lionhearted comments on Defecting by Accident - A Flaw Common to Analytical People - Less Wrong

86 Post author: lionhearted 01 December 2010 08:25AM

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Comment author: thomblake 03 December 2010 12:25:03AM 2 points [-]

Consider dropping it altogether if it's not a big deal. This about learning to prioritize - I had someone comment on my site thinking mistakenly that The Richest Man in Babylon and The Greatest Salesman in the World were by the same author. It wasn't, but who cares? It makes no difference. It's not worth pointing it out - almost everyone has an aversion to being corrected, so only do it if there's actually tangible gain. Otherwise, go do something more important and not engender the potential bad will.

I consider this particularly selfish and evil. If you know there's a place where someone's map doesn't correspond to the territory, you should tell them before they inadvertently drive off a cliff. Even if it would be a status hit to yourself. And you can't tell me that's a part of their map they weren't even using, as they had just used it!

Comment author: lionhearted 03 December 2010 02:57:24AM 5 points [-]

I consider this particularly selfish and evil. If you know there's a place where someone's map doesn't correspond to the territory, you should tell them before they inadvertently drive off a cliff.

It's about picking and choosing battles. It's like when someone is giving a presentation on money policy, and gets the current interest rate wrong by .1%. If it doesn't affect the main point, it's better to let it go. There world is full of mistakes and errors - if you stopped and corrected every one you saw, that'd be a full-time, nonstop job. And moreover, you'd waste a lot of people's time by bringing up minutia that doesn't make a difference.

So I think you have to pick and choose your battles, and let some things slide if they make no real-utility based difference. Mistaking the author of a 30 year old, not-all-that-important book doesn't lead someone off a cliff. That's basic prioritizing.

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