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Please read the paper before you comment

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Re: Please read the paper before you comment

#321

Post by Tainnor »

3PS wrote: post #312
Tainnor wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, 2+2=5 is true in the ring Z/Z (arithmetic modulo 1) which is just the trivial ring consisting of a single element. It's not true in any of the other modular arithmetic rings. So, it's not particularly interesting. If you move away from modular arithmetic and the numbers 2 and 5 being in any way related to their standard meanings, you can of course redefine them to mean whatever you want (e.g. rotations of a cube…

R/Z is also a group where 2+2=5 is technically correct, and this abelian group is actually useful. For example, if you consider the quotient topology on R/Z, you find that it is homeomorphic to a circle.

While that is also true, in this group all integers are equal to each other. The point is that there is nothing particularly interesting about the specific 2+2=5 example, not that groups in which this is true can't be interesting.

Re: Please read the paper before you comment

#322

Post by Tainnor »

ookdatnog wrote: post #272
Tainnor wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, 2+2=5 is true in the ring Z/Z (arithmetic modulo 1) which is just the trivial ring consisting of a single element. It's not true in any of the other modular arithmetic rings. So, it's not particularly interesting. If you move away from modular arithmetic and the numbers 2 and 5 being in any way related to their standard meanings, you can of course redefine them to mean whatever you want (e.g. rotations of a cube…

IIRC the moral of the original 2+2=5 guy's comment was "if someone reaches a different conclusion than you, ask them under which axioms they reached that conclusion." I think that's valuable advice. Note that he didn't say you have to accept their axioms. Clearly working in arithmetic modulo 1 is meaningless in most circumstances, and you can criticize that. But if you're not reasoning under the same axioms, you cann…

Sure, this is true. But it's also true that some people just like shifting the goal posts or redefining terms whenever it suits them (not in mathematics, outside of it, that is).

So in terms of a productive discussion, saying 2+2=5 without context and then backtracking and saying "well but I'm talking about Z/Z (or R/Z, see uncle comment)" would be kind of annoying and it's not generally what mathematicians do.

I think this is one of the fascinating and difficult aspects of maths:

On the one hand, once you fix your axioms, there is no way in hell you can avoid the conclusions - they might be hard to find (sometimes even impossible to find), but if you find and verify them, they are unmistakably true. This can turn off some people that are more used to thinking about everything being just shades of gray and there always being multiple valid opinions. Maths is the subject where you can't just make up your mind, the evidence when you're wrong is deafening.

On the other hand, real maths can also turn off some of the more OCD-ish kind of people that think maths is all about the one single truth and everyone agreeing about everything, whereas maths is infinitely malleable and you can say things like "what if the parallel axiom is wrong" or "what if negative numbers have square roots" and even if it sounds silly, you can create proper maths out of it. If you've ever seen people with only high school maths knowledge arguing passionately online about the correct order of operations or whether the square root of -1 is i or -i (or, in another context, Grammar nazis), you know the kind of people I mean.

Re: Please read the paper before you comment

#323

Post by afarrell »

C4stor wrote: post #167
afarrell wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats because an awful lot of people are chewing ice. (epistemic status: I am 100% projecting here. Maybe I'm broadly right though) A person with an iron deficiency, will often have an urge to chew ice [1]. Ice does not have iron or help you absorb iron -- but brains are weird. There are an awful lot of people who are lonely and want the sort of emotional and intellectual connection that they'd normally get comes fro…

[1] says "Craving and chewing ice (pagophagia) is often associated with iron deficiency,", not what you claimed which is the opposite. As far as I can see, there's no indication on this page as to how frequently iron deficiency leads to ice chewing.

> which is the opposite

Huh? Are you saying that my source claims that chewing ice causes anemia?

Re: Please read the paper before you comment

#324

Post by evolve2k »

Tossrock wrote: post #13
burlesona wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a reasonable suggestion, but I would predict comment participation to plunge. Maybe that’s just fine?

It doesn't need to be one or the other. The quiz could be optional, and answering correctly would simply give your comments a rating boost - or inversely, you could put a badge of shame on any comments from people who hadn't passed the quiz. Then you just let the natural human dynamics play out.

Drawing on making the quiz optional and taking some inspiration from HN.

Two ideas:

1. ‘Verified’ comments sort to the top.

2. Unverified comments go 50% grey.

Eg “Wait whys my comment gray? Oh actually I’ll answer that verification question to push it up”

Re: Please read the paper before you comment

#325

Post by ookdatnog »

Tainnor wrote: post #322
ookdatnog wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC the moral of the original 2+2=5 guy's comment was "if someone reaches a different conclusion than you, ask them under which axioms they reached that conclusion." I think that's valuable advice. Note that he didn't say you have to accept their axioms. Clearly working in arithmetic modulo 1 is meaningless in most circumstances, and you can criticize that. But if you're not reasoning under the same axioms, you cann…

Sure, this is true. But it's also true that some people just like shifting the goal posts or redefining terms whenever it suits them (not in mathematics, outside of it, that is). So in terms of a productive discussion, saying 2+2=5 without context and then backtracking and saying "well but I'm talking about Z/Z (or R/Z, see uncle comment)" would be kind of annoying and it's not generally what mathematicians do. I thi…

I think mismatched-axioms misunderstandings happen all the time and it really is a useful mental model to ask people about their axioms. In fact, I think it's even helpful when people are arguing in bad faith. If they have to state their axioms you pin them down and there are then at least some things they can't redefine on the fly.

