Arbital members should state their beliefs clearly, even if they only hold them weakly.

https://arbital.com/p/6v4

by Alexei Andreev Dec 13 2016 updated Dec 21 2016


Sometimes there is a tendency for people to state a weak version of their belief, if they don't believe it strongly. Instead, people should state the clear, strong version of their claim, and indicate that they are not sure about it.

[todo: Examples]


Comments

Stephanie Zolayvar

I think the saying is "clear beliefs weakly held", not "strong beliefs weakly held".

Ryan Carey

Confusing question. I guess this is talking about the claim pages. It could also be talking about how people respond to claims on the 'agreement scale', though, and in that case, people definitely should represent their actual views.

In claim pages, my instinct is people should aim for clarity. I guess people would be tempted to shy away from their full claims, in order to get more agreement, which would be bad.

Alexei Andreev

Right on both counts. I've changed the wording.

Ryan Carey

This raises a new issue of how e.g. Steph is supposed to feel when the claim's wording has changed, and her marker is stuck on 'strongly disagree' (she probably agrees, given the new wording)