komponisto comments on Existential Risk - Less Wrong

28 Post author: lukeprog 15 November 2011 02:23PM

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Comment author: [deleted] 18 November 2011 06:15:21PM 0 points [-]

Things are not always that simple: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2172

Comment author: komponisto 18 November 2011 07:03:56PM 1 point [-]

I didn't make any claim about "simplicity", and nor does anything in the link contradict anything I wrote. Indeed, it confirms my point: some things take "the", others don't, and it isn't a matter of on-the-spot whim.

Note that I did not propose any general rule for determining which category something falls into without prior knowledge. My comment about descriptions versus names does not have any predictive implications. I could have talked about "weak" and "strong" instead.