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Ways people trying to do good accidentally do harm instead and how to avoid them

80000hours.org

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Re: Ways people trying to do good accidentally do harm instead and how to avoid them

#71

Post by lbriner »

The bit I struggled with is that in many fields, either the majority are wrong/don't have the solution (Argumentum ad populum) or otherwise listening to expertise/experience can either give you too much input or, again, implies that there is more chance that experience will give you a better solution to a problem. In their example, if Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis had asked his more experienced peers about approaching the problem of infections, they would have told him he was barking up the wrong tree with hand washing.

The really difficult part of any venture is knowing how to distinguish wise advice from just another opinion.

Many great solutions come from people with "crazy" thinking and I would expect they could have caused great damage (or perhaps have - jet engines) but otherwise we would be moving very slowly as a planet?

Re: Ways people trying to do good accidentally do harm instead and how to avoid them

#72

Post by newsbinator »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #39

Well I read a bit, then thought "things like being verbose, generic, and over-guarded in offering advice and so wasting lots of readers time without making an impact on their behaviour"? If they'd given one direct piece of easily actionable advice the actual impact might have been far larger ... "So what?" - a Church sermon I heard well over decade ago, the speaker said basically if there's nothing that listeners wil…

I get replies from Enterprise support reps of this sort. They vaguely address my question without commiting to an answer or solution.

That way the onus is on me to guess what might work for my case, and meanwhile they can mark the issue resolved.

Re: Ways people trying to do good accidentally do harm instead and how to avoid them

#73

Post by fjsolwmv »

newsbinator wrote: post #72
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #39

Well I read a bit, then thought "things like being verbose, generic, and over-guarded in offering advice and so wasting lots of readers time without making an impact on their behaviour"? If they'd given one direct piece of easily actionable advice the actual impact might have been far larger ... "So what?" - a Church sermon I heard well over decade ago, the speaker said basically if there's nothing that listeners wil…

I get replies from Enterprise support reps of this sort. They vaguely address my question without commiting to an answer or solution. That way the onus is on me to guess what might work for my case, and meanwhile they can mark the issue resolved.

That's terrible. A support agent should never mark an issue resolved until the client has said the issue is resolved or been unresponsive to followip communication for some time.

Re: Ways people trying to do good accidentally do harm instead and how to avoid them

#74

Post by fjsolwmv »

mnx wrote: post #44
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #39

Well I read a bit, then thought "things like being verbose, generic, and over-guarded in offering advice and so wasting lots of readers time without making an impact on their behaviour"? If they'd given one direct piece of easily actionable advice the actual impact might have been far larger ... "So what?" - a Church sermon I heard well over decade ago, the speaker said basically if there's nothing that listeners wil…

I think 80000 hours targets a fairly specific audience. Their style is in general to be in depth and long winded.

I'd expect an organization dedicated to making the most of the finite time people have wout care about not wasting so much time.

Re: Ways people trying to do good accidentally do harm instead and how to avoid them

#75

Post by fjsolwmv »

hueving wrote: post #10
chrisseaton wrote: post #8

This is very interesting! But I've seen a lot of push back against this kind of thinking in some political groups. For example saying that you should follow norms of niceness when promoting a cause - people call that tone policing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_policing You could say you should criticise the people who are tone policing rather than the people who are worked up about a cause that personally effec…

People who criticize tone police are technically right that the content of an argument is what should matter, but that smacks of ignorance of how humans engage in conversation. If someone is screaming at me and ending every sentence with, "you fucking moron!", there is approximately a 0% chance I'm going to take them seriously and I'm going to assume emotional outbursts will be sent in return to any responses I care…

The Dean Scream stuff was a dirty tricks attack by his opponents. If he didn't scream they'd attack him for something else, loker being too calm (see Jeb Bush's 2016 campaign). If you libe your life trying to avoid giving your unethical enemies anything they can twist into an attack, you'll paralyze yourself.

Re: Ways people trying to do good accidentally do harm instead and how to avoid them

#76

Post by jerf »

leetcrew wrote: post #62
YinglingLight wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"An interesting article in The Atlantic talks about studies showing that liberals think in terms of fairness while conservatives think in terms of morality . So if you want to persuade someone on the other team, you need to speak in their language. We almost never do that. That’s why you rarely see people change their opinions... ...If your aim is to persuade, you have to speak the language of the other. Talking abou…

> liberals think in terms of fairness while conservatives think in terms of morality i don't think this is a very accurate characterization. for one thing, fairness itself is a moral value. however, i do think liberals and conservatives tend to have different moral systems. in broad strokes, liberals tend to have more of a utilitarian perspective, while conservatives tend to be more deontological.

Jonathon Haidt has actually done some great scientific work on the real differences between liberals and conservatives. This is a shortish version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vs41JrnGaxc There's also some more detailed and longer versions if you poke around on YouTube a bit, plus a book you can buy if you're really interested.

I don't think your characterization of either side is particularly accurate. Neither side is utilitarian, and both sides are plenty deontological, just with different rule sets. Both sides are rationalizing deeply-held instinctual beliefs, or the lack thereof.

Re: Ways people trying to do good accidentally do harm instead and how to avoid them

#77

Post by fjsolwmv »

wisty wrote: post #59
chrisseaton wrote: post #8

This is very interesting! But I've seen a lot of push back against this kind of thinking in some political groups. For example saying that you should follow norms of niceness when promoting a cause - people call that tone policing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_policing You could say you should criticise the people who are tone policing rather than the people who are worked up about a cause that personally effec…

Here we go: "Why Diversity Programs Fail" https://hbr.org/2016/07/why-diversity-programs-fail There's a ton of data. Compulsory implicit bias training, for example, will most likely be bad for diversity (and whether implicit bias exists itself is another whole kettle of fish).

Note: that article also gives advice on how to succeed.

Re: Ways people trying to do good accidentally do harm instead and how to avoid them

#78

Post by fjsolwmv »

kineticdial wrote: post #7

I feel weirdly (perhaps irrationally) about the effective altruism people including 80,000 hours. I just can't shake the cult-y vibes they give off. Am I alone in this?

I get that feel from anyone who cares passionately about something. Especially when that something has a deep philosophical core that challenges us to cut away our programmed/instinctive behaviors and critically analyze to find meaning in a universe that may not have any. Existentialism leads to ennui.

Re: Ways people trying to do good accidentally do harm instead and how to avoid them

#79

Post by [deleted] »

YorkshireSeason wrote: post #19
hueving wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who criticize tone police are technically right that the content of an argument is what should matter, but that smacks of ignorance of how humans engage in conversation. If someone is screaming at me and ending every sentence with, "you fucking moron!", there is approximately a 0% chance I'm going to take them seriously and I'm going to assume emotional outbursts will be sent in return to any responses I care…

How many pro-choice people do you think are persuaded by Symmetrically, how many pro-life people do you think are persuaded by the people screaming "woman-hater/sexist/misogynist" outside of Planned Parenthood? If you can't explain your argument in a calm, rational manner, You overestimate the efficacy of explaining in a calm, rational manner. As a university teacher with > 10 years experience, I can tell you with ex…

[deleted]

Re: Ways people trying to do good accidentally do harm instead and how to avoid them

#80

Post by motohagiography »

The article seems written in a "gentle reminder," tone that implies a basic attribution error about the sort of people they are reminding. As a corollary to a famous adage, I would suggest that it is best not to attribute to ignorance what can be explained by incentives.
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