orthonormal comments on Open Thread: February 2010, part 2 - Less Wrong

10 Post author: CronoDAS 16 February 2010 08:29AM

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Comment author: orthonormal 17 February 2010 07:32:49AM *  14 points [-]

Short satire piece:

Artificial Flight and Other Myths, from Dresden Codak.

(Also see A Thinking Ape's Critique of Trans-Simianism.)

Comment author: gwern 18 February 2010 03:13:58PM 1 point [-]

The AF is quite bad; just a retread of the Thinking Ape piece. The Caveman Science Fiction is much better.

Comment author: thomblake 18 February 2010 04:37:09PM *  0 points [-]

Yes, but according to legend, Douglas Hofstadter read and liked AF. Surely that counts for something!

Comment author: gwern 18 February 2010 08:22:03PM 1 point [-]

Not really. Maybe he hadn't read the TA piece; and I wonder how much weight to give DH's opinion these days (he dislikes Wikipedia, which is enough grounds for distrust to me).

Comment author: Pfft 18 February 2010 09:14:20PM *  2 points [-]

Seaching for some corroboration of this I came across this little gem in the Simple English Wikiquotes:

Replying to following question by Deborah Solomon in Questions for Douglas Hofstadter: "Your entry in Wikipedia says that your work has inspired many students to begin careers in computing and artificial intelligence." He replied "I have no interest in computers. The entry is filled with inaccuracies, and it kind of depresses me." When asked why he didn't fix it, he replied, "The next day someone will fix it back."[6]

Simple: Deborah Solomon asked Douglas Hofstadter a question. Deborah Solomon said something that meant, "Your page on Wikipedia has made many students think about having jobs with computers and the way computer's think." Douglas Hofstadter said something that meant, "I do not like doing things with computers. The page has many errors, and I am sad at that." Solomon then asked Hofstadter why he did not fix it. Hofstadter said something that meant, "I did not fix it become someone will fix it back the next day – they will put the errors back in."

What it means: Hofstadter is saying that while Wikipedia can have errors sometimes, it can be fixed very fast by one of its many users.

source

Maybe he has a point!

Comment author: gwern 18 February 2010 09:24:29PM *  1 point [-]

I was the Wikipedian who spotted that NYT Mag interview (in my RSS feeds) and added it to the En page, and we interpreted it correctly as Hofstadter's dislike of us. I disavow Simple in general: it's the neglected bastard of En and ought to be put to sleep like the 9/11 or Klingon wikis.

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