I just sent this to the Fallible Ideas Discussion Group (which is the best place to discuss philosophy. and everyone needs philosophy. so you should join!) I'm putting it on my blog because it's of general interest. It gives some pointers on how to write at FI which also apply to other forums. And it has ideas for making productive contributions to discussions.

in general, some of the recent threads have had some boring parts. that is ok so far. it's ok to try posting different ways and see what happens. i'd like to suggest some adjustments. i don't expect everything to change immediately and that's fine. but people can start discussing whether there's better ways to post and, if persuaded, start making some changes.

keep in mind that every email gets sent to over 100 people, plus people read on the website. and some people are bad at organizing lots of emails, or deciding what to read. people can get overwhelmed people can click on posts somewhat at random and read a post they aren't interested in rather than a much better post they would have loved. sending out posts has costs. it affects people.

so try to make each post count. try to make it have some interesting point anyone would be glad to have read (at least if they cared about the topic – if you're posting about psychiatry and someone isn't interested in psychiatry, that's no problem, and they ought to just recognize that and read a different post.) or at minimum, keep your post short (including quoting) and have it move the discussion forward in some way. if you need to post some clarifying question that doesn't have an interesting point, that can be ok. try to make a point if possible. try to say something about your thinking. it's possible to ask bad or boring questions. but now and then, only occasionally, a question without an interesting point can be OK. but really look for a point you can make, something you can say, to go with the question, to share some of your thinking on the topic or help explain why the question matters or something. there's usually something worth saying.

and please pay attention to what you quote. pretend you're writing a blog post and then think about what you'd actually copy into a blockquote on your blog. just quote that – the text you're actually replying to that people need to read. if necessary, do some paraphrasing so you can keep the amount of quoting small, like you would do on a blog. if your post is short, e.g. only a few paragraphs of quoting, then you don't worry about this. because like one computer screen worth of quoting doesn't get in the way, that isn't a hassle for people. but once it's a couple screens full of quoting for people to scroll through, then you should definitely be trimming it and just quoting the relevant part.

when you quote a ton, people are going to just skip it. they won't know which is relevant, and won't trust you that it's necessary for them to read all of it. (and they'll almost always be right – they didn't need to read everything you quoted. so that's your fault). please don't do this to people. there's no point having text in your email which no one is going to read (or a few beginners might waste time reading). and what if someone does need some context? what if they need to read some quoting to follow it? then you aren't telling them what quotes to read. if you quote the right amount, the communicates what they can read to catch up. if you quote the wrong amount, they have to figure that out themselves without your help.

and please stop being overly ambitious with posts that have 10 different sections which aren't related. almost all of you aren't that good at organizing long posts. and most people aren't that good at reading long posts either. try to keep your posts to 1-4 separate sections. 1 and 2 should be the most common, sometimes 3, and rarely 4.

(what's a section? if you quote something and reply, then quote something else and reply, that's two sections. a section is each time you have some quoting and then an area where you reply.)

it's also important not to put 20 hours into each post. don't get prevented from discussing because each post takes you forever. you should try to find a reasonable way of writing where your posts aren't a big burden for you, aren't too heavyweight, and you get feedback frequently. but your posts are also pretty good quality and say something (even if short. short is fine.)

to keep writing time down, keep your posts short but high quality. put a bit more time into quality, but less into length.

try to make your posts focus more on interesting issues and less on back and forth arguing. try not to get lost in arguing details that just aren't that important in the big picture.

in some threads, i've noticed people argue back and forth but the discussion isn't really going anywhere. it lacks a clear purpose and goals. discussions should either keep saying interesting stuff (about topics like economics or parenting or whatever) or else should have some kinda reasonably clear purpose or goal that is being moved towards. don't discuss aimlessly. either try to talk about an interesting topic or else state what your goal is (like to get someone to understand a specific point) and try to have each post move a step towards the goal. try to have somewhere the discussion is going, something it's trying to accomplish (and, often, share what that is).

