Keep Your Identity Small (2009) • Hacker News Board

Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

#41

Post by leephillips » Wed, Aug 07, 2013, 2:05 PM UTC

_dps wrote: post #22

veidr wrote: post #8

> "Politics, like religion, is a topic where there's no threshold of expertise for expressing an opinion." I agree that this is how people tend to see it. But it isn't really true. Like JavaScript or auto mechanics or animal husbandry, there is indeed a threshold of expertise for expressing a meaningful opinion. The value of somebody else's commentary on political issues is pretty much directly proportional to their…

> The value of somebody else's commentary on political issues is pretty much directly proportional to their understanding of the political system and their command of objective facts. I think this is objectively wrong for the specific case of politics; unlike, say, analytical chemistry, politics has an active opinion on how each of us live our lives and can't be "left to the expert" (the latter being what the politic…

I tend to agree with the GP. No matter how strong someone's opinions on, say, the US Iraq invasion are, they're not worth much if they're not grounded in some notion of world history since WWI.

"Does a homosexual couple with no knowledge of US marriage law not have a valid opinion on whether they should be allowed to marry?"

They have an interest in the marriage laws, but that doesn't make their opinions more interesting or well-founded. In fact, because of the obvious conflict of interest, it makes them suspect.

Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

#42

Post by bargl » Wed, Aug 07, 2013, 2:14 PM UTC

nbouscal wrote: post #27

timinman wrote: post #11

I think his 'theory' that discussions have more potential to be divisive when they involve our identity is dead on. His advice to 'keep your identity small', follows on from that premise well. Many people let their identity get polluted by what they do for a living to such an extent that they find it very difficult to cope when that is taken from them. I have always been opinionated - I'm analytical and I enjoy formi…

> I think it is fair to say that belief (or disbelief) in God is a foundational human issue. I think it is quite a bit of a stretch to call something a foundational human issue when there is no consensus agreement as to what the words involved even mean, even among members of the same sect. If you could define the term 'God' in a meaningful way which all humans agreed upon, then we could maybe start to discuss whethe…

I think that the fact that people have been looking for meaning to their existence in God, Gods or other higher beings for years even when separated by oceans shows that this is a fundamental human issue.

While the execution of this is different in many ways, monothiestic - polythiestic it does show that human beings strive for a knowledge about things that are beyond our understanding. And it isn't like there haven't been Athiests all along http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_atheism. I think that this shows that the curiosity of "where do we come from" is fundamentally built into the human psyche.

Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

#43

Post by DanielBMarkham » Wed, Aug 07, 2013, 2:44 PM UTC

ColinWright wrote: post #2

This was mentioned in the thread: "HN is Becoming 2005 Slashdot" ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6157485 ) It makes for an interesting read concerning speculation as to why HN is becoming less and less technical over time, and more about politics. Technical issues and articles take time to read, digest, and understand. It takes a minimum level of expertise to be able to comment usefully on technical issues, so…

I believe there's a bit of a false dichotomy implied here that there exists a contrast between things that people identify with and things people must have expertise in.

I'd argue that anybody spending dozens of hours studying Haskell innards is probably heavily emotionally-motivated to learn Haskell. We just don't know what that motivation is. So it's not tech stuff on one side, fluffy emotional stuff on the other. Much more complicated than that.

But yes, HN rewards things that receive quick votes. Any article requiring more than 20 minutes to consume, by definition will never reach the front page. That's why it's always the same cast of clowns who write things with emotional appeal that end up getting on the front. It's the combination of hero worship, easy-to-digest subject, emotional impact, and big fan base. I think PG is way off-base here about the ease of commenting. Commenting doesn't drive articles to the front. Voting does. Popularity on HN and quality of comments are two different subjects. Related yes, but separate.

It's always been that way, just in the past the smaller group was much more diverse. Now it's reached the mob mentality point. Small mobs get really upset about chickens in functional testing or gotos in COBOL and easily sway the entire board because they can hit a new submission with so many votes so quickly.

Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

#44

Post by nbouscal » Wed, Aug 07, 2013, 2:58 PM UTC

bargl wrote: post #42

nbouscal wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it is fair to say that belief (or disbelief) in God is a foundational human issue. I think it is quite a bit of a stretch to call something a foundational human issue when there is no consensus agreement as to what the words involved even mean, even among members of the same sect. If you could define the term 'God' in a meaningful way which all humans agreed upon, then we could maybe start to discuss whethe…

I think that the fact that people have been looking for meaning to their existence in God, Gods or other higher beings for years even when separated by oceans shows that this is a fundamental human issue. While the execution of this is different in many ways, monothiestic - polythiestic it does show that human beings strive for a knowledge about things that are beyond our understanding. And it isn't like there haven'…

I agree that there are many questions that any given human will be very likely to ask itself at some point in its life, and perhaps to dwell upon at some length. The example you gave of "Where do we come from?" is one, along with "Why am I here?", "What am I meant to do?", and many others.

