I think there needs to be stronger social norms around this. Sometimes I get sucked in to nonsense topics too, although recently I've gotten a lot better at noticing and stopping myself from going down the rabbit hole.
It would help a lot if you had support networks to nudge you in the right direction. For me it's often as simple as asking "why do you even care about this?" or "why is this so important to you?". And that realization and consideration can often snap people out.
As someone who participates a lot in online discussions, sometimes people get into really unproductive discourse which keeps going around in circles, so I think it's useful to have norms around refocusing the conversation and reminding people of their core values.
It's also useful to give yourself a limit to how deeply you're willing to engage on certain topics with Internet strangers, especially if you don't see the conversation going anywhere productive or meaningful after a while. The ability to walk away is a superpower. When you achieve enlightenment you gain the ability to let people be wrong on the internet without it bothering you.
I'm often flexible in my beliefs, and I believe this is a superpower, but it can be dangerous if you don't place some principled boundaries on your self, or how much you can allow yourself to be convinced to change your opinion. Rabbit holes can take you all the way to radicalization. This allows me to understand that I might be wrong without having to change my beliefs. What changes is that I simply stop trying to convince others of those beliefs I hold.
I don't really agree with this at all. You need to keep possibilities open for forever. I would guess that whoever the author has decided on some opinions he considers "solid" and feels that other people need to come to agree with him. This is hardly a remarkable position.
Yes, I am wrong on a lot of things. I’m not sure I’m unwilling to reconsider them all - but there is a higher barrier to entry for a flat earth discussion because of how I think.
The alternative seems to be to be willing to converse about anything - I have goals and shit to do, I don’t need to deeply consider that maybe the moon landing was faked.
To extend the original metaphor - your mouth doesn't stay shut forever, or you starve. So the idea is more to sink your brain or teeth into substantive thoughts, as you encounter them. It's not about closing your mind/mouth around a new dogma, but about exercising them for nutrition not for pleasure/vice (or letting them atrophy).
I think the "re-closing" of the mind here more represents fitting new information into a new holistic, consistent worldview. New information would obviously require that exercise again.
Chesterton is simply arguing against allowing yourself to be buffeted by the winds of thought trend, to the point you have no center.
Well it's a bad one. It isn't even a metaphor really, it's a word game relying on particulars of the English language, and it breaks down quite quickly as you could just as easily express the exact opposite point with slightly different phrasing, e.g. you need new food each day. I guess you could print it on a coaster to put your "eat pray love" mug on.
> It isn't even a metaphor really, it's a word game relying on particulars of the English language
It's absolutely a metaphor, just because you didn't understand it doesn't change the meaning the author conveyed. It's written in English, I'm not sure what point you think you are making by pointing that out.
> you could just as easily express the exact opposite point
So you didn't read my comment you replied to? You need new nutritive food each day, not junk or empty calories - the metaphor covers this exact scenario.
When you're eating every day do you just grab literally the first thing at hand and stuff your face until you're full? Or do you make conscious choices about what to put in your body?
If you're in the first camp you may not understand this metaphor - it's for people who consciously consume, both food and thoughts. If you mindlessly scroll and ideate, sorry you're the target of Chesterton's criticism - that doesn't make his metaphor bad, it just makes his argument valid.
> I guess you could print it on a coaster to put your "eat pray love" mug on
The irony, considering you're engaging with this quote at the same shallow level you claim to criticize.
G.K. Chesterton has an entire body of intellectual work consistent with the quote and metaphor extension I've done above - but you've decided to tilt at the windmill of a pithy quote as if it's synecdoche.
> G.K. Chesterton has an entire body of intellectual work
As a Christian apologist. His views were a foregone conclusion. No one who engages in such games deserves to be taken seriously.
This is completely "consistent" at least with so-called "Christian intellectuals", as they want other people to be "open minded" to their proselytizing while they themselves remain completely closed to the even possibility that they're completely wrong. They do not engage in good faith and see no problems with this because they consider their ultimate aims more important.
