I appreciate you putting all these thoughts down. As someone out of the international relations arena for years now, I'm aware of there always being context to unpack, especially historical and geopolitical context, but I haven't been in a position to gather it, due to other concerns. You've give me a side of the debate I've seldom seen in my own social circles. Once I've fully sat with this information, I may engage you on this topic.
You’re welcome Cael. I love that you said something, and might even continue to talk with me. Cool. I’m not an international relations buff or anything like that and also I realize I’m not saying anything particularly new. So I appreciate that it got you interested in taking a deeper look. 😇
I’m actually surprised to hear that these rebuttals haven’t been raised in your circles. I thought they were “bromides” at this point. The meta critique about context is the point, if there is one. Context is often something we have to ask for, dig for, to satisfy our own epistemic hygiene standards. It’s not going to be offered up if obscuring it helps to reinforce a preferred narrative. I’ve been twilight-zone-level astonished at how “context and ratio” thinking has been chronically missing in almost every report, every streamer screed, every conversation with friends. The result is I just feel lonely. It’s not by any means just this topic. It’s happening in all topics. It’s like we’ve grown addicted to giving context and ratios short-shrift. Scarier still we have a hard time seeing when we’re doing it, and if you try to gently show someone that they’re doing it, you’re going to get in a fight, while making likely no progress.
The tools we have to catch this behavior in the act are lacking. LLms are not designed for it, they tend to frame shift, nudge polemics toward the middle, move the goalpost, sand the edges off of uncomfortable truths.
The stakeholders and lawyers have erred on a system built to make us to be humble; and to just get along, and it’ll lie, cheat and steal to do it.
I should reword that. I meant, I've been outside of IR circles because I work in tech and have been focused on philosophy and phenomenology lately. The circles I was referring to are progressive, often anti-zionist even, though I’ve kept to myself my more nuanced understanding about the issue.
I appreciate you putting all these thoughts down. As someone out of the international relations arena for years now, I'm aware of there always being context to unpack, especially historical and geopolitical context, but I haven't been in a position to gather it, due to other concerns. You've give me a side of the debate I've seldom seen in my own social circles. Once I've fully sat with this information, I may engage you on this topic.
You’re welcome Cael. I love that you said something, and might even continue to talk with me. Cool. I’m not an international relations buff or anything like that and also I realize I’m not saying anything particularly new. So I appreciate that it got you interested in taking a deeper look. 😇
I’m actually surprised to hear that these rebuttals haven’t been raised in your circles. I thought they were “bromides” at this point. The meta critique about context is the point, if there is one. Context is often something we have to ask for, dig for, to satisfy our own epistemic hygiene standards. It’s not going to be offered up if obscuring it helps to reinforce a preferred narrative. I’ve been twilight-zone-level astonished at how “context and ratio” thinking has been chronically missing in almost every report, every streamer screed, every conversation with friends. The result is I just feel lonely. It’s not by any means just this topic. It’s happening in all topics. It’s like we’ve grown addicted to giving context and ratios short-shrift. Scarier still we have a hard time seeing when we’re doing it, and if you try to gently show someone that they’re doing it, you’re going to get in a fight, while making likely no progress.
The tools we have to catch this behavior in the act are lacking. LLms are not designed for it, they tend to frame shift, nudge polemics toward the middle, move the goalpost, sand the edges off of uncomfortable truths.
The stakeholders and lawyers have erred on a system built to make us to be humble; and to just get along, and it’ll lie, cheat and steal to do it.
I should reword that. I meant, I've been outside of IR circles because I work in tech and have been focused on philosophy and phenomenology lately. The circles I was referring to are progressive, often anti-zionist even, though I’ve kept to myself my more nuanced understanding about the issue.
In other words, I'm not an IR buff anymore, but used to be, having studied it (my undergrad major over a decade ago)