Adversarial Collaboration • Hacker News Board

Re: Adversarial Collaboration

#211

Post by nyokodo » Mon, Sep 26, 2022, 9:58 PM UTC

hitekker wrote: post #207

nyokodo wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but at some point interpretation tells you just as much about the interpreter as about the person saying something Maybe, but it's totally unnecessary if you want to foster open and good faith discussions as you claim.

I think the GP is being patient. Instead of policing his tone, you should reconsider yours. It sounds like you’re upset for an unclear reason.

> I think the GP is being patient.

Being patient in a textual medium means just saying what you mean instead of adding unnecessary pauses and reactions to their response. Regardless of how it was intended to come across it is regularly a sarcastic/dismissive response and not one that assumes good faith or openness which the GP purported to promote.

> Instead of policing his tone, you should reconsider yours. It sounds like you’re upset for an unclear reason.

You're imputing an emotional state on me and dismissing what I'm saying based on that, which is ironically the very thing that the original response was about and exactly why many people vehemently don't answer personal questions like the GP asks. Nor is this policing, the GP can do as they wish, it is critical feedback though about fostering good faith and openness. If that collapses at the first challenge then the GP isn't actually committed to it and ought not act like it.

Re: Adversarial Collaboration

#212

Post by vanderZwan » Mon, Sep 26, 2022, 10:11 PM UTC

P5fRxh5kUvp2th wrote: post #208

vanderZwan wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you realize you are making a ton of assumptions about the situation in which I ask such a question, or how? Most of them needlessly negative. Which I find odd given that I explicitly stated that I'm only doing this in a context of good faith and mutual openness.

You do not have a right to my time. If you want a claim on my time, then you shall do so under my requirements. No native speaker is going to be surprised I ended the conversation after a question like that.

If you frame it like that is doesn't sound like you're particularly willing to meet the people halfway when discussing things with them, and the No True Scotsman at the end feels like an unnecessary jab at the fact that I'm not a native speaker (I don't see how that is relevant here anyway).

Anyway, how you communicate with people close to you is up to you, and I'm still not sure why it upsets you so much how I claim to have healthy discussions with mine.

But for the record: my partner and I essentially saved our relationship during the pandemic despite being on complete opposite "sides" of the topics of covid, vaccines and lockdowns, by communicating this way.

Because truthfully, neither she nor I actually have enough expertise to really assert that the vaccine is safe or not in the long-term, whether or not lockdowns work, and so on. We just have to trust the people we consider authoritative on these matters. And for perfectly understandable personal reasons we trust different sources here and prioritize different issues.

So instead of trying to convince each other of a viewpoint we could not in good faith defend as something we knew with certainty, we decided to ask ourselves why we feel so strongly about these issues. Why these beliefs that we do not have strong evidence for were so important, and to be honest with each other about those beliefs.

And being willing to trust each other, open up like that and do that kind of self-reflection together works. Neither of us has changed our minds regarding covid, nor tried to change the other's mind, but we're more grateful to each other for taking the time to understand and respect each others views than that the differences upset us, because it shows we believe the other person is worth that effort. Which is more than most people who disagree as strongly about this topic as she and I do can say.

If you still believe this is being disrespectful, that's fine. Outside of this meta-discussion about discussions we're having right now I have no interest in "claiming your time" and I'll still have a healthy and loving relationship with my partner regardless of what you think.

Re: Adversarial Collaboration

#213

Post by bombcar » Mon, Sep 26, 2022, 10:27 PM UTC

deadpannini wrote: post #197

bombcar wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I were to be charitable to the post you're replying to, they're trying to show that your takeaway is wrong - instead of saying you changed your mind based on new evidence you should instead say "I was wrong to think I had the knowledge, training, or skills to make a decision and use that decision to influence others".

Yes, and I agree that it's always important to keep that possibility in mind. I am generally keenly aware of uncertainty normally shy away from bad bets (predictions). But taken too far, that principle leads to abdicating our responsibilities as citizens in a democracy, so while I was definitely chastened by the experience I will kindly decline the invitation to shut up: I choose to get better instead. The sum total…

Heh my knowledge has lead me to realize that the best course of action is for me to abdicate any democratic responsibilities because I clearly don’t know anything about anything.