don't argue just because someone is wrong about something. consider if it's important. consider if it will be useful for you, for the other person, or for the audience. and if you do argue, try to either be clear about why you think it's worth arguing or have your arguments say generally interesting content. (like you can argue by just saying a bunch of cool knowledge on the topic. great. or if you wanna argue with the details of what a specific poster said, that has less general interest, informs people about the topic less, so think about and maybe state why it's worth doing in this case, what you're trying to accomplish, etc)

try to watch out for when a discussion isn't being productive, or when a particular post didn't work well. sometimes you get a reply and you think, "umm, this basically leaves me with the same information as before. it doesn't help me say something better than i could have in my last post". try to watch out for when other people will react that way to your own posts.

People don't like homosexuals because they violate gender roles. That's the reason.

Homosexuals are rebels against society. Deviants who don't conform. Outsiders who resist social pressure. Threats to tradition. (Don't conform to what? Gender roles.)

The group (society) disapproves of disobedience towards the group. Our culture offers certain roles in society for people to live. Society is unkind to people who don't choose and live one of these offered social roles. Other lifestyles are considered illegitimate and receive negative treatment. To be treated well, live in a way the collective approves of.

Disliking homosexuals is a small part of a much broader problem. Conformity – and the ways it's enforced – goes well beyond gender roles.

If you're a parent and your kid wants something, common preference finding usually doesn't mean you have a long discussion. Most things kids want are small and immediate, and can be done faster than a big discussion.

If you think it's a good idea, just do it. If you think it's a bad idea, say this:

I'd rather not do that because [short reason]. If you still want me to, then I will.

Optionally, you might say briefly what you could do instead. Especially if it's a bigger issue, rather than a really little one. But only if you think your kid would want to hear it.

This way, there won't be a long discussion. There won't be a big back and forth. This strictly limits how much your disagreement delays your kid getting what he wants. It keeps transaction costs low.

But the kid does get advice. He does find out why the thing he's asking for might not be good. You wouldn't just want to do whatever he asked without sharing your useful knowledge about it. But you don't want to block him from getting what he wants by arguing a lot.

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Suppose your kid wants something and you're busy. Don't ask if it'd be ok to wait 20 minutes, and then he says he's not sure, and then you ask if 10 minutes would be ok. Then you're getting into a discussion that takes too long and is too unclear how your kid can get what he wants (now, if necessary).

Instead, say something like this:

I'm busy. Can you wait 20 minutes? Otherwise I'll stop and do it now.

This keeps it simple. You make one short objection. You give the kid some clear and immediate options. He can have what he wants right now with no further discussion. Or if he doesn't mind waiting, then you can finish what you were doing.

It's important to say stuff like this because the kid may prefer your alternative option. Sometimes he won't mind waiting. You wouldn't want to drop what you were doing every single time, even if the kid could have waited half the time. It's better for both of you if he sometimes prefers for you to finish, when it won't be a problem for him. But you also don't want to put a big obstacle between your kid and getting the help he's asking for.

A reason child may prefer to wait is that parental help is a limited resource. The child will benefit by using it efficiently. Interrupting the parent will use up a bit of the parent's energy, and it'll take some extra time to switch tasks and switch back (like to find his place again, and remember the context, if he was reading). In general, parent will be able to help more with other things if he's got fewer demands on him.

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In the examples, the parent does a single pushback on what the kid wants. This gives one opportunity for the kid to get new information (parent currently in the middle of something) or criticism (a reason it's a bad idea), and then change his mind. That's good because it allows for improvement, and without it a worse outcome would happen frequently. But multiple pushbacks is frequently too many and burdens the kid. A single pushback is a good amount to use for most everyday events.

If child agrees to wait, he may change his mind, or parent may be busy longer than expected. If child comes back and asks a second time, parent should help immediately. Don't repeat that you're busy or make a second request for child to wait. This keeps it to a single pushback for the issue and makes it safer for child to agree to wait.

