sketerpot comments on Rationality Quotes November 2011 - Less Wrong

6 Post author: Jayson_Virissimo 01 November 2011 06:28PM

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Comment author: Eneasz 03 November 2011 04:29:18PM 1 point [-]

Reach out and take also from the Tree of Life and eat, and live forever.

David Brin

Comment author: sketerpot 14 November 2011 12:59:40AM 1 point [-]

It always bother me when atheists argue about the right way to argue with believers. This presupposes that there is a single Right Way. Personally, I'm happy that I live in a world where there are blunt and uncompromising people like Richard Dawkins, and people who take a gentler approach. And I'm happy that there are people using David Brin's clever Bible-quoting tricks. The combination of multiple approaches is more effective than picking one and using it consistently.

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 14 November 2011 01:08:27AM *  4 points [-]

You're just arguing that a "mixed strategy" (rather than a "pure strategy") is better, which might well be true, in which case we should figure out which mixed strategy is the Right Way...

(I'm not sure how your comment was relevant.)

Comment author: MixedNuts 14 November 2011 01:22:29AM 1 point [-]

Different atheists also perform differently with different strategies. Thus, taking into account comparative advantage, unless there is a severe shortage or excess of practitioners of a strategy, or a strategy's usefulness has been severely misjudged, the Right Way is simply for everyone to keep doing whatever they're best at. Hence "don't criticize each others' strategies" rather than "75% of incendiaries should switch to being diplomats".

Comment author: sketerpot 14 November 2011 01:16:32AM 0 points [-]

On re-reading, I agree with you. I'm pretty sure that a reasonable argument can be made that closely resembles what I said, so I'm just going to post this instead of strikethrough-ifying that comment.