Re: Adversarial Collaboration

#214

Post by P5fRxh5kUvp2th » Mon, Sep 26, 2022, 10:41 PM UTC

vanderZwan wrote: post #212

P5fRxh5kUvp2th wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do not have a right to my time. If you want a claim on my time, then you shall do so under my requirements. No native speaker is going to be surprised I ended the conversation after a question like that.

If you frame it like that is doesn't sound like you're particularly willing to meet the people halfway when discussing things with them, and the No True Scotsman at the end feels like an unnecessary jab at the fact that I'm not a native speaker (I don't see how that is relevant here anyway). Anyway, how you communicate with people close to you is up to you, and I'm still not sure why it upsets you so much how I claim…

If you were a non-native speaker I would give more leeway because the implication of the question is more likely to be missed by the person asking.

I heard a story once of an asian woman in a business meeting who started talking about erections. She was trying to say election. If a clearly native speaker had said it, the reaction would have been vastly different.

That question has all sorts of implications, not the least of which is being an accusation that the other person is disagreeing in bad faith, as well as an extreme level of condescension.

You don't speak to your coworkers the way you speak to your partner.

Re: Adversarial Collaboration

#215

Post by jiggawatts » Mon, Sep 26, 2022, 11:06 PM UTC

JackFr wrote: post #157

jiggawatts wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An analogy is that one can walk in the right direction for an awfully long way before getting stuck at the end of a valley, staring up a proverbial cliff. Someone walking parallel to you on a ridge might be nearby the whole time, but avoid being stuck.[1] Anyone studying AI/ML would know about getting stuck in local minima, and having to essentially restart training to shake things loose. Same thing. My theory is tha…

> My theory is that physics is stuck in a local minima where it's not sufficient to change just one, or even two or three fundamental things to get unstuck. That's too big a leap via traditional incremental publishing of new theories. Any one change to the status quo won't work, and is rejected. Makes me think of Stephen Wolframs current work. Guy's a genius, who's current stuff kind of reads like he's a crank. But a…

He's starting from a totally blank slate and hoping he'll end up at Physics. In some sense, that's guaranteed by definition -- any sufficiently complex foundational system or algebra can represent any other, including the current models of reality. But this has no predictive power. It's like saying digital circuitry is a theory of physics because a computer can run a physics simulation!

My approach is more akin to assigning a lower probability of validity to papers that have long been generally accepted as 100% true. Then I try to hold all of them in my brain simultaneously while reassigning joint probabilities, almost like those computer game map generators that use "quantum decoherence".

The idea is to find a parallel path that goes through most of established physics but avoids the trap of local minima. The challenge is that it's really unclear which existing theories are the traps, and which are true and need to be kept.

Something like this is clearly needed, because existing theories are either contradictory or inconsistent. They can't all be right. Something somewhere must be discarded.

Re: Adversarial Collaboration

#216

Post by P5fRxh5kUvp2th » Mon, Sep 26, 2022, 11:07 PM UTC

bombcar wrote: post #193

deadpannini wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you should perhaps cool down. 1) I am admitting that I was wrong and updated. That includes updating on my thought process, just like you are so ardently suggesting. 2) Ninety percent of your assumptions about me are wrong. I'm not sure what you're accusing me of, or what "many people were RIGHT" about. > There's a canyon of difference between being wrong because you just didn't know and being wrong because t…

If I were to be charitable to the post you're replying to, they're trying to show that your takeaway is wrong - instead of saying you changed your mind based on new evidence you should instead say "I was wrong to think I had the knowledge, training, or skills to make a decision and use that decision to influence others".

Correct, imagine if they had recognized not having enough information and chose not to form an opinion that needed changing once more evidence was gathered?

Imagine if they had chosen not to be a loudmouth (their words), and thereby adding to the cacophony of uselessness that happened around that time?

The problem isn't that they reached the wrong conclusion, it's how __CONFIDENT__ they were in that conclusion despite NO ONE knowing enough about covid at the time.

