Rationality quotes: March 2010

Morendil

This is our monthly thread for collecting these little gems and pearls of wisdom, rationality-related quotes you've seen recently, or had stored in your quotesfile for ages, and which might be handy to link to in one of our discussions.

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself.
Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB.
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself.
Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB.
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

The Mohs scale is used to rank hardness of solids. It does not measure faithfulness of books to the science fiction ideal.

According to V. S. Ramachandran, schizophrenics lack the ability to understand or create metaphors.

I didn't want to link to the massive time vacuum that is TV tropes, but I figured people would understand the metaphor even if they hadn't run in to it before.

20thomblake16y

You're thinking of Mohs Scale of Mineral Hardness. AngryParsley was referring to Mohs Scale of Science Fiction Hardness, neither of which should be confused with Mohs Scale of Rock and Metal Hardness.