get replies the next day after you write something. And to the extent you don’t remember, it’s important to realize you don’t remember, recognize you don’t know, and reread. It’s also good if you can remember details from earlier in the conversation, which could be a week or more ago – and if you don’t, you better review relevant parts of the conversation back to the beginning if you want to write high quality comments which build on prior discussion text.

It’s easier to remember, especially for older material, if you have notes. If you keep an outline, tree and/or notes on what was said (including copy/pasting key quotes to your notes file), it’s easier to remember. If you do that for a while, it’ll be easier to remember without the notes. The notes are partly like training wheels that help you learn to remember stuff (it helps you break the remembering down into parts – instead of remembering everything, you partly read your notes and partly remember stuff that isn’t in your notes, so this way you have less to remember, so it’s easier, which makes good practice because you’re working on part of the skill instead of the whole skill at once).

However, notes and outlines aren’t just like training wheels, they are also good things which you shouldn’t expect to ever entirely stop using. They’re useful for practice but also just useful. With practice, you may learn to use them less but still use them. Or you might use them more with practice as you get better at creating and using them. Remembering everything in your head, instead of using tools, is not necessarily a good thing. Remembering some stuff is useful but there is some stuff you shouldn’t be trying to remember. Remembering basically means temporarily memorizing. The anti-memorization ideas you already know about have some relevance.

Also, notes, trees and outlines are useful for communicating with others. You can use them in the discussion. If the other person gets lost and confused, or there is a disagreement about what happened in the discussion, you can share your outlines/trees/notes to communicate your view of what happened. This can remind the person and help them, or it can be compared with their outlines/trees/notes to figure out specifically where you differ (find somewhere your outline is different than theirs, go reread the original text, find and fix someone’s error).

Sharing discussion trees/outlines is a good way to help figure out what’s going on in difficult discussions that become chaotic. Most people don’t have the tree in their head, didn’t try to keep notes, and also can’t (don’t know how to) go back and create the tree for the current discussion. Sadly, people also commonly don’t want to review a discussion and create a tree. That’s because it’s work and people are lazy and/or think discussion should be much easier than it is. People have incorrect expectations about what it takes to discuss well, so if it’s not working with ease they blame the other person or they blame bad luck and incompatibility, but they don’t usually seem to think the thing to do is increase their skill and put in more effort.

Many people avoid resuming conversations after the first day – they want to talk a bunch at once (e.g. talk for an hour) and then never continue later. This is a really common way trying to discuss issues with people sucks and fails. It’s hard to get anywhere with people like this. A major cause of this problem is their bad memory skill. They don’t want to continue the discussion the next day because they forgot most of what was said. To be good at truth seeking, you need to be able to discuss things over time, which requires both memory and willingness to review some stuff sometimes.

More Complicated Discussions

This section is some more advanced and optional material.

A discussion tree can actually be a directed acyclic graph (DAG), not a tree, because one argument can reply to 2+ parents. In that case, a bullet point style outline won’t represent it. However, you usually can make a good, useful discussion tree without doing that.

Directed means the connections between nodes go in a particular direction (parent and child) instead of being symmetric connections. Nodes are places on the graph that can be connected, they are parents or children – specifically they are discussion statements. E.g. “Go Shopping” and “Cranberry Sauce” are nodes. Acyclic means the graph isn’t allowed to go in circles. You can’t have node A be a child of B which is a child of C which is a child of A.

A DAG can always be put in a topological ordering (linear order, 1-dimensional order, similar to an outline or list) which could maybe be useful. Cycles ruin that ordering but aren’t allowed because no statement in a discussion can be a child of a statement that was made at a later time. A child of node N is a reply to N. Because statements don’t reply into the future (and we can treat all statements as being added one at a time in some order), cycles are avoided.

Statements do reply into the future in a sense. Sometimes we preemptively address arguments. One way to handle this is to add a new argument, C, “A already addressed B preemptively”, as a child of B. This gets into the “last word” problem. Even if you preemptively address stuff, people just ignore you or make tiny changes to try to make a new comment required. The big picture way to deal with this is by criticizing their methodology – they are creating a pattern of errors which need to be addressed as a pattern instead of individually.