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It's More Important to Be Kind Than Clever

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Re: It's More Important to Be Kind Than Clever

#61

Post by derleth »

jdietrich wrote: post #53
nollidge wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see what your anecdote has to do with kindness. Presumably both Guttmann and his colleagues were all kind enough to want to reduce suffering; Guttmann just happened to be more correct about how to do so. Neither approach was more or less kind than the other, but one was more effective .

The effective approach was seen as deeply unkind, for reasons I elucidated - it resulted in a great amount of suffering in the short-term, for reasons which seemed futile to everyone but Guttmann. Kindness is essentially a static phenomenon - it can offer nothing more than a slight temporary improvement. Clever is permanent and revolutionary. Clever is what eliminates smallpox, clever is what puts airbags in cars, cl…

> Kindness is personified by Mother Teresa - a well-meaning person who can offer only succour to the dying.

Ooooh, bad example:

http://www.population-security.org/swom-96-09.htm

> One of Mother Teresa’s volunteers in Calcutta described her “Home for the Dying” as resembling photos of concentration camps such as Belsen. No chairs, just stretcher beds. Virtually no medical care or painkillers beyond aspirin, and a refusal to take a 15-year-old boy to a hospital. Hitchens adds, “Bear in mind that Mother Teresa’s global income is more than enough to outfit several first class clinics in Bengal. The decision not to do so... is a deliberate one. The point is not the honest relief of suffering, but the promulgation of a cult based on death and suffering and subjection.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Teresa#Criticism

> She has also been criticized for her view on suffering. She felt that suffering would bring people closer to Jesus.[1] Sanal Edamaruku, President of Rationalist International, criticised the failure to give painkillers, writing that in her Homes for the Dying, one could "hear the screams of people having maggots tweezered from their open wounds without pain relief. On principle, strong painkillers were not administered even in severe cases. According to Mother Teresa's philosophy, it is 'the most beautiful gift for a person that he can participate in the sufferings of Christ'."[2]

[1] Byfield, Ted (20 October 1997). "If the real world knew the real Mother Teresa there would be a lot less adulation". Alberta Report/Newsmagazine 24 (45)

[2] http://www.mukto-mona.com/Articles/mother_teresa/sanal_ed.ht...

I probably wouldn't have even mentioned this if you hadn't explicitly said "succour to the dying". 'Succour' is the last thing Mother Teresa offered. After all, Suffering Is Good.

Re: It's More Important to Be Kind Than Clever

#62

Post by derleth »

momotomo wrote: post #54
jdietrich wrote: post #38

No. It is never more important to be kind than clever. Never. We have a clear example of this at the moment, with the Paralympic games. The founder of the games, Dr Ludwig Guttmann, revolutionised the care of spinal injury in the UK. Until his innovations, a patient with a spinal cord injury had a life expectancy of less than two years, with most patients dying from bedsores and urinary tract infections. Guttmann's m…

There are a lot of schools of thought that address the paradox of short term sufferings involvement in the overall scheme of kindness. Buddhism refers to it as "idiot kindness" or "idiot compassion" if you're kind in the short term without considering the long term value of it. True kindness is a long winded, structured and considerate thing. Feeding a junky drugs because it makes them feel better is an example of it…

> Feeding a junky drugs because it makes them feel better is an example of it done wrong

OTOH, feeding a junky drugs because a cold-turkey withdrawal would kill them (as is sometimes the case with benzodiazepines and alcohol) is pretty much the standard of care. Diazepam, trade name Valium, is the withdrawal benzo of choice for both pill-heads and wet brains, as a matter of fact, but they do sometimes give IV alcohol to alcoholics going through withdrawal.

On the gripping hand, you do have a point: Opioid withdrawal is very rarely life-threatening, and letting the dopehead sweat it out can really hammer home the whole Drugs Are Bad part, especially if followed by a massive lifestyle change.

And this further supports your main point that 'kind' and 'clever' don't really form a simple opposing pair.

Re: It's More Important to Be Kind Than Clever

#63

Post by dakrisht »

jdietrich wrote: post #38

No. It is never more important to be kind than clever. Never. We have a clear example of this at the moment, with the Paralympic games. The founder of the games, Dr Ludwig Guttmann, revolutionised the care of spinal injury in the UK. Until his innovations, a patient with a spinal cord injury had a life expectancy of less than two years, with most patients dying from bedsores and urinary tract infections. Guttmann's m…

jdietrich is my new hero. Well said.

Re: It's More Important to Be Kind Than Clever

#64

Post by pjscott »

nollidge wrote: post #45
jdietrich wrote: post #38

No. It is never more important to be kind than clever. Never. We have a clear example of this at the moment, with the Paralympic games. The founder of the games, Dr Ludwig Guttmann, revolutionised the care of spinal injury in the UK. Until his innovations, a patient with a spinal cord injury had a life expectancy of less than two years, with most patients dying from bedsores and urinary tract infections. Guttmann's m…

I don't see what your anecdote has to do with kindness. Presumably both Guttmann and his colleagues were all kind enough to want to reduce suffering; Guttmann just happened to be more correct about how to do so. Neither approach was more or less kind than the other, but one was more effective .

