smoofra comments on Rationality Quotes - June 2009 - Less Wrong

8 Post author: pjeby 14 June 2009 10:00PM

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Comment author: smoofra 15 June 2009 03:49:24PM *  8 points [-]

"I don't, I've come to believe, have to agree with you to like you, or respect you."

--Anthony Bourdain.

Never forget that your opponents are not evil mutants. They are the heroes of their own stories, and if you can't fathom why they do what they do, or why they believe what they believe, that's your failing not theirs.

Comment author: Z_M_Davis 15 June 2009 04:17:57PM 5 points [-]

if you can't fathom why they do what they do, or why they believe what they believe, that's your failing not theirs.

Interestingly though, by accepting this symmetry between you and your enemy, you potentially thereby break it. If you can understand why they believe what they believe, but they don't understand why you believe what you do, then you can justifiably consider yourself in a superior epistemic position.

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 15 June 2009 04:50:02PM *  4 points [-]

Maybe they also think they understand you. You can't get intelligence from simple asymmetry.

Comment author: Psychohistorian 16 June 2009 01:13:35AM *  2 points [-]

Removing the second and either the third or fourth clauses would make this a much stronger quote, i.e.

I don't have to agree with you to respect you.

Comment author: smoofra 16 June 2009 03:15:09AM 2 points [-]

Yea, but then it wouldn't be a quote anymore!

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 16 June 2009 01:54:11AM 1 point [-]

Last paragraph is an OBLW quote, no? Those don't go here...

Comment author: smoofra 16 June 2009 03:17:24AM *  1 point [-]

I don't think it's an exact quote of anything on OB or LW. If it is then my subconscious has a much better memory than I do. I was just attempting to relate the Bourdain quote to OBLW terminology.