woozle comments on Criteria for Rational Political Conversation - Less Wrong
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They were references -- Hitchhicker's Guide to the Galaxy and Monty Python, respectively. I didn't expect everyone to get them, and perhaps I should have taken them out, but the alternative seemed too damn serious and I thought it worth entertaining some people at the cost of leaving others (hopefully not many, in this crowd of geeks) scratching their heads.
I hope that clarifies. In general, if it seems surrealistic and out of place, it's probably a reference.
Even references need to be motivated by textual concerns. For example, if you had a post titled "Mostly Harmless" because it talked about the people of Earth but it did not say anything related to harmlessness or lack thereof, it would not be a good title.
Yes, that is quite true. However, as you can see, I was indeed discussing how to spot irrationality, potentially from quite a long way away.
Suggestion: Supply links explaining references. You can't achieve common knowledge unless you have common priors.
Counter-suggestion: Only use references that you either expect everyone to pick up on, or ones which are mostly invisible to people who don't recognize them. It's tasteless to add incongruous references and then expect people to follow your link which describes the clever aside you just made.
Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, I'm gonna go eat worms...
I suppose it would be asking too much to just suggest that if a sentence or phrase seems out of place or perhaps even surreal, that readers could just assume it's a reference they don't get, and skip it?
If the resulting argument doesn't make sense, then there's a legit criticism to be made.
But I like you!!! I like humans!!!
It's just that I regard your expositions as disinformative.
Exposition... disinformative?... contradiction... illogical, illogical... Norman, coordinate!
For what it's worth, here are the references. I'll add a link here from the main post.
I can certainly attempt that. I considered doing so originally, but thought it would be too much like "explaining the joke" (a process notorious for efficient removal of humor). I also had this idea that the references were so ubiquitous by now that they were borderline cliche. I'm glad to discover that this is not the case... I think.
Two years ago, I wouldn't have gotten the brontosaurus reference. I got it today only because last year someone happened to include "Anne Elk" in their reference and that provided enough context for a successful Google. There are no ubiquitous references.
That said, cata has a point too, as do you with the thing about explaining jokes. Like everything else in successful communication, it comes down to a balancing act.
Yes, I agree, it's a balancing act.
My take on references I don't get is either to ignore them, to ask someone ("hey, is this a reference to something? I don't get why they said that."), or possibly to Google it if looks Googleable.
I don't think it should be a cause for penalty unless the references are so heavy that they interrupt the flow of the argument. It's possible that I did that, but I don't think I did.
The problem is that the references have such a strained connection to what you're talking about that they are basically non sequiturs whether you understand them or not.