= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
gregconen comments on Undiscriminating Skepticism - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (1329)
1) Use longer sentences and bigger words. The community appears to react favorably to academic styling in prose.
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.
3) Be careful about how much you share. People here are far more willing to do research and analysis to pick apart every claim you make, even if its a metaphor, and they will look into your background. Any of the information you've posted can and will be used against (for?) you. Alternately, this same point should be used as a suggestion for how to treat other posters. Link to their previous comments and any evidence regarding their claims.
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."
That's off the top of my head and in no particular order. There are other aspects I'm still developing which do not have a formal definition.
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.
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.
What works for EY may not work for everyone else. For better or worse, he 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.