Today's LessWrong moment

[LMNO]

http://lesswrong.com/lw/1d9/doing_your_good_deed_for_the_day/

people who did one good deed were less likely to do another good deed in the near future.

in his circles, it's well known that people having lunch after church tend to abuse the waitstaff and tip poorly... He says that, having proven to their own satisfaction that they are godly and holy people, doing something else godly and holy like being nice to others would be overkill.

If this is true, then anything that makes people feel moral without actually doing good is no longer a harmless distraction. All those biases that lead people to give time and money and thought to causes that don't really merit them waste not only time and money, but an exhaustible supply of moral fiber

some of the other activities Dr. Beck mentions as morality sinkholes seem appropriate, with a few of the words changed:

Bible study
Voting Republican
Going on spiritual retreats
Reading religious books
Arguing with evolutionists
Sending your child to a Christian school or providing education at home
Using religious language
Avoiding R-rated movies
Not reading Harry Potter.

I would add to the less religion-o-centric list:

Joining "1000000 STRONG AGAINST WORLD HUNGER" type Facebook groups
Reading a book about the struggles faced by poor people, and telling people how emotional it made you
"Raising awareness of problems" without raising awareness of any practical solution
Taking (or teaching) college courses about the struggles of the less fortunate
Many forms of political, religious, and philosophical arguments

[Pæs]

Relevant: The smug "virtue" of the Ethical Shopper

Good link, I was thinking of this study when the tarot lady in the other thread was all "BUT I DO CHARITY WORK."

[Cain]

I've noticed this tendency before, both in others and in myself.  My theory was always that people set a "goodness quota" that, once fulfilled, allowed them to behave in more selfish and nasty ways.   Also, the easier the good act is, the lower the threshold for the less ethical behaviour.

[hirley0]

4:10

[LMNO]

Today's link:

http://lesswrong.com/lw/gm9/philosophical_landmines/

Last summer I was talking to my sister about something. I don't remember the details, but I invoked the concept of "truth", or "reality" or some such. She immediately spit out a cached reply along the lines of "But how can you really say what's true?".

Of course I'd learned some great replies to that sort of question right here on LW, so I did my best to sort her out, but everything I said invoked more confused slogans and cached thoughts. I realized the battle was lost. Worse, I realized she'd stopped thinking. Later, I realized I'd stopped thinking too.

In the course of normal conversation, you passed through an ordinary spot that happened to conceal the dangerous leftovers of past memetic wars. As a result, an intelligent and reasonable human was reduced to a mindless zombie chanting prerecorded slogans. If you're lucky, that's all. If not, you start chanting counter-slogans and the whole thing goes supercritical.

It looks like when a lot has been said on a confusing topic, usually something in philosophy, there is a large complex of slogans and counter-slogans installed as cached thoughts around it. Certain words or concepts will trigger these cached thoughts, and any attempt to mitigate the damage will trigger more of them. Of course they will also trigger cached thoughts in other people, which in turn... The result being that the conversation rapidly diverges from the original point to some useless yet heavily discussed attractor.

Landmines in a topic make it really hard to discuss ideas or do work in these fields, because chances are, someone is going to step on one, and then there will be a big noisy mess that interferes with the rather delicate business of thinking carefully about confusing ideas.

[Reginald Ret]

I read one of my mom's psychology papers she wrote when she was a student for the second time.
The subject was creativity, so naturally the concept of creative and destructive being opposites irked me. (THEY ARE ONE AND THE SAME THING DAMMIT!)
You just made me realize that this is one instance where my cached thoughts got triggered without any conscious influence.
It is not a realisation i am easily processing.
Asshole! You made me realize i'm an idiot even when i feel i am right.

[Bu🤠ns]

Yeah that last one is very relevant for me right now... Thanks for keeping this thread going, LMNO.

I like this series...and i just found out they provide podcasts!!! so now i have no excuse not to follow. 

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I reposted that on the Westboro Discordian group, because it seemed relevant, but crickets. 

[LMNO]

http://lesswrong.com/lw/ik/one_argument_against_an_army/

Yesterday I talked about a style of reasoning in which not a single contrary argument is allowed, with the result that every non-supporting observation has to be argued away.  Today I suggest that when people encounter a contrary argument, they prevent themselves from downshifting their confidence by rehearsing already-known support.

Suppose the country of Freedonia is debating whether its neighbor, Sylvania, is responsible for a recent rash of meteor strikes on its cities.  There are several pieces of evidence suggesting this: the meteors struck cities close to the Sylvanian border; there was unusual activity in the Sylvanian stock markets before the strikes; and the Sylvanian ambassador Trentino was heard muttering about "heavenly vengeance".

Someone comes to you and says:  "I don't think Sylvania is responsible for the meteor strikes.  They have trade with us of billions of dinars annually."  "Well," you reply, "the meteors struck cities close to Sylvania, there was suspicious activity in their stock market, and their ambassador spoke of heavenly vengeance afterward."  Since these three arguments outweigh the first, you keep your belief that Sylvania is responsible—you believe rather than disbelieve, qualitatively. Clearly, the balance of evidence weighs against Sylvania.