This has turned into an argument over the definitions of words, instead of an argument over anything in reality. Is it "kind" to subject spinal cord injury patients to short-term misery in order to give them longer-term relief from their injuries? Or would "kindness" flinch away from this and try to minimize their short-term pain? You're using the former definition of kindness, and jdietrich and the article are using the latter. Both are useful concepts.

Re: It's More Important to Be Kind Than Clever

#65

Post by pjscott »

columbo wrote: post #46
jdietrich wrote: post #38

No. It is never more important to be kind than clever. Never. We have a clear example of this at the moment, with the Paralympic games. The founder of the games, Dr Ludwig Guttmann, revolutionised the care of spinal injury in the UK. Until his innovations, a patient with a spinal cord injury had a life expectancy of less than two years, with most patients dying from bedsores and urinary tract infections. Guttmann's m…

The problem with single words is it is very easy to lost on the definitions. Kindness, cleverness... what does that mean? Here's how I would have worded it. Given a company of a 100 people working on the same product, which do you think would have a higher chance of being successful: 1) Everyone has a varying degree of intelligence but all of them shared the same (positive) moral compass 2) Everyone shares the same (…

You are no longer talking about relative importance; you've turned it into a much simpler (and very different) question: does a homogeneous (and good) moral compass make a team's success more likely, all other things being equal?

Re: It's More Important to Be Kind Than Clever

#66

Post by pjscott »

gwern wrote: post #21
DannoHung wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like the logic of a bully who beats up on smaller kids so that they'll be "stronger" later.

A bully who carefully doesn't follow the bit about checking consequences. (This reminds me of the old vein of criticisms of consequentalism which go: assume consequentalists are dumb; then they might do thing X with bad consequences...)

To elaborate, because a surprising number of people need this spelled out very explicitly: a victim's suffering is a consequence of bullying. If you want to make consequentialist arguments, it's crazy to simply ignore major consequences just because they're intangible.

Re: It's More Important to Be Kind Than Clever

#67

Post by rjzzleep »

minikites wrote: post #9
rjzzleep wrote: post #4

no it's not. it just depends on who you think your audience is. why do people always put their own use case as general rule for everyone? granted, you're talking about making money. otherwise is perfectly fine being a complete douchebag and everyone still using and loving what you build, invent, research.

And how's that working out?

ffmpeg, linux, plenty more? what are you guys talking about. steve jobs doesn't really count, there's plenty guys, who actually built things themselves and successfully on top of that.

Re: It's More Important to Be Kind Than Clever

#68

Post by wisty »

derleth wrote: post #61
jdietrich wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The effective approach was seen as deeply unkind, for reasons I elucidated - it resulted in a great amount of suffering in the short-term, for reasons which seemed futile to everyone but Guttmann. Kindness is essentially a static phenomenon - it can offer nothing more than a slight temporary improvement. Clever is permanent and revolutionary. Clever is what eliminates smallpox, clever is what puts airbags in cars, cl…

> Kindness is personified by Mother Teresa - a well-meaning person who can offer only succour to the dying. Ooooh, bad example: http://www.population-security.org/swom-96-09.htm > One of Mother Teresa’s volunteers in Calcutta described her “Home for the Dying” as resembling photos of concentration camps such as Belsen. No chairs, just stretcher beds. Virtually no medical care or painkillers beyond aspirin, and a refu…

... by how Mother Teresa is usually portrayed ...

Re: It's More Important to Be Kind Than Clever

#69

Post by wisty »

Hitler was kind (high EQ, good at convincing people to follow him), but stupid (had some terrible ideas).

OK, maybe that kind of emotional appeal is a shit way to argue, and we should use a more ... intelligent ... approach?

High IQ and high EQ aren't mutually exclusive, so it's silly to ask which is important on its own. I think a higher-IQ argument is always better than a low-IQ argument with the same EQ. A high-EQ argument without a high IQ can be actively harmful.

Empty rhetoric is good for manipulating idiots. It's useful if you have a good point, and want to make it sound more interesting. But it's not essential, and it's actively harmful if you don't have a good reason for using it. Low-EQ / high-IQ arguments won't convince a lot of people, but they aren't actively harmful (unless you count a few ruffled feathers as serious harm).

Also, high-IQ arguments convince the right people - people who listen to reasoning, and are unlikely to change their mind when people use hollow emotional arguments. The kind of people I think we need more of.

Re: It's More Important to Be Kind Than Clever

#70

Post by gautamsomani »

jdietrich wrote: post #38

No. It is never more important to be kind than clever. Never. We have a clear example of this at the moment, with the Paralympic games. The founder of the games, Dr Ludwig Guttmann, revolutionised the care of spinal injury in the UK. Until his innovations, a patient with a spinal cord injury had a life expectancy of less than two years, with most patients dying from bedsores and urinary tract infections. Guttmann's m…

"Kindness is nothing but a particular sort of shortsightedness"

May you meant mercy here, and not kindness.

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