Gathering thoughts on Distillation

I think a higher priority is to have some incentives or software/institutional support for actually indicating how a disagreement got resolved, or not get resolved, as opposed to a conversation just ending without anyone knowing why, except the person who stopped responding. I know I keep harping on this, and you already have a possible solution in the works, but how am I supposed to produce "clear distillations of how disagreements get resolved" if I have no idea if one of the participants actually changed their mind and is tacitly agreeing with the other person, or just got too frustrated and stopped wanting to talk with the other person, or something else [LW · GW]?

(See here [LW(p) · GW(p)] and here [LW(p) · GW(p)] for two recent somewhat frustrating examples. Note that I'm not blaming the participants, but instead the current culture/norms/software/institutions.)

In the past, I have found distillations posts extremely helpful. I wonder if part of that is because when someone currently attempts it, they're doing it because they're correctly judging that: 1) it's important, and 2) they'll do it well. Probably as it becomes more common, one or both of these will stop being true as often.

I don't write that frequently, but I think I would do 1-2 distillments per year if it was more socially encouraged / rewarded.

Feels to me like this is a subcase of the more general problem that it's hard to find related content, especially more recent related content. It's easy to include a link in a new post pointing back at whatever's being distilled, but someone who stumbles on the old post/thread has no way to know that there's a summary, less technical explanation, more technical explanation, better central metaphor, etc available in some later post.

For instance, a sidebar of "posts which link to this one" would make distillation-type posts more visible and useful, while also solving other problems too.

It seems to me like working on visibility of related content in general would be higher-impact than working on specific use-cases, at least right now. If there were already a related-visibility system in place, then it would make more sense to add special use-cases like distillation on top of it.

I would probably be a frequent beneficiary of having my content distilled.

I do not think that distilling can easily be disentangeld from the primary content generation. The step 4 saves it's feasiblity a lot and is the essential thing such thing would revolve around.

I would even think that a discussion style where you are not allowed to state what you believe but only guess what others believe and only confirm when guesses hit home to you could be an interesting extreme way of talking. This would force the active listening part which often is a nice side bonus or only employed in special circumnstances.

I would also guess that there would be a lto of "when you put it that way...." where the confirmation steps makes you hold differnt positions than if you just left at the undistilled conversation.

I have also seen that there is language tech where a concept or symbol is powerful when it communicates a lot without it being that spesific what it communicates about. "Shrödinghers cat". It evokes a lot of multiverse theories and measurement problem etc. But it seems to have the property that somebody that doesn't understand the multiverse bits still correct tells the cat part or remembers that there are multiple states etc.

Shrödinger probably was important in providing some key formulas but I think the thought frameworks worked on is a part that can not be overlooked.

in order to make effective memetic talk you need catchphrases and distillation. As used in media as "sound bites" they usually make discussion problmeatic (or does the media conductive transformation on it). There is certain purity about imageboard memes. There are some fringe positions which I think have clear summations floating around that makes discussion abuot them easier. And a lot of the times it makes them easier to detect and resists.

For example "holocaust denial" is somewhat dry thing that is technically welldefined. But commenting on the spotlessness of a certain german leaders actions makes the position is so vivid that its easier to detect even in altered forms.

I also know about incels and chads, trans and huns in a way that is probaly way more agile than various physical theories which I would probably go at length to find about. But those I know about becuase of the good information design that I get them even if they are not personally so relevant to me. There is something cool about einstein saying "god does not play dice". I rememeber tht bit, I know how that stance would apply to various situations. Yet if I had read a transcript of that conversation and that particular turn of phare was not used it would not have sticked out that well at all. It makes me presume that there is a spesific communicaiton skill that one could learn to have more of ones communition be that way. And I think the spartans deliberately sought for a kind of laconic expression. Adn the spartans knew that oneliners are not easy but require lots of education.

I think imageboards are closer in reaping the benefit that spartans saw in being laconic and I think that benefit might be relevant here as well.