Rationality Quotes December 2011

Jayson_Virissimo

Here's the new thread for posting quotes, with the usual rules:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself.
Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB.
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

Here's the new thread for posting quotes, with the usual rules:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself.
Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB.
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

Grognor: chelz: is the area of a rectangle more the length, or the width?

The width. Changing the width makes a bigger change in the area than changing the length does. (By convention, the width is defined as the smaller of the two dimensions of the rectangle.)

I could also meaninglessly answer that the length is more important, as it will always be equal or bigger.

the key to finding a wrong question is finding that the answer doesn't help the person who asked it.

8Benquo15y

Only if you're augmenting/cutting by a fixed length. If you're using a proportion (e.g. cut either the length or the width in half) then they're equivalent.

17wedrifid15y

You have resolved the question to the nearest available sane question but that isn't the answer to the question itself and does not make the question valid. Come to think of it I am somewhat dubious with answering "is the area of this 1km by 1m rectangle more the 1km or the 1m?" with "the 1m". That just doesn't seem right.