I think even really high profile debates suffer from mismatched-axioms misunderstandings, such as the abortion debate. For instance, I think a lot of people have very different definitions of what constitutes a person. You're probably not going to have a meaningful discussion about abortion if you disagree about that, you probably have to argue about the definition of personhood first.

I think your characterization of maths is spot-on and most people don't understand what "mathematical truth" means. But my impression is that the 2+2=5 guy understands all of this (I think he was a maths PhD student too) and his point was completely valid, including its application outside of mathematics. The reactionaries who caricaturized his argument, however, don't understand any of this and believe he was making a different point entirely, namely that all truth is relative and that every person's point of view is valid. Of course, this misunderstanding is on them.

Re: Please read the paper before you comment

#326

Post by gerdesj »

bmn__ wrote: post #311
gerdesj wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recall that as standard practice on Slashdot in 2000.

At least there you could yell RTFA. This is forbidden here.

Yes, but getting a spate of RTFA was a badge of honour. Also responding RTFA meant that you didn't get it either. To a flood of RTFA you got to be allowed to be quite pithy in response with outrageous indignation and generally still be onside.

My /. id (JSG) is ~18K but is only so large because I lurked for a few years before signing up. sigh

Even back then I have always used identifiable IDs on forums, those are my initials and here I use surname + initial and do so on everything internets these days.

Am I mad?

Re: Please read the paper before you comment

#327

Post by Fnoord »

compiler-guy wrote: post #307
grawprog wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We were given a test like this in school once. The first instruction was to not do anything until you'd read all the questions. The 'questions' were all stuff like poke holes in the corner of the paper, some math problems stuff like that. At the end of the test, the last question was, don't do questions 1-9, simply write your name in the corner and turn the test over. The test was supposed to be about your ability to…

Although it's point is good, I hate this test because--at least in most versions I have seen--nothing tells you to skip questions 1-9. The directions say, "Read all the questions first." OK fine. Then question 10 says, "Just write your name on the paper and turn it over." But why should question 10 be the only one you follow? "Read all the questions" is the only direction you have. There is never a "skip 1-9", except…

The instruction is very clear and precise. It says to read all the questions. Not to answer them (or answer them right away).

Therefore, if you follow the instruction, you end up reading question #10 following the process, within the time it takes to read all the questions.

Now, that instruction might seem controversial, but it really isn't. If you have the time, its a good idea to read content well, before dealing with it further.

Re: Please read the paper before you comment

#328

Post by Tainnor »

ookdatnog wrote: post #325
Tainnor wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, this is true. But it's also true that some people just like shifting the goal posts or redefining terms whenever it suits them (not in mathematics, outside of it, that is). So in terms of a productive discussion, saying 2+2=5 without context and then backtracking and saying "well but I'm talking about Z/Z (or R/Z, see uncle comment)" would be kind of annoying and it's not generally what mathematicians do. I thi…

I think mismatched-axioms misunderstandings happen all the time and it really is a useful mental model to ask people about their axioms. In fact, I think it's even helpful when people are arguing in bad faith. If they have to state their axioms you pin them down and there are then at least some things they can't redefine on the fly. I think even really high profile debates suffer from mismatched-axioms misunderstandi…

I don't doubt that the guy with a maths PhD understood the mathematical content. And I would even go farther than to say that many disagreements are based on different axioms. Many disagreements are even due to different definitions (such as "free will"). I think that was one of the key points of late Wittgenstein.

So yes, in many cases, laying out the assumptions carefully is a good idea, I agree. I just didn't think 2+2=5 was the best example.

Re: Please read the paper before you comment

#329

Post by TT3351 »

skrebbel wrote: post #155
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I heard about that one I think, that's really clever. Honestly comment sections on the internet are a cesspool on the best days, but comment sections under news articles? It makes all the undereducated conspiracists come out the woodworks. A Dutch news site (nu.nl) tried to run a comment section and even something of a social network for a while, but they couldn't maintain them. You can create a comment section,…

> Honestly comment sections on the internet are a cesspool A bit offtopic, but when YouTube first added comments, they quickly got into cesspool territory, exactly like you describe. However, these days, I find myself really enjoying YouTube comments quite often. Is this just me? Am I just watching more happy happy joy joy videos these days or did YT comments go from "the internet's awfulest" to "pretty neat" somehow…

I think Google works really hard to surface comments that they know a user will interact with.

Re: Please read the paper before you comment

#330

Post by liangx4 »

pembrook wrote: post #135
liangx4 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did a similar thing with recruiting ads, I added a line of "If you are interested in this role, please reach out to me starting with 'Heyyyyyy I am XXX', thanks!" in the middle of the JD. And I simply ignore 99% of the reach out because they didn't start with that line. It's just like the brown M&m thing Van Halen did. Works way better than I expected.

Job ads are universally filled with jargon-y HR copy-pasta bullshit, so I’m sure most people never read them on purpose. Instead of being clever, you’ve simply overestimated the importance of your ad in people’s lives while simultaneously optimizing for inexperienced people who’ve never read a job ad before and don’t know they are BS.

The job ad is around 200 words. If someone is serious about a job that they will be working on for 5 days a week, do you think it's too much to ask if I expect them to read through these words?
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