Eliezer_Yudkowsky comments on Rationality quotes January 2012 - Less Wrong

9 Post author: Thomas 01 January 2012 10:28AM

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Comment author: gwern 03 January 2012 04:13:11AM 2 points [-]

Oh fine: http://predictionