Search Ideas

#4460 says moderation aims to preserve productive, truth-seeking discussion. Being free to avoid someone does not show that excluding them helps that goal. A valuable contributor might advocate elsewhere an idea that has pending criticisms on Veritula, without affecting Veritula or its members. Banning them would sacrifice useful contributions without protecting any discussion. Off-platform conduct should count only when it burdens Veritula or its members.

#5471 and #5472 defend this proposal as applying when someone participated in the relevant discussion or was directly shown the relevant ideas and then repeatedly ignored them. The proposal itself only says “when they should know better”. That could cover much more. If actual notice is the intended threshold, should an occurrence count only after the person has been shown the particular idea and its pending criticism?

You say users who have been told about Veritula’s standard can be held to it. If Veritula becomes widely used, most new users will not initially be Popperians. They may understand “known to be false,” “objectively wrong,” and “rationally adoptable” in their ordinary senses rather than Veritula’s technical, fallibilist senses.

What must someone have been told and understood before they count as someone who “should know better”? Should the rule require clear notice about how Veritula uses these terms, and a chance to understand and criticise that epistemology, before someone’s off-platform statements can count as an offence?

The revised rule about inexplicit criticism says that a person should treat their inexplicit criticism as pending and not act on the parent idea, but normally should not post a placeholder if doing so would block others. In that case, the idea remains publicly uncriticized while it is not rationally adoptable for that person. This proposal would count that person as rejecting an idea without pending criticisms. Someone could therefore follow the inexplicit-criticism rule and still commit an offence under this rule. How should that case be handled?

#2209 says that irrationality is a person’s prerogative unless it violates someone else’s consent. This new proposal would punish irrationality itself, including behaviour outside Veritula. #2209 needs to be criticised, otherwise you are violating your own criterion.

#4460 says that changes to the rules should be proposed by criticising that idea. This is attached beneath it but is not marked as a criticism. Should it have been submitted as a criticism of #4460? (Have I misunderstood that part of #4460?)

#4460 already bans persistent bad-faith argument, refusal to engage, and behaviour likely to sabotage discussion. If that covers the harmful cases, what does this new rule add? If it does not cover them, what other harm justifies a ban?

#2209 says that irrationality is a person’s prerogative unless it violates someone else’s consent. This new proposal would punish irrationality itself, including behaviour outside Veritula. What criticism of #2209 justifies this change?

#2201 says someone can post “I have an inexplicit criticism” and make the parent idea problematic. But that status then applies to everyone, even though only the person with the criticism has any reason to hesitate. If the question is whether to feed a dog food X, must everyone avoid food X until that person explains their criticism? If not, “an inexplicit criticism gives other users no usable reason to reject this idea” seems to answer almost every placeholder criticism of this kind. How can an inexplicit criticism change the public status of an idea before it has any content?

How does a user know to look up a given idea, if they have adopted it and/or are advocating it. We each have adopted countless ideas. Must we check them all on Veritula, before we act or advocate any of them?

The search functionality on Veritula doesn't seem powerful enough to be able to consistently bring up previous discussions that might relate to a question/idea that user is dealing with. Veritula would benefit from a much stronger semantic search capability, or even a simple chatbot that you can ask if something has been dealt with already.

The wrapper provides no immunity. If X’s flaw defeats the proposed use, that flaw can criticize the new policy too. ‘This bridge design collapses, but keep using it’ is criticised by the danger of collapse. Therefore, not almost any criticised idea becomes adoptable this way.

“There are no serious contenders” is itself merely another conjecture inside the composite idea. It too can be criticised and revised recursively.

The wrapper provides no immunity. If X’s flaw defeats the proposed use, that flaw can criticize the new policy too. ‘This bridge design collapses, but keep using it’ is criticised by the danger of collapse. Therefore, not almost any criticized idea becomes adoptable this way.

The wrapper provides no immunity. If X’s flaw defeats the proposed use, that flaw can criticize the new policy too. ‘This bridge design collapses, but keep using it’ is criticized by the danger of collapse. Therefore, not almost any criticized idea becomes adoptable this way.

“Serious contender” smuggles comparison of explanations with known flaws back in.

How do we distinguish between serious and unserious contenders?

This seems to create a rewording loophole.

Almost any criticised idea could be made adoptable this way: “X has criticisms, but keep using X”

it’s an excellent approximation

It's an excellent approximation to what? Reality? How do we know that?

This is addressed in section 5 of Dennis' paper: The Structure of Rational Thought.

‘How can we rationally proceed when all known ideas have pending criticisms?’
By treating ideas as immutable and discrete, even if content overlaps. For example, as a description of reality, general relativity has pending criticisms. But there are no serious contenders. Instead, take the idea: ‘Although GR has pending criticisms as a true description of reality, it’s an excellent approximation, makes precise predictions, and powers technology such as GPS. So we keep using it until we find a replacement.’ As written, this idea has no pending criticisms, so its advocacy is rational.

By this criterion, it is irrational to adopt or advocate either GR or QM, as they have pending criticisms.

According to every physicist I have heard speak on the matter, GR and QM conflict.

@bart-vanderhaegen has also said to me that GR falsely predicts the orbit of electrons, and QM falsely predicts the mass threshold at which black holes form.

By this criterion, it is irrational to adopt or advocate either GR or QM, as they have pending criticisms.

From #1497, emphasis mine:

Discussion title: problem
Top-level ideas in the discussion: proposed solutions
Nested ideas: criticisms, counter-criticisms, and further solutions

This is what I was going off. Did I misunderstand #1497?

They are separate ideas, and the latter ideas depend on their formers. If there is a flaw in former ideas, they apply to latter ideas, but if there is a flaw in latter ideas, they don’t necessarily apply to the former. So arranging them like this was intentional, to respect that hierarchy.

They are seperate ideas, and the latter ideas depend on the former. If there is a flaw in former ideas, they apply to latter ideas, but if there is a flaw in latter ideas, they don’t necessarily apply to the former. So arranging them like this was intentional, to respect that hierarchy.

The more HTV an explanation is, the more closely it corresponds to reality.