Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Adversarial Collaboration

edge.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 224 posts

Re: Adversarial Collaboration

#101

Post by xboxnolifes »

> The power of reasons is an illusion. The belief will not change when the reasons are defeated. The causality is reversed. People believe the reasons because they believe in the conclusion.

This is one of my pet peeves with even casual conversation. Someone goes "I don't like X, because Y." You point out Y is false, and the response is "Well, I still don't like X".

It used to annoy me because wanted to help people not base their views on bad information, as that's what I would want people to do for me. But now, it mostly just annoys me because of how predictable it is. You know the only good answer is to agree with them, so what's the point in even conversing?

Re: Adversarial Collaboration

#102

Post by mach1ne »

littlestymaar wrote: post #92
scifibestfi wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact that's how many get into the elite group and jockey for position within it. "Think about what it takes to claw your way into America’s elite strata. Unless you were born into the upper-middle class, your surest route is to pursue an elite education. To do that, it pays to be exquisitely sensitive to the beliefs and prejudices of the people who hold the power to grant you access to the social and cultural capi…

This comment is interesting because it kind of contradicts itself: At first you say sometuing akin to “to become part of the elite you need to accept the elite's point of view and beliefs”, citing higher education as a gateway for elites, and the you use the discourse “social justice” as an example of what young people must believe in to get to higher education. But “social justice” is definitely not a foundational b…

Whether the origin of social justice in universities comes from students or the faculty is irrelative. Fact is that elite universities in the US stand strongly for social justice, and expressing those values in your essay and interview does increase your chances of admission - especially in comparison to expressing contrary values. Thus, if your only goal is to get in, you are better off emulating the values the university has chosen for itself, regardless of your actual personal beliefs.

Re: Adversarial Collaboration

#103

Post by markdown »

soco wrote: post #100
markdown wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you consider higher learning? Learning how to screw in a lightbulb, or how to turn manipulate people into clicking on ads? > As the parent indicated, they're not willing to even communicate with people who don't parrot their own ideas. That's the exact opposite of what I quoted. They invite criticism of the status quo, and push for greater justice in the world. Most decent human beings agree with that.

In this particular context we call it "lip service".

I see. I wouldn't know, as I haven't done any research on or looked into the impact of this policy on things at Yale.

Since you seem to know enough to call it lip service, I assume you went there. what do you think should be done to ensure that those in charge actually made changes that you and your peers advocated for?

Re: Adversarial Collaboration

#104

Post by lelanthran »

markdown wrote: post #32
scifibestfi wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact that's how many get into the elite group and jockey for position within it. "Think about what it takes to claw your way into America’s elite strata. Unless you were born into the upper-middle class, your surest route is to pursue an elite education. To do that, it pays to be exquisitely sensitive to the beliefs and prejudices of the people who hold the power to grant you access to the social and cultural capi…

> for those students who come to Yale, we expect them to be versed in issues of social justice. We encourage them to be vocal when they see an opportunity for change in our institution and in the world. Would you want anything less in an academic institution? That's the entire point of places of higher learning.

> Would you want anything less in an academic institution? That's the entire point of places of higher learning.

Is it really "higher learning" when LITERAL groupthink is required?

(Maybe you're being sarcastic and I'm just not getting it)

Re: Adversarial Collaboration

#105

Post by littlestymaar »

mach1ne wrote: post #102
littlestymaar wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment is interesting because it kind of contradicts itself: At first you say sometuing akin to “to become part of the elite you need to accept the elite's point of view and beliefs”, citing higher education as a gateway for elites, and the you use the discourse “social justice” as an example of what young people must believe in to get to higher education. But “social justice” is definitely not a foundational b…

Whether the origin of social justice in universities comes from students or the faculty is irrelative. Fact is that elite universities in the US stand strongly for social justice, and expressing those values in your essay and interview does increase your chances of admission - especially in comparison to expressing contrary values. Thus, if your only goal is to get in, you are better off emulating the values the univ…

Only if they really “stand strongly” and give higher scores to such views and it's not just marketing. If they advertise about social justice, but the admission process is in fact pretty conservatives, this posture will not have a dramatic effect.