His arguments against absolute open-mindedness weren't grounded in discussions of his faith - even just the full version of his quote shows that, it was in reply to a metaphor for theory of mind his friend told him:
"For my friend said that he opened his intellect as the sun opens the fans of a palm tree, opening for opening's sake, opening infinitely for ever. But I said that I opened my intellect as I opened my mouth, in order to shut it again on something solid. I was doing it at the moment. And as I truly pointed out, it would look uncommonly silly if I went on opening my mouth infinitely, for ever and ever."
Other variations of the quote he told included an addendum: "The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid. Otherwise it is more akin to a sewer, taking in all things equally."
Neither of those relate to grounding his epistemology in Catholicism.
While I definitely agree his Christian apologia means a heavy dose of salt with intellectual claims, he's not even arguing for a moral center in this metaphor. Simply an intellectual self, to not be a gaping maw of consumption, as you wouldn't be physically.
Discernment with respect to ideas you're willing to entertain isn't exclusively the domain of religion, as far as I'm aware.
I see strongly held beliefs as similar to Odysseus tying himself to the mast in order to hear the sirens. You make a small sacrifice of "true rationality" where you always let the evidence sway you, in order to reach something else you think is much more important.
More often than not this important thing really is an experience of sublime beauty, another prescient part of the story. Not always. But often.
If an imaginary bored teenage version of yourself ran across what you wrote, at 6 PM on a Thursday night, would they read it with interest or at least amusement? That's my personal limit.
I would imagine that to OP the purpose of using the world 'shit' isn't condescending or to detract fro the importance of the topic, it's meant to be more personable, to directly engage the person you're talking with in a casual way.
I find that HN often penalizes users when they write the way that people often speak.
Well, I can live with that but I don't think it extends to writings on forums, social networks, the internet at large. Of course it depends of the audience (as always) (pluss the medium is the message).
> I would imagine that to OP the purpose of using the world 'shit' isn't condescending or to detract fro the importance of the topic, it's meant to be more personable, to directly engage the person you're talking with in a casual way.
There's that. There's also the possibility of implying that any online discourse is shit (which is an opinion I can hear yet disagree with but ok).
> I find that HN often penalizes users when they write the way that people often speak.
Written and oral English aren't exactly the same language although they have a lot in common (at the very least the rules differ a bit). I'd venture to guess that sentence structures and overall discourse (I mean: the way they use the language to achieve communication, not the grammatical rules to form comprehensive sentences) of someone who swears still show differences between oral and written expression.
Anyway, I am guilty of downvoting comments with too much swear words (because it's noise to me and it's distracting from the topic at hand, either because I have to factor the wow factor into the arguments or to ignore it when it's just how people express themselves).
Funny thing that happened once: I added a "and... language please ?" in my reply to a comment with foul language and the counter reply was "what are you... a child ?". I left it at that but that's precisely because I am an adult that I don't want to discuss using too much swear words.. but I can see how the reverse could be valid for someone else.
Out of morbid curiosity, why do you arrive at the conclusion that the writing of a person should significantly depart from that of their regular speech patterns? I mean, to be candid, that actually is the case for me in a much different way that isn't relevant in this context and I don't care to discuss but you couldn't be more incorrect and inscrutably so with regard to this context.
If I'm being glib, I would say that's a sign of mental illness where there's not a code-switching economic/practical basis for doing so [hmm emoticon]
> Out of morbid curiosity, why do you arrive at the conclusion that the writing of a person should significantly depart from that of their regular speech patterns?
> I mean, to be candid, that actually is the case for me in a much different way that isn't relevant in this context and I don't care to discuss but you couldn't be more incorrect and inscrutably so with regard to this context.
TBH I honestly don't get this entire line of inquiry. Are you fighting against slang or mordern internet culture, what and why is something unreasonably at issue here with entire disregard to the subtance rather than form of input?
