In addition to extra effort it takes to read uncapitalized text, it has another effect on me:
It makes the writer sound unintelligent and low in Conscientiousness. Perhaps this is because people with less of those things are less likely to use correct capitalization, leading to an association in my mind.
Since I know Razib is both intelligent and conscientious from being a long-time reader of GNXP, every time I read his stuff I have to fight my implicit association of his capitalization with that of 14 year-old LiveJournal users. I'd rather not.
Intelligent writers might often use colloquialisms that are more typically used by less intelligent people, yet they do so deliberately to achieve a particular effect, such as making their writing sound more conversational or accessible. In contrast, ignoring capitalization makes writing sound both less intelligent and less accessible. Is the shift key really so bad that avoiding it is worth hurting one's perceived intelligence and writing accessibility?
Hugh,
I've been blogging for 7 years. In that time there was a significant period when I was working 60-70 hours a week, as well as managing to read, have a relationship, and, running two weblogs (since I didn't run GNXP as a diary, and pre-scheduled many of my posts, I assume you weren't aware of this). So I got used to making the particular trade-offs you see. In the comments I focused on quantity and not so much on quality. As for the posts themselves, I tried to focus on substance and not care too much about style (e.g., I did a quick once over but then...
Razib summarized my entire cognitive biases talk at the Singularity Summit 2009 as saying: "Most people are stupid."
Hey! That's a bit unfair. I never said during my talk that most people are stupid. In fact, I was very careful not to say, at any point, that people are stupid, because that's explicitly not what I believe.
I don't think that people who believe in single-world quantum mechanics are stupid. John von Neumann believed in a collapse postulate.
I don't think that philosophers who believe in the "possibility" of zombies are stupid. David Chalmers believes in zombies.
I don't even think that theists are stupid. Robert Aumann believes in Orthodox Judaism.
And in the closing sentence of my talk on cognitive biases and existential risk, I did not say that humanity was devoting more resources to football than existential risk prevention because we were stupid.
There's an old joke that runs as follows:
A motorist is driving past a mental hospital when he gets a flat tire.
He goes out to change the tire, and sees that one of the patients is watching him through the fence.
Nervous, trying to work quickly, he jacks up the car, takes off the wheel, puts the lugnuts into the hubcap -
And steps on the hubcap, sending the lugnuts clattering into a storm drain.
The mental patient is still watching him through the fence.
The motorist desperately looks into the storm drain, but the lugnuts are gone.
The patient is still watching.
The motorist paces back and forth, trying to think of what to do -
And the patient says,
"Take one lugnut off each of the other tires, and you'll have three lugnuts on each."
"That's brilliant!" says the motorist. "What's someone like you doing in an asylum?"
"I'm here because I'm crazy," says the patient, "not because I'm stupid."