But anyway, even if this is true, that doesn't mean that it's the current Elite's views, just likely to be the future Elite's views (assuming that higher education pays a significantly higher role than the set of other Elite's beliefs they'll encounter later in their lives and that they'll mimic too in order to be successful later, since the process you're describing occurs over and over and over in someone's life).

Re: Adversarial Collaboration

#106

Post by Roark66 »

I think what author describes and attributes to "everyone" is a trait of character. Yes, a common one, but not universal. From my own experience to that of (some of) my friends I can say with certainty people do change their minds.

Re: Adversarial Collaboration

#107

Post by LeonB »

watwut wrote: post #88
BuyMyBitcoins wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if there is a term for this kind of objection. I’m starting to see more and more people demand quantifiers or conditional disqualifiers on statements that shouldn’t reasonably be considered as absolutes. And, the fact that bringing up that whatever assertion is being made is not a universal absolute doesn’t really add anything to the understanding. Which statement is better, “people don’t like the smell of s…

Personally, I am glad that culture is moving away from rewarding confident certain statements that are simply untrue.

Citation needed.

Also - relevance?

The tagline being questioned here is—

“People don't change their minds”

— the problem with which is not that it’s “simply untrue” but that it requires qualification, e.g. in the prose of the linked article it’s written:

“To a good first approximation, people simply don't change their minds about anything that matters”

Re: Adversarial Collaboration

#108

Post by marcosdumay »

eloff wrote: post #57
lapcat wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If someone is a member of a group, it is almost not worth listening to their arguments, especially arguments in support of views held strongly by that group. Who isn't a member of a group? We're all members of a number of groups. It's refreshing that Kahneman honestly admits that he doesn't change his mind either, and his tastes were formed when he was relatively young. He's not putting himself above the rest of hu…

Maybe I'm uncommon in this aspect, but I don't feel like I'm a member of many groups. I'm not religious, but don't really consider myself an atheist. I'm not for any particular party. I don't care about sports. I'm Canadian, but don't live there and don't feel like I belong there either. I suppose you could say I'm part of the group of Caucasian males by birth or part of the group of software engineers by trade, but…

> I'm not religious, but don't really consider myself an atheist.

Oh, an agnostic.

There is something to be said about groups of people that hold similar ideas because their similar way of thinking lead them to similar conclusions. It's a very important exception to the OP's description, where the group came first, and may even be the most common kind.

(Of course, the question to answer is why do those people think in similar ways.)

> part of the group of software engineers by trade

I'd bet that one lead you into adopting some values.

Re: Adversarial Collaboration

#109

Post by actionfromafar »

Swizec wrote: post #73
lostcolony wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So was "abolition". You can decide you -disagree- with the ideas of 'social justice', or the implementation, or whatever, but I think you'll need a stronger case than "it's political" to warrant the dismissal of an educational institution trying to incorporate the term.

The problem with wokeism is that it’s more like a religion than an effective movement for change. Being seen to believe/say the right things is vastly more important than actively helping. Woke Racism is a really good book about that. Don’t worry it’s written by a black guy who’s been fighting for social justice for decades. The fact I have to say that is one of his points/arguments.

This permeates all online discourse and a good chunk of face-to-face ones, too.

Try this sometime - choose a position (in politics or whatever). Use the terminology and dog whistles of the "other camp", but argue the opposite policy.

Re: Adversarial Collaboration

#110

Post by Lewton »

lovelearning wrote: post #76
nagonago wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The actual title is "Adversarial Collaboration: An EDGE Lecture by Daniel Kahneman". "People don't change their minds" is just the tagline, and he doesn't even actually say it in the lecture. The focus is much more on adversarial collaboration and why he thinks it is a positive thing for science. ...does that change your mind? ;)

Except he says things like: > To a good first approximation, people simply don't change their minds about anything that matters. > Let's start from the main domains where we know people don't change their minds — politics or religion. Perhaps people familiar with his work interpret his statements differently. It's also understandable if this was a lecture for peers. But I'm a layperson whose only context is this arti…

How do you interpret “To a good first approximation” in this context?
Post reply on HN