Postmortems are meta

[GISTE]

Postmortems are meta.

Meta is good, so postmortems are good.

-- GISTE

[Anne B]

On Jan 5, 2020, at 6:19 AM, GISTE <cuz.good.is.str...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Postmortems are meta.
>
> Meta is good, so postmortems are good.

I don’t think meta is always good. Some meta is bad. For example, a personal attack that is false and/or irrelevant is bad.

[GISTE]

People say a similar thing about criticism, but what they have in mind
is non-explanatory and just insults.

When I say criticism is good, what I mean by criticism is explanations
of flaws in ideas. So the “bad criticism” that people don’t like
isn’t including as part of “criticism is good”.

Maybe we should think of meta in the same way.

There’s philosophical meta, and there’s social meta. When I say that
meta is good, I’m talking about philosophical meta, not social meta.

Thoughts?

-- GISTE

[GISTE]

On Jan 5, 2020, at 9:33 AM, GISTE

Also…

Freedom is good.

Power is good.

Greed is good.

Lots of people think some types of freedom is bad cause people will do
evil stuff. But when I say freedom is good, I’m not saying people
should do evil stuff.

Lots of people think wanting power is bad, but they’re thinking about
like using one’s power to harm people.

Lots of people say greed is bad, but they’re thinking of win/lose
scenarios where the “winner” is trying to win despite that resulting
in the loser losing. But my view is that win/lose is evil, not
effective, and not what someone would do if he really was greedy. If he
was greedy, he’d use the best methods of getting wealth, which are
win/win.

All of the above examples (including the ones from the quoted text) have
the same win/lose vs win/win difference.

(Social) meta is win/lose while (philosophical) meta is win/win.

Insults are win/lose while criticism (as viewed by Popper) is win/win.

Using one’s freedom to do bad things is win/lose while using one’s
freedom to do good things is win/win.

Using one’s power to do bad things is win/lose while using one’s
power to do good things is win/win.

-- GISTE

[Anne B]

Your original post looks like an argument, with two premises and a conclusion.

Premises: Postmortems are meta. Meta is good.

Conclusion: Postmortems are good.

This is a valid argument.

But one of your premises is not true. Meta is only sometimes good. So this valid argument doesn’t show that postmortems are good.

If you want to argue that postmortems are good, you’re going to have to use a different argument than this.

[GISTE]

I’m not sure. Meta means meta discussion.

Is social meta really discussion? I don’t think it is. I looked up
“meta-discussion”. It is discussion about discussion. But social
meta is not discussion about discussion. It is insults about a person.

-- GISTE

[Anne B]

Is this what you want to say?:

1) Postmortems are meta discussion.
2) Meta discussion is good.
3) Therefore, postmortems are good.

Do you mean to imply “always” in 2) and 3)? That’s how I’m reading it. Alternatively, you could mean to imply “sometimes” in 2) and 3). That would change things.

[GISTE]

I meant always. But now I’m rethinking…

Selfishness is always good. As long as the meta involves everyone being
selfish, then meta is always good.

But do I need to qualify the situation with “as long as the meta is
not win/lose”? (Win/lose contradicts selfishness)

In the other examples I gave (criticism, freedom, power, greed, which
aren’t quoted in this email), I didn’t think that I need to quality
with “as long as everyone involved is doing win/win”.

Do you think those examples need such a qualifier (why?)?

-- GISTE

[Anne B]

Not all meta is good. Not all meta discussion is good. Meta discussion could be bad. So this argument isn’t going to work.

However, I don’t think you need this argument. What you want to show is that postmortems are good. Why not just talk about why postmortems are good? And maybe also talk about what kinds of postmortems are good, if you think there are some that aren’t good.

> In the other examples I gave (criticism, freedom, power, greed, which aren’t quoted in this email), I didn’t think that I need to quality with “as long as everyone involved is doing win/win”.
>
> Do you think those examples need such a qualifier (why?)?

Hmm. I don’t remember what you said about criticism, freedom, power, or greed, or where you said it. So I don’t know what it is that you want to know if you should qualify.

[GISTE]

I consider this line of discussion pending and I’d like to put in on
hold until the below line of discussion is resolved. From my
perspective, the above depends on the below.

>> In the other examples I gave (criticism, freedom, power, greed, which
>> aren’t quoted in this email), I didn’t think that I need to
>> quality with “as long as everyone involved is doing win/win”.
>>
>> Do you think those examples need such a qualifier (why?)?
>
> Hmm. I don’t remember what you said about criticism, freedom, power,
> or greed, or where you said it. So I don’t know what it is that you
> want to know if you should qualify.

I said it in this discussion. I changed the subject line to “Win/lose
vs win/win (was: Postmortems are meta)”. I’ll quote it:

> Also…
>
> Freedom is good.
>
> Power is good.
>
> Greed is good.
>
> Lots of people think some types of freedom is bad cause people will do
> evil stuff. But when I say freedom is good, I’m not saying people
> should do evil stuff.
>
> Lots of people think wanting power is bad, but they’re thinking
> about like using one’s power to harm people.
>
> Lots of people say greed is bad, but they’re thinking of win/lose
> scenarios where the “winner” is trying to win despite that
> resulting in the loser losing. But my view is that win/lose is evil,
> not effective, and not what someone would do if he really was greedy.
> If he was greedy, he’d use the best methods of getting wealth, which
> are win/win.
>
> All of the above examples (including the ones from the quoted text)
> have the same win/lose vs win/win difference.
>
> (Social) meta is win/lose while (philosophical) meta is win/win.
>
> Insults are win/lose while criticism (as viewed by Popper) is win/win.
>
> Using one’s freedom to do bad things is win/lose while using one’s
> freedom to do good things is win/win.
>
> Using one’s power to do bad things is win/lose while using one’s
> power to do good things is win/win.

Here are others examples:

Selfishness is good.

Technology is good.

-- GISTE

[Anne B]

Ah.

I think what you mean by “meta is good” is something like “the option to use meta is good” or “it’s good that meta exists". You don’t mean that every time someone uses meta it is a good thing.

Your question is whether you should add a qualifier to your “X is good” sentences, right? I’m not sure. I guess it depends on how you think people will read them in the context you’re writing them.