Jack comments on Woo! - Less Wrong

7 Post author: BenAlbahari 21 February 2010 08:19AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (57)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: loqi 22 February 2010 01:29:35AM 5 points [-]

There seems to be an emphasis here on "bad" (logically invalid/irrelevant) forms of persuasion, but it might be also be nice to have "good" woos that should lend credence to an argument. This would also reduce the number of apparent epistemological assumptions made by the site (e.g., "relies on infinite set theory" may be more of a problem for some than others).

A few off the top of my head:

  • Disjunctive: Argument draws support from multiple independent sources.
  • Fragile: Argument makes very specific claims and/or is very vulnerable to new evidence.
  • Uncritical Consensus: Argument claims that no reasonable effort has been made to refute its core claims (e.g., citing ciphergoth's recent cryonics survey).

FYI, I also think that "woo" isn't a great word, and much prefer "trope" or even "pattern". Maybe "pitch"?

Comment author: Jack 22 February 2010 06:42:11AM 1 point [-]

Repeating it here: "Persuasion pattern"