Nick_Tarleton comments on Rationality Quotes: February 2011 - Less Wrong

13 Post author: gwern 01 February 2011 05:46PM

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Comment author: Nick_Tarleton 12 February 2011 09:35:31AM 9 points [-]

Heed a lesson from a successful practical propagandist. If you want to persuade people that a premise they unconsciously hold is wrong, do not give it a label they will perceive as insulting! If you do this, you make them reluctant to consciously accept that they hold the premise, which will make it more difficult to argue them out of it!

This rule does not hold for conscious premises. It can be effective to make insulting labels for those.

Eric S. Raymond

(This applies no less strongly to one's own brain.)