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Convincing Is Not Persuading

blog.alaindichiappari.dev

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Re: Convincing Is Not Persuading

#21

Post by Waterluvian »

getnormality wrote: post #5

This AI-written post is part of an insight porn genre that attempts to draw a sharp distinction between two words that mean basically the same thing in real life. We read it, we politely agree that sure, you could use those two words to represent those two different concepts, then we go back to everyday life and continue to use them interchangeably. If you read the post and actually believed what it said, you would t…

“Insight porn” is a new term for me but it seems to fit so well.

I think a key part of it is not just the simplification of complicated issues, but the willingness to oversimplify them in a way even if it perverts the message. It’s a cousin to “just blame immigrants” or “all cops are bastards” or “____ considered harmful.”

Re: Convincing Is Not Persuading

#22

Post by alainrk »

Avicebron wrote: post #3

There's something fishy with having a link at the bottom to share directly to HN.. It feels inorganic. Like this person has sat down and thought "how can I become an influencer on HN" it's disturbing.

Sean Goedecke and many others do the same, is it ok in their case just because more famous?

Re: Convincing Is Not Persuading

#23

Post by alainrk »

getnormality wrote: post #5

This AI-written post is part of an insight porn genre that attempts to draw a sharp distinction between two words that mean basically the same thing in real life. We read it, we politely agree that sure, you could use those two words to represent those two different concepts, then we go back to everyday life and continue to use them interchangeably. If you read the post and actually believed what it said, you would t…

How fun to see that the most common insult in 2026 is that something is AI-generated. Is this comment too? Can you provide the prompt you use and the automation you have to increase your karma points?

Re: Convincing Is Not Persuading

#24

Post by alainrk »

getnormality wrote: post #10
dahart wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I looked up persuade and convince in the thesaurus and dictionary, based on the title, and then came to say the same thing. But then I got a little curious about the source of the title’s claim, and looked up Chaim Perelman. He really did try to make a distinction between convince and persuade in his influential book from sixty years ago, so the body of the blog post is accurate in a sense - this is a concept that ca…

Interesting. The post would have benefitted a lot from talking about this background instead of just name-dropping Perelman once and by last name only(!!). That's the sort of sloppiness you get when you have a conversation with an AI, ask the AI to make a blog post based on the conversation, and then copy-paste that straight into your Substack without reading to see if a fresh reader would understand what you are tal…

It is not name dropping, the last name is literally mentioned along with the name of the book.

Re: Convincing Is Not Persuading

#25

Post by alainrk »

j16sdiz wrote: post #6
getnormality wrote: post #5

This AI-written post is part of an insight porn genre that attempts to draw a sharp distinction between two words that mean basically the same thing in real life. We read it, we politely agree that sure, you could use those two words to represent those two different concepts, then we go back to everyday life and continue to use them interchangeably. If you read the post and actually believed what it said, you would t…

I guess the only takeaway was: we should aware the other dimension (other than reasoning) when we try to convince/persuade somebody. This article can be re-written into something < 300 words.

That's why LLM exist, you can go there, paste the link and specify the number of words you want the synthesis. Or just take a few minutes and read it entirely. Nobody forces you.

Re: Convincing Is Not Persuading

#27

Post by alainrk »

gedy wrote: post #16
nubg wrote: post #2

Dear author, can you post the prompt? I'm not sure which parts are what you actually meant to write and which are LLM fillings.

It's a bummer but I click almost no blog or Show HNs any more due to the content engagement hacking with LLMs (and 99% are not sincere "well see English is not my native language", etc.)

Man it doesn't post automatically

Re: Convincing Is Not Persuading

#28

Post by alainrk »

bwfan123 wrote: post #20
getnormality wrote: post #5

This AI-written post is part of an insight porn genre that attempts to draw a sharp distinction between two words that mean basically the same thing in real life. We read it, we politely agree that sure, you could use those two words to represent those two different concepts, then we go back to everyday life and continue to use them interchangeably. If you read the post and actually believed what it said, you would t…

> This doesn't make sense to a typical English speaker You read the words like they were generated by an AI - ie, empty words which did not make sense to you. ie, you did not derive meaning from it. But for me, I derived meaning from this essay. Regardless of how the text was generated, I was able to relate it to some of my own insights. For instance.. >Pascal used to distinguish between geometric and subtle minds (s…

Thank you for explaining that
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