It is wild how difficult it is to break out of the cycle. When I really put my mind to it I can “be good” for a few weeks, but all it takes is one bad discussion to get me to act a little more hostile than I should. And sometimes that’s all it takes for me to backslide again for months. I wish I could say I was more mature than that, but I’m simply not. Or at least I’m not at this stage. Lately I have been trying again to turn over a new leaf, and so far I think I’m doing OK? But it has only been like a week so we will see lol
One of my favorite “methods” or whatever you want to call it I learned years ago, I believe on Reddit. This is also broadly applicable to most social situations in which you are deciding whether or not to broach a certain subject.
You ask yourself three questions, all three of which must be satisfied before you say whatever it is you were thinking:
> "why do you even care about this?" or "why is this so important to you?"
This is my tactic as well. I'm in New England and a coworker was once distraught that someone dismantled a statue in the south. I asked if they had any idea that the statue existed beforehand? They did not.
I would imagine it's less about any given statue and more about it being indicative of a kind of cultural revolution. It's not necessarily a bad tactic, though imagine asking people if they knew George Floyd existed before the video. If people followed that heuristic and didn't get worked up into a frenzy then we wouldn't have had the riots and largest YoY increase in homicides in US history. Though I think the video was more a catalyst for unleashing the pent up frustrations of a populace forced under house arrest, living in fear of a virus, economic uncertainty, etc.
Getting distraught about the destruction of something symbolic or culturally meaningful without knowing about it first before-hand is perfectly normal.
I found out about many of the artifacts for the first time in [1] after they were destroyed and was still upset by it.
Your question does not adequately reflect why someone should or should not care about something.
"Why is this so important to you?" only works if you're asking someone who isn't already having an emotional knee-jerk reaction to something. Once they're past that state, questioning their position will probably just lead to them doubling down.
This can backfire too, as often people are just looking to rant/complain as a means of venting.
Eg someone's frustrated with some problem they're facing, to shift their attention from that they instead start ranting about an irrelevant problem elsewhere in the world. Then you go and shut them down by asking them why they care.
It's important to recognize that their anger being irrelevant towards the issue also means that there isn't much lost by letting them vent.
We need the equivalent of tl;dr for concise communication, for intellectual mood, to mean "Disagree (or there's nuance needed here) but declining to engage." Maybe "Thanks but no"?
And it should be present anyplace there's a Like button.
There should also be a way for the writer to get a sense for whether it's coming from people whose judgment they respect.
(And (someday maybe) also a way to offer to compensate someone for their time, if they'll explain.)
But all of this is predicated on social media remaining viable.
> "Disagree (or there's nuance needed here) but declining to engage."
Unfortunately this is still engaging, and many people I've encountered online will not let things go after this. It's why people instead use downvotes for disagreement, I think. It lets them take a disagreeing action, but without anyone being able to single them out and rage at them all day for it (which is unfortunately common on social media)
I often find that if I disagree with someone and then don't want to engage further, I have to mute or block them entirely so they don't shit up my notifications for hours, each one a small little temptation to go re-engage.
I cant imagine having any kind of discussion without the other(s) disagreeing. I desire to completely understand how someone came to the opposite conclusion. I equate anger in the process with brainwashing: You convince the person of the nonsense then you finish the job by training them to not take in further information. Getting angry is the best kind of closed mind. (I get angry too of course! It's hilarious!) Communication takes [at least] 2 people, it takes effort. Ideally both parties make the effort but I don't mind compensating for other peoples shortcomings.
It also helps to know nearly all things people think they know are extreme simplifications. (great pun) There is enough fuzzy logic to be wrong about almost anything. 1000 years from now, things we consider fact will be a laughing stock. It will be as funny as Jesus landing his space ship on the white house lawn.
This is why I appreciate that HN doesn't do notifications. Sometimes I'm just looking to share my opinion without really being interested in argument or discussion. So it's nice to not be bugged by notifications.
I usually wind up using sarcasm for this purpose (and perhaps to make a brief point). I’m not suggesting that everyone use sarcasm with abandon, but I think it has its place.
I appreciate the need for clarity in writing, but I worry that our idealization of workmanlike language greatly narrows the range of what we can convey.