Every single pushback or back-and-forth or layer of negotiation is a big deal. People don't have enough respect for how much that needs to be minimized. You can discuss back and forth more when your kid wants to, that's fine when everyone's interested in doing it. But there are going to be a lot of times when he doesn't want to.

Notice how these statements are structured to limit the amount of times the parent and kid go back and forth talking. Kid makes request. Parent does one pushback. Kid chooses to either get his request immediately or accept the pushback. That's it. And the parent clearly states these options to the kid, so he knows he can get what he wants, right now, without any further arguing or pushback. The kid does not have to argue back against the parent. And the kid does not have to have a discussion where the parent speaks several times.

The kid is welcome to ask for a larger discussion if he wants. He might ask if there's any other options, or can the parent explain more. He might ask a question about what the parent said. He should be told, in general, that he has options like that. But don't state those options every time. Stating two options is enough for small everyday events – with one option being the kid's initial preference, and the other being the parent's alternative suggestion.

Parents should get good at making appealing alternative suggestions without having to question and argue with the kid for 10 minutes and then have 5 tries at telling him alternatives. Parent needs to get skillful at this to reduce the burden on the kid.

It's important the parent be happy. So parents should also get good at being happy to help their kid. And get good at being interruptible during most activities. And get good at thinking, "I got to say why I thought it wasn't the best idea. I got to express myself. But my kid still disagreed, so it must be important to him, and I better help."

It's important for the parent to remember that if he negotiated with his kid more, it'd interrupt what he was doing anyway. Or if he argued with his kid more about a decision (e.g. whether kid can stay up late tonight), then he's making it harder for the kid to be his own person. Parents need to stop having agendas they are trying to push on their kids, and instead understand their role as helpers. Parents should only pushback more than once if they really, truly think the kid will regard it as helpful and thank them for it (right now, not later).

This will not solve every problem parents have. If kid wants a yacht (which is unusual), parent can't just say "I think that's too expensive, but if you still want it I'll buy you one." But it will help with a lot of small interactions.

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If you don't know dozens of concrete, practical parenting interactions like this, you could be a much better parent.

And if you didn't know this one, try to understand that you still don't know it after you read this post. It's not going to just instantly work in your life. You might be able to immediately do something better than you used to do. But you're not done yet. Remember it, try it out, see what goes wrong, ask some questions about it, make some adjustments, etc. Then you'll form a real, thorough understanding.

You can find out ideas like this by discussing your parenting and getting tips from other people. And other people can point out some problems you didn't see with your parenting (and you can point out some of theirs, since you'll have different perspectives). And you can ask for ideas like this to help with your life, instead of passively waiting for me to post them unprompted. Take some initiative to get better parenting knowledge!

If you already have some really useful parenting knowledge like this, share it. Other people need it and can offer you refinements. If you have none, your parenting could be way better! Start actively seeking out more knowledge right away!

skeptics have the idea you can't be sure of anything. maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong. men can't have knowledge, it's kinda hopeless to figure things out.

this is weird because how did they figure it out?

then their opponents, the infallibilists, say they are sure of things.

but sometimes the stuff they are sure about turns out wrong later

both sides have the same hidden idea: that ideas should be proved or established or supported to make them sure or more sure.

and one side is saying we can do that, and the other side says it doesn't work so we're screwed.

the majority think we can be sure. because people do have knowledge. we build computers that work. we figured out how to make airplanes and bicycles.

but the doubters have some good points. there are logical reasons that the sureness stuff doesn't work. no one has ever been able to answer those logical arguments.

another approach is that we don't need to be sure. we can make an iPhone without being sure of anything, and it can still work. sureness was the wrong thing to look for. we should be looking for other stuff instead. so the whole debate was missing the point.

everyone was stuck on this issue for over 2000 years. Karl Popper got it unstuck like 50 years ago.

being sure is like trying to say "this idea is good because..." and then it scores points for every argument you give. people then compare how much sureness or points different ideas have.

the alternative is to look for problems with your ideas. try to figure out what's bad about them. if you can't find any problems, it's a good idea to use for now.

we don't have to be sure, but we can improve our ideas. if we see a problem and make a change to fix it, now we have a better idea than before. we don't know if it's true. we don't know if it has a bunch more problems. but we learned something. we made progress.

if an idea has a problem that isn't fixed, then we shouldn't use it no matter how sure anyone is. sureness isn't relevant.

and if there's no problems anyone knows of, then why wouldn't you use it? there's no objections. so sureness doesn't matter here either.