Where I disagree is your leap from those questions to some notion of a "higher being". First, as mentioned previously, this term is undefined and you cannot have a meaningful conversation without defining the terms. Second, we have already answered some of the "big questions". We know where we come from: billions of years of evolution through natural selection. No "higher beings" necessary. And third, for the questions that still lack satisfactory answers, in most cases that is because they are wrong questions (http://lesswrong.com/lw/og/wrong_questions/).

There may very well be "big questions" that actually merit being asked and that may rightly be considered foundational human issues, but that does not by any means lead to the conclusion that the question of the existence of some undefined "higher being" is a foundational human issue.

Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

#45

Post by tsax » Wed, Aug 07, 2013, 3:05 PM UTC

Evolutionary history probably plays a role here. Science has given evidence that our faculties of reason are probably meant to persuade and not to reason about the world in an abstract manner. We probably evolved in hunter-gatherer tribes of 150-200 people where voice counted for a lot. You can influence by arguing within a group that small. And losing an argument could mean expulsion from the group leading to a low-chance of survival.

The problem is that this simply doesn't scale. Arguing political questions feels as real to us as it did to our hunter-gatherer ancestors whose lives literally depended on it. But this is just not the case in polities of a few hundred million. Hence it's likely beneficial to reduce political bickering for those not involved with politics.

Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

#46

Post by rokhayakebe » Wed, Aug 07, 2013, 3:16 PM UTC

Matters of Fact, vs. Matters of Opinions. I cannot recall which of Socrates' discourses goes into this in detail (I think Symposium), but it was a nice read. It makes you really stop and evaluate whether there is a point in having an argument or not, because when things are matter of opinions you may as well just accept and respect what the other party says.

Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

#47

Post by danielweber » Wed, Aug 07, 2013, 3:18 PM UTC

ColinWright wrote: post #2

This was mentioned in the thread: "HN is Becoming 2005 Slashdot" ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6157485 ) It makes for an interesting read concerning speculation as to why HN is becoming less and less technical over time, and more about politics. Technical issues and articles take time to read, digest, and understand. It takes a minimum level of expertise to be able to comment usefully on technical issues, so…

It took me a while to find this but eventually I did:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Psychonaut/comments/o1zjo/ban_memes_...

It's not the entire problem, but posting about politics is low-effort content. It is easy to produce and easy to consume.

It's possible to have a good political discussion, but you need really good and hard-working moderators. If HN wants to have political discussion, it would more moderation than it seems to have right now in total, but devoted entirely to that, not to anything else.

Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

#48

Post by alexvr » Wed, Aug 07, 2013, 3:30 PM UTC

Your opinion on politics reveals how you think, which is why people tend to be defensive of their opinions: They don't know any better -- anything that directly challenges how they perceive the world is too threatening to be the subject of a rational conversation. If you talk to someone on a similar wavelength who has similar experiences, you can probably have a meaningful conversation. In this case, politics is like music: Not everyone has the same taste or understands/appreciates the same things, so it's hard to explain the virtues of Radiohead to someone who only gets a buzz from the best classical or, forgive my elitism, someone who can't see past Lil Wayne. It's hard for polar opposites to hold meaningful conversations for the same reason it's hard for a super smart person to hold a stimulating conversation with an idiot, or for an old person to do the same with a young person (they're effectively from different worlds). People on significantly different areas of the spectrum perceive the world very differently and have dramatically different experiences to draw on.

Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

#49

Post by grandalf » Wed, Aug 07, 2013, 3:34 PM UTC

In terms of being rational, identity is just a kind of bias (among many) that needs to be removed.

I think a slightly more accurate generalization of PG's point is that many beliefs and belief systems permit learning (changing the belief) in the face of new evidence or perspective.

The things we most often consider "identity" oriented beliefs are the things that people are unable or unwilling to question (or to consider that they might be wrong about).

So a good way to find you own rationality limiting beliefs is to ask "What am I certain about?".

Politics attempts to solve the coordination problems around use of force, coercion, bribery, money, and infrastructure.

Identity is simply a useful way to rally voters for a political cause, which is why it's used by political and religious charlatans alike.

Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

#50

Post by mseebach » Wed, Aug 07, 2013, 3:37 PM UTC

nbouscal wrote: post #44

bargl wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that the fact that people have been looking for meaning to their existence in God, Gods or other higher beings for years even when separated by oceans shows that this is a fundamental human issue. While the execution of this is different in many ways, monothiestic - polythiestic it does show that human beings strive for a knowledge about things that are beyond our understanding. And it isn't like there haven'…

I agree that there are many questions that any given human will be very likely to ask itself at some point in its life, and perhaps to dwell upon at some length. The example you gave of "Where do we come from?" is one, along with "Why am I here?", "What am I meant to do?", and many others. Where I disagree is your leap from those questions to some notion of a "higher being". First, as mentioned previously, this term…

The idea, much less the concrete evidence, that science (evolution) can explain everything is about five minutes old compared to humanity - and humanity has looked to the super-natural to answer the big questions for as long as they have been able to express those questions. It doesn't get much more fundamental than that.