Jonathan_Graehl comments on Rationality Quotes: June 2011 - Less Wrong

4 Post author: Oscar_Cunningham 01 June 2011 08:17AM

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Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 02 September 2011 09:57:56AM 17 points [-]

<mental model of Michael Vassar says>This strikes me as a nerdism. If you don't find less intelligent people easier to manipulate, you must be working on sympathetic models of them instead of causal ones. I expect that experience would cure this, and after a few months of empirical practice and updating on the task of reasoning with fools, you would find it was actually easier to get them to do whatever you wanted - if you could manage to actually try a lot of different things and notice what worked, instead of being incredulous and indignant at their apparent reasoning errors.</Vassar>

Comment author: Jonathan_Graehl 02 September 2011 09:01:24PM 9 points [-]

I agree with the Vassar-homonculus, but I took as the point that "reasoning with" may be the wrong tool - not that reasonable practice will fail to suggest the most effective hooks for manipulating the unreasonable fool.

Comment author: lessdazed 02 September 2011 09:39:41PM 11 points [-]

I agree. The quote wasn't "No man has wit enough to manipulate a fool."