Example

so there's a cow farmer, and he says he's sure he has 3 cows. but a skeptic says "how do you know you have 3 cows? you can't be sure of anything. maybe you've been hallucinating and have goats"

the cow farmer is saying how sure he is when actually he shouldn't be sure. maybe he DID hallucinate. or lots of other things. there's ways he could be wrong. it's POSSIBLE.

it turns out some wolves ate one of the cows last night, and he didn't check yet. so actually he has 2 cows. he was wrong. he shouldn't have been so SURE.

the skeptic is dumb too b/c he just doubts everything. except not really. it's kinda random. he didn't point out that maybe the cow farmer didn't exist and he (the skeptic) was hallucinating. he didn't worry that maybe he hallucinated his dinner.

the skeptic didn't know the wolves attacked. he didn't have any information that there weren't 3 cows.

he wasn't saying something useful. there wasn't any way the cow farmer should act differently once he finds out the skeptic's idea.

so the guy who was sure was risking being wrong. he can't be SURE there were no hallucinations or wolves. but the skeptic is bringing up hallucinations without seeing any LSD lying around, without seeing any goats outside, without any reason to suspect a hallucination in this case.

this whole thing is silly and is pretty much how everyone thinks.

the cow farmer should say:

i'm not sure i have 3 cows. but i think i do. i saw 3 cows yesterday, and the day before. my family and i harvest their milk and it fills up the right number of bottles for 3 cows. it takes my son 3 times longer to clean up their poop than when we had 1 cow. they eat pizza like normal cows, not sushi like goats always want.

do you have any argument i'm hallucinating? do you know something i don't, which should change my view? do you have a criticism of the idea that i have 3 cows? not a reason it isn't guaranteed, but a reason it's actually wrong?

this way he's explaining why he thinks he has 3 cows, and asking for new information or criticism that would let him change his mind to a better idea.

if the skeptic doesn't have any info or criticism like that, then 3 cows is the best guess (idea). even if the wolves attacked and they don't know that, it was still the best guess given the information available.

I have an idea about why people are short-sighted.

it's often seen as kinda just being a bad person. this bad thing that doesn't make sense and isn't in one's self-interest, and people should just stop doing it.

but i thought of a reason it'd happen and way it makes sense. i think this helps explain it.

my theory is people chronically fail to get their preferences met, especially longer term ones. when they try to plan ahead, it doesn't work. this is due to lack of skill. eventually, after many failures, they stop trusting their ability to get good things later. they stop having any confidence that planning for the future will end up working out well.

so they try to get short term preferences met. because it's the only way they get preferences met at all. due to lack of skill.

given the context, being short sighted makes sense. if u only have the skill to get short range preferences met, it makes sense to pursue them and not pursue other types of preferences you're not able to succeed with.

just trying to think more long term wouldn't solve this problem. it wouldn't make them have skill. so the standard advice people get about being short sighted won't work. what's really needed is to improve their skill at managing longer term projects. they need to gradually build up the ability to plan further ahead successfully.

building it up by working on slightly longer range preferences is one of the ways to work on this. keep increasing the time a little bit. plan 20min ahead. then 25min. then 30min. etc. get a track record of success and confidence, and build up the time to longer times. this isn't a full solution though. some of the problems will be related to specific topics, not the amount of time involved.

Edit: added text emphasizing lack of skill point.

The Early Ayn Rand, in a story preface by Peikoff:

“Good Copy” reminds us of another crucial aspect of Ayn Rand’s philosophy: her view that suffering is an exception, not the rule of life. The rule, she held, should not be pain or even heroic endurance, but gaiety and lighthearted joy in living. It is on this premise that “Good Copy” was written.

