SilasBarta comments on David Deutsch: A new way to explain explanation - Less Wrong

4 Post author: marc 30 October 2009 12:05AM

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Comment author: SilasBarta 02 November 2009 11:18:30PM *  0 points [-]

I summarized what was important to LW readers. I skipped through the parts of the video that most LWers would have found uninteresting (people used to posit theories with unnecessary details called "myths"? who knew?) so I could get to Deutsch's new explanation of explanation which amounts to "unnecessary details are bad" (which are equivalent to "easy-to-vary" aspects).

Yes, you may have found it interesting. It still would have been nice to know the basic form of Deutsch's point before blowing ~15 minutes listening to boring stuff just to get to something that can be restated in a few sentences.

(Modding my appreciated summary down sure helps your argument though.)

I welcome anyone else to blow 20 minutes of their life to confirm my summary.

Comment author: marc 03 November 2009 11:17:08AM 3 points [-]

I hadn't realised that you were taking the karma ratings as indicative of agreement. I didn't vote it down before because I have tended only to use my downvote on stupid or thoughtless comments - not valid comments that disagree with what I think.

Once it became clear that you thought that the votes weren't just appreciating effort but were signalling agreement it would have been dishonest not to vote it down.

Comment author: SilasBarta 03 November 2009 11:36:27AM 0 points [-]

I don't think voting down indicates disagreement, nor do I believe people should use mere disagreement as a reason to vote down. My point was that you can artificially increase the merit of your point by voting down my summary so as to make it look less appreciated.