People have been communicating in writing for centuries and have invented a wealth of literary devices to communicate their thoughts more completely.
I try to avoid sarcasm. I try to respond dispassionately and to pick one key part of their argument and say why I disagree with it. Or if I think they are being unhelpful with their tone, I tell them so.
I do use sarcasm sometimes, but I feel like it is generally an attempt to score a win in an argument, not to persuade. And I’m not generally trying to persuade the person I am responding to, but the lurkers who read the comments.
Isn’t “winning” an argument the same as making your point in a way that most dispassionate third-party observers would agree with you? I usually hear the dichotomy between winning and persuasion used to mean persuading the person you’re talking to, which might involve weakening your point to appeal to them.
I dont think that impressing third parties is really a healthy or useful goal for internet discourse. Omniscient/logical third-parties dont exist and the esteem of anonymous peers is hollow, so it usually reduces to self-aggrandizement and ego-stroking.
I dont even think it is helpful to approach discourse as arguments. The best approach IMHO is to strive for a mutual exchange of information.
Of course, this runs counter to most intuitive behaviors. As a result, you rarely see people asking questions to the opposition, aside from sarcasm, or Socratic debate.
Do you think persuasion is more valuable than being persuaded?
I don’t think I can persuade someone away from one of their core values. Best I can do is put ideas out there and hope to make some impression on someone.
That said, treating discussions as a mutual exchange of information is precisely the thing that I find insufficient (outside the literal sense in which everything is a mere exchange of information).
Discussion is about persuasion and collective decision making. You can’t find truth and seek agreement just by collecting more data.
Rationalists seem to have the sense that we’re all just on the cusp of enlightenment, if we only had a bit more information. They refuse to accept the world as the messy and confusing thing that it is. But as I said, that’s not a point of view that I can dissuade anyone from directly. You can only sway people who aren’t personally invested in the subject.
Edit: Since you asked about being persuaded, I find that that my views change slowly and naturally as I think through the points I’m making and experience different things. Of course if someone could set me straight though an internet comment box that would be a great shortcut, but since we’ve all formed our points of view through a lifetime of experience it usually doesn’t work that way.
I think we see eye-to eye on a couple things, and disagree on others.
I agree most people's core values only shift slowly over time. However, most topics of discussion or debate are not about core values themselves. they are about loosely related topics bound by layers of assumptions and beliefs. This is where information sharing is important, and fundamental to learning.
I don't know that anyone can find truth without a process of learning.
On the other-hand, I don't see collective decision making and persuasion as a route to truth or learning at all.
I agree that rationalist oversimplify, and think that is basically because they already hold utilitarianism as a fundamental axiom. That said, I think the objective of being "less wrong" is a pretty good one.
I'm not sure what humanity is left with if we give up on truth or accuracy a mutual objective of discussion.
I apologize for getting slightly mystical here, but I think of humanity as a vast consciousness, learning and growing and reasoning and evolving. We’re tiny aspects of that consciousness. We observe, develop ideas, bounce them off each other, deliberate, and eventually some take hold and spread, changing how mankind collectively sees the world.
It’s not enough to just share information with each other, and lately the internet has made that increasingly less necessary. We need to test our ideas, subject them to collective scrutiny, and try to spread or adapt them in response to those of others. There aren’t always great forums to do that in, but I think it’s worthwhile in principle.
It would help a lot if you had support networks to nudge you in the right direction. For me it's often as simple as asking "why do you even care about this?" or "why is this so important to you?". And that realization and consideration can often snap people out.
As someone who participates a lot in online discussions, sometimes people get into really unproductive discourse which keeps going around in circles, so I think it's useful to have norms around refocusing the conversation and reminding people of their core values.
It's also useful to give yourself a limit to how deeply you're willing to engage on certain topics with Internet strangers, especially if you don't see the conversation going anywhere productive or meaningful after a while. The ability to walk away is a superpower. When you achieve enlightenment you gain the ability to let people be wrong on the internet without it bothering you.