Then another comes to you and says:  "I don't think Sylvania is responsible for the meteor strikes.  Directing an asteroid strike is really hard. Sylvania doesn't even have a space program."  You reply, "But the meteors struck cities close to Sylvania, and their investors knew it, and the ambassador came right out and admitted it!"  Again, these three arguments outweigh the first (by three arguments against one argument), so you keep your belief that Sylvania is responsible.

Indeed, your convictions are strengthened.  On two separate occasions now, you have evaluated the balance of evidence, and both times the balance was tilted against Sylvania by a ratio of 3-to-1.


You encounter further arguments by the pro-Sylvania traitors—again, and again, and a hundred times again—but each time the new argument is handily defeated by 3-to-1.  And on every occasion, you feel yourself becoming more confident that Sylvania was indeed responsible, shifting your prior according to the felt balance of evidence.

The problem, of course, is that by rehearsing arguments you already knew, you are double-counting the evidence  This would be a grave sin even if you double-counted all the evidence.  (Imagine a scientist who does an experiment with 50 subjects and fails to obtain statistically significant results, so he counts all the data twice.)

But to selectively double-count only some evidence is sheer farce.  I remember seeing a cartoon as a child, where a villain was dividing up loot using the following algorithm:  "One for you, one for me.  One for you, one-two for me.  One for you, one-two-three for me."

As I emphasized yesterday, even if a cherished belief is true, a rationalist may sometimes need to downshift the probability while integrating all the evidence.  Yes, the balance of support may still favor your cherished belief.  But you still have to shift the probability down—yes, down—from whatever it was before you heard the contrary evidence.  It does no good to rehearse supporting arguments, because you have already taken those into account.

And yet it does appear to me that when people are confronted by a new counterargument, they search for a justification not to downshift their confidence, and of course they find supporting arguments they already know.  I have to keep constant vigilance not to do this myself!  It feels as natural as parrying a sword-strike with a handy shield.

With the right kind of wrong reasoning, a handful of support—or even a single argument—can stand off an army of contradictions.

Simply put, if you have a probability of 80% positive using three pieces of evidence, and someone presents a counter argument with one piece of evidence, you should downgrade your probability, even if your evidence still trumps the counterargument.

And then, if a second counter argument arises, you need to put your three pieces of evidence (plus the lower probability) up against both counter arguments.  And even if your evidence wins out, you need to downgrade your probability again.

And so on.  You can't put your three pieces of evidence against each counter argument one at a time -- you need to compound the counter arguments each time, and adjust your probabilities.

Many people keep their 80% assurance indefinitely, against all counter arguments, and don't remember to take into account all evidence against their conclusions.  This is one reason it's so hard to change people's minds.  And why dogpiling often happens.

[LMNO]

http://lesswrong.com/lw/3k/how_to_not_lose_an_argument/

There is an unspoken belief in some quarters that the point of an argument is to gain social status by utterly demolishing your opponent's position, thus proving yourself the better thinker. That can be fun sometimes, and if it's really all you want, go for it.

But the most important reason to argue with someone is to change his mind.

If your goal is to absolutely demolish the other person's position, to make him feel awful and worthless - then you are also very unlikely to change his mind or win his understanding. And because our culture of debates and mock trials and real trials and flaming people on Usenet encourages the first type of "winning an argument", there's precious little genuine mind-changing going on.

Don't stop believing that you are right and they are wrong, unless the evidence points that way. But leave it at them being wrong, not them being wrong and stupid and evil.

[Reginald Ret]

http://lesswrong.com/lw/3k/how_to_not_lose_an_argument/

There is an unspoken belief in some quarters that the point of an argument is to gain social status by utterly demolishing your opponent's position, thus proving yourself the better thinker. That can be fun sometimes, and if it's really all you want, go for it.

But the most important reason to argue with someone is to change his mind.

If your goal is to absolutely demolish the other person's position, to make him feel awful and worthless - then you are also very unlikely to change his mind or win his understanding. And because our culture of debates and mock trials and real trials and flaming people on Usenet encourages the first type of "winning an argument", there's precious little genuine mind-changing going on.

Don't stop believing that you are right and they are wrong, unless the evidence points that way. But leave it at them being wrong, not them being wrong and stupid and evil.

OH yes, very much important to be reminding one's self of that.

[P3nT4gR4m]

I Call bullshit - The most important reason to argue with someone is to change one of your minds, otherwise you're not arguing, you're proselytizing

[LMNO]

I Call bullshit - The most important reason to argue with someone is to change one of your minds, otherwise you're not arguing, you're proselytizing

Well said!

[Reginald Ret]

I Call bullshit - The most important reason to argue with someone is to change one of your minds, otherwise you're not arguing, you're proselytizing

Well said!

I disagree that you ca't call it arguing if your goal is to change the other's mind. Just because openness to the other's argument is not explicitly stated does not mean it is not acceptable. It is perfectly fine if each person's main goal is to change the other person's mind, your main goal should not be your only goal and definitely not to the exclusion of all else. Only when nothing else is acceptable would i call it proselytizing.

[P3nT4gR4m]

If you want to approach arguing, from a win/lose perspective, then it makes more sense to me to turn the traditional paradigm on it's head.

We're arguing, you convince me I'm wrong - I win (I've just received a software upgrade)

I convince you that you're wrong - You win

Unfortunately, it rarely works out that way on account of primate ego/threat response