... Their objection was not to the story’s flaws but to its essential spirit. “It is so unserious,” the criticism went. “It doesn’t deal with big issues like your novels; it has no profound passions, no immortal struggles, no philosophic meaning.”

Miss Rand replied, in effect: “It deals with only one ‘big issue,’ the biggest of all: can man live on earth or not?”

She went on to explain that malevolence—the feeling that man by nature is doomed to suffering and defeat—is all-pervasive in our era; that even those who claim to reject such a viewpoint tend to feel, today, that the pursuit of values must be a painful, teeth-clenched crusade, a holy but grim struggle against evil. This attitude, she said, ascribes far too much power to evil. Evil, she held, is essentially impotent (see Atlas Shrugged); the universe is not set against man, but is “benevolent.” This means that man’s values (if based on reason) are achievable here and in this life; and therefore happiness is not to be regarded as a freak accident, but, metaphysically, as the normal, the natural, the to-be-expected.

Philosophically, in short, the deepest essence of man’s life is not grave, crisis-ridden solemnity, but lighthearted cheerfulness.

This particularly stood out to me:

even those who claim to reject such a viewpoint [malevolent universe] tend to feel, today, that the pursuit of values must be a painful, teeth-clenched crusade, a holy but grim struggle against evil.

lots of people are scared of embracing FI/reason/etc, they think of it like a holy but painful struggle. that's so very wrong. there's nothing to be afraid of. values do have a chance in this world. try for it.

reminds me of The Virtue of Selfishness, "How Does One Lead a Rational Life in an Irrational Society?":

And then, on some gray, middle-aged morning, such a man realizes suddenly that he has betrayed all the values he had loved in his distant spring, and wonders how it happened, and slams his mind shut to the answer, by telling himself hastily that the fear he had felt in his worst, most shameful moments was right and that values have no chance in this world. [my emphasis]

values do have a chance. and like the tramp who steals a ride on Dagny's train says in Atlas Shrugged, make a try for it:

I think that it's a sin to sit down and let your life go, without making a try for it.

Talk here about food, fitness, etc...

I saw some really awful tweets, unfollowed @Krauserpua, and voiced my objections. He blocked me for daring to criticize his advocacy of cruel violence and ugly irrationalism. Fuck him. I think ideas like his are worth standing up to, so here's his tweets (in red), my replies, and a few bonus comments.

If you don't want to look like a whore, don't act like one. http://tinyurl.com/pnf2g3l

unfollowed this asshole for this nasty victim shaming. he makes SJWs look like they have a point.

The article he linked is about minors being victims of revenge porn, then being told to go fuck themselves by revenge porn help hotlines, and sometimes by their teachers/schools, too.

This borders on legitimization of under-18 porn, and all he wants to do is blame the underage victims who had their rights violated.

If we'd just let HIV run it's course, we'd have corrected about 50% of the problems in the West.

unfollowed this asshole who wishes death on gays. he makes SJWs look like they have a point.

we solve problems with ideas, not death.

you are an anti-scholar and a thug.

What kind of person thinks that a bunch of people he doesn't like being dead is how to make the world a better place?

If you illegally jump the border, you shouldn't have any protection under the law. Including from assault, rape and murder.

unfollowed this asshole who is pro-murder. WTF. he makes shitlibs look like they have a point.

If you miss your flight and overstay a visa, should everyone be allowed to murder you, too?

And what happened to due process? Shouldn't they at least get a trial before they are raped for their alleged crimes?

"You are blocked from following @Krauserpua and viewing @Krauserpua's Tweets. Learn more"

someone sure couldn't take criticism...

I expected to be ignored. I did not expect to be blocked. What a thin skin he has for a guy who advocates raping and murdering people for a non-violent crime.

This is a guy who advocates changes to medical research policy for the express purpose of more homosexuals dying than Hitler managed to murder. For his own twitter description, he wrote "Horrible bastard" (that's the whole thing). But he can't take being called an asshole and being unfollowed.