RichardKennaway comments on Things you are supposed to like - Less Wrong

68 Post author: PhilGoetz 22 October 2011 02:04AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (367)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: RichardKennaway 21 October 2011 12:59:24PM *  7 points [-]

what works are we "supposed to like" in the Less Wrong community?

Primarily HP:MoR and anime. And anything else, but only if we can find something interesting to say about it from a rationalist point of view. As grouchymusicologist says of the Grosse Fuge, gushing adulation on its own, even of HP:MoR, will not earn LessWrong points.

Agreed about GEB. It appears that the more someone already knows about mathematical logic, the less highly they rate GEB, to the point of weary eye-rolling from professionals in the field.

Comment author: jhuffman 21 October 2011 02:48:41PM 15 points [-]

Gosh I've been reading LessWrong since before it existed and I didn't realize I was supposed to like anime.

Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 22 October 2011 06:27:17AM 6 points [-]

Right. My impression was that it was okay to like anime, but that we should feel embarrassed about it because while we are watching cartoons we could be solving the FAI problem or taking a second job in order to donate to Village Reach.

Comment author: Spectral_Dragon 24 September 2012 02:41:09PM 0 points [-]

As a fairly new member at Lesswrong, I've not until now taken to reading Eliezer's fanfiction Harry Potter and the Arts of Rationality, but the manga/amine Death Note gets taken up there, seemingly on par with any other form of media. It's the second time manga/anime's hinted at as a source of inspiration.

You COULD solve the FAI problem, but you need time to do other things too, and then the medium is of far less importance than the message. After all, if another medium can be more effective in delivering the same message - a film as opposed to a book, wouldn't READING be worse than anime since you could be spending that extra time working instead?

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 22 October 2011 10:34:34AM 2 points [-]

I'm not sure you're supposed to like anime, or at least people don't talk much (at all?) about liking it. However, a substantial background in anime (something I don't have) seems to be assumed.

Comment author: RichardKennaway 21 October 2011 03:35:23PM *  1 point [-]

Anime references seem to be part of the common currency here, although I haven't seen much and what I have has not awakened my enthusiasm. I even watched all of Fate/Stay Night on YouTube, and The Melancholy Of Haruhi Suzumiya on DVD, since Eliezer had mentioned them from time to time; but I found less in them than he did.

Comment author: Prismattic 22 October 2011 12:01:12AM 7 points [-]

The only anime I've really enjoyed is Fullmetal Alchemist . I suspect there are, in fact, plenty of people on LW with no interest in anime -- that just passes unnoticed because they simply remain silent when the subject comes up.

Comment author: cypher197 27 September 2012 05:43:21PM 2 points [-]

If you're a Transhumanist, you should give Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex a try. It's excellent Postcyberpunk in general.

Comment author: bbleeker 23 September 2012 03:10:13PM 1 point [-]

Do you like anime?

Submitting...

Comment author: taelor 22 October 2011 12:45:47AM 2 points [-]

I personally found the original Haruhi Suzumiya novels and stories to be superior to the anime.

Comment author: PhilGoetz 21 October 2011 03:51:46PM 2 points [-]

The "true" Fate/Stay Night is an interactive videogame, which has never been translated into English in an official release.

Comment author: RichardKennaway 21 October 2011 03:59:20PM 0 points [-]

I know that what I've seen is only part of the F/SN canon (and the same goes for Haruhi Suzumiya), but Eliezer hasn't mentioned speaking Japanese, so what did he watch?

Comment author: gwern 21 October 2011 04:16:54PM 4 points [-]

Goetz said 'official'; very popular VNs often get fan translations. It's a safe bet that anything by Typemoon has been fan translated.

Comment author: orthonormal 22 October 2011 05:46:33PM 17 points [-]

It appears that the more someone already knows about mathematical logic, the less highly they rate GEB, to the point of weary eye-rolling from professionals in the field.

That's why you're supposed to read it in high school.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 21 October 2011 01:20:18PM 6 points [-]

Do experts dislike GEB because it covers material they think is obvious and/or because they think it's wrong? Or because non-experts keep talking about it to them?

Comment author: Bill_McGrath 22 October 2011 08:50:37PM 3 points [-]

I spoke with my supervisor in college, a composer, about this. He's made some attempts at reading Hofstader, and said he found that the sections about music were just uninteresting and obvious to a trained musician.

I've read Hofstader's article on the music of Chopin, and found it interesting, but not particularly new.

Comment author: mindspillage 01 November 2011 04:10:57PM 4 points [-]

I think you have to get a fair amount of training in music theory before it's that uninteresting and obvious, though, which most of the audience of the book isn't going to have. There may be some readers to whom all of the sections were uninteresting and obvious; I suppose it's just not the book for them. (I stumbled across it when most of the material was still new to me, which is probably the best time to read it.)

Comment author: RichardKennaway 21 October 2011 01:48:40PM 3 points [-]

Because -- so I understand, and I am not an expert -- they think it is wrong. Not by any means an undifferentiated heap of nonsense from beginning to end, but wrong enough, in the bits that the naive go geewhizgollygoshwowgeehay over and think they learned something from.

I recall the late Torkel Franzén, undoubtedly an expert, having some strong criticisms of it on sci.logic back in the day, but I don't remember details.