Eliezer_Yudkowsky comments on I'm Not Saying People Are Stupid - Less Wrong

38 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 09 October 2009 04:23PM

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Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 10 October 2009 12:22:00AM 8 points [-]

Hm... well, the lack of capitalization didn't much bother me because I know you. But I do think sentences are easier to read when capitalized, and that it is generally economical for one author to save a thousand readers the effort. Maybe don't capitalize on your own blog, but capitalize on blog comments on blogs where there's a high standard of commenting?

Though I actually am pretty sympathetic to your basic plea here, because the whole reason I started blogging was in an effort to write faster, and critical to that effort is learning to hold your writing to lower standards. As the saying goes, there's no such thing as writer's block - you can always write a sentence - there is only holding yourself to too high a standard. If lack of capitalization is your key trigger for lowering your standards enough to write, I won't complain. Back when I started blogging, just the fact that it was a blog post was enough; but it wore off over time and since then it's been a constant struggle for me to lower my standards. (Do not try this with anything other than writing!)

Perhaps a BHTV episode in the future?

I'd be honored to do a BHTV.

Comment author: [deleted] 22 November 2009 08:25:36AM 4 points [-]

Though I actually am pretty sympathetic to your basic plea here, because the whole reason I started blogging was in an effort to write faster, and critical to that effort is learning to hold your writing to lower standards. . . . (Do not try this with anything other than writing!)

No? Really? I've gotten the idea that you should lower your standards whenever you find yourself simply not doing something. I am pretty bad at drawing, since I've had practically no experience. Recently, therefore, I've figured that I should go ahead and draw something, even though I know that I'll do a bad job of it. I'm sure that Robin Hanson would love pointing out that the fact that a performance is too poor to show to other people doesn't mean that it's too poor to practice privately.

Comment author: razibkhan 10 October 2009 01:21:43AM 1 point [-]

re: BHTV, let's get in touch in a few months. I think the disagreement is strong enough to satisfy the overlords in this case.