gregconen comments on Undiscriminating Skepticism - Less Wrong

97 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 14 March 2010 11:23PM

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Comment author: komponisto 18 March 2010 03:39:03AM *  3 points [-]

2) State all the givens. Things which I believed would be understood automatically and omitted to save time are much more likely to be picked apart as flaws, where the other person assumes I have not thought the matter through.

Yes -- I have seen this so many times!

It's particularly frustrating, because encountering it feels like discovering that you've overestimated your audience at the same time that they've underestimated you.

4) Don't let your rationality slip due a sense of comradery. I feel that this community doesn't treat commenters as friends; rather, it feels more like being treated as a coworker who is on the clock. As Morendil phrased it, "I wish someone had told me, quite plainly [...] this is a rationality dojo."

I've noticed this too, and I long for the day when our rationality skills have advanced to the point where we can be rational and nice.

I haven't really seen 3), and EY's posts undermine 1) significantly, it seems to me.

Comment author: gregconen 18 March 2010 03:47:14AM *  2 points [-]

EY's posts undermine (1) significantly

What works for EY may not work for everyone else. For better or worse, he enjoys a special status in this community.

Comment author: komponisto 18 March 2010 04:00:10AM 8 points [-]

For better or worse, [EY] enjoys a special status in this community.

A status earned precisely by writing posts that people enjoy reading!

If you're suggesting that the ordinary academic/intellectual norm of only allowing high-status people to write informally, with everyone else being forced to write in soporific formal-sounding prose, is operative here, then I suggest we make every effort to nip that in the bud ASAP.

This is a blog; let's keep it that way.