Re: Adversarial Collaboration

#217

Post by bigmatto » Tue, Sep 27, 2022, 5:02 AM UTC

mistermann wrote: post #152

bigmatto wrote: post #3

One of the most disappointing things that I have learned is that most people hold opinions in order to be part of some group. 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. They are arguing in order to maintain their group membership, not to find the truth. It appears this is true of academic and scientific…

> 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. They are arguing in order to maintain their group membership, not to find the truth. It appears this is true of academic and scientific disciplines as much as anywhere else. I tend to agree with you, but based on the way you have worded this, I am curious if y…

I think there can be different things going on under the hood.

Some people will be self aware, and not take arguments or positions too seriously - their own or others - they know they hold the points of view for group membership - they tend to not to like to debate them, aware of the futility.

More common though is ego-defense/group-defense reaction. This is the zealot. Both a person's ego (you're wrong) and their group (your group is wrong) is on the line. This is in addition to losing their membership of a group if they adopt a different position.

Re: Adversarial Collaboration

#218

Post by ZeroGravitas » Tue, Sep 27, 2022, 8:42 AM UTC

suoduandao2 wrote: post #203

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pointing out the contradiction in this ongoing "political correctness/woke" backlash. They're complaining about people doing the right thing. And they know that. So they have to complain they're doing the right thing wrong, or doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. Or the right thing is only a cover for a nefarious plot. Which only re-inforces that it's the right thing, even before you examine the decades l…

It's not hard to make the argument that it's a cover for a nefarious plot. Given the timing of when these ideas rose to prominence, that it was a reaction to the 'occupy wall street' movement and the prospect of an underclass uniting against the ruling class is a parsimonious explanation. The US ruling class very effectively prevented poor white and poor black citizens from making common cause in the early twentieth…

[dead]

Re: Adversarial Collaboration

#219

Post by sooyoo » Tue, Sep 27, 2022, 10:37 AM UTC

eloff wrote: post #129

sooyoo wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those with most priviledge are usually the least aware of it. I've come to realize that "white male software engineer" is one of the groups with the highest ratio of priviledge versus priviledge awareness. (Disclosure: I belong to that group as well.)

Why would you bring privilege into an unrelated discussion? Also you're assuming a lot about my background that would surprise you. I wasn't born a software engineer. I chose the field deliberately as the best way to make money, and then fell in love with it after the fact. I'm self taught, a child of immigrants. I had a typical middle class childhood.

This part:

> I don't feel like I'm a member of many groups.

And this part:

> 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,

So, you are belonging to three priviledged groups. Male, Caucasian, software engineer. It's easy to overlook this group membership, since it silently represents priviledge. Those outside these groups definitely notice that they are not in them. Ask a discriminated woman, a discriminated non-white, or an amazon warehouse worker.

That's why I pointed out that it's easy to forget group membership that confers priviledge.

> Also you're assuming a lot about my background

No, I went by exactly the information you conveyed yourself. See above.

Re: Adversarial Collaboration

#220

Post by SR2Z » Tue, Sep 27, 2022, 2:21 PM UTC

P5fRxh5kUvp2th wrote: post #187

deadpannini wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is all beside the point at hand, but I suppose it's still about epistemology, so I'd like to stand up for my old position, even though I understand it looks foolish in retrospect. The fact that so much was unknown was part of the reason I thought testing might have a different effect than the flu. Well into the pandemic, the vast majority of people feared COVID much more than the flu, so it seemed they would be…

Your position looked foolish then. Consider that maybe you don't do well in situations without perfect information and take that into account in the future. The two most authoritarian countries on this earth (china and North Korea) were not able to get covid "to near zero". China literally had tanks rolling up and down their streets to enforce said curfew. The idea that somehow the US (or similar western countries) w…

Who was right?

The shelter-in-place orders were UNQUESTIONABLY damaging to people's mental health and livelihoods. They were what made the difference - the whole "stand six feet apart" thing did very little, and mask mandates were rarely enforced in consistent, useful ways.

Aggressive testing would have allowed various jurisdictions to scale restrictions up and down as necessary to keep hospitals from being overwhelmed while also not wrecking many people's lives.

"Near zero" was probably never possible, but we could have managed the response much better if our government did not say horseshit like "the numbers go up if you measure them!"

If there is another pandemic, or another variant, or whatever - the government will not be able to ask for more shelter-in-place orders. They have burned so much goodwill and energy among the people who spent two years shut-in with deteriorating mental health who had to watch the hamfisted response of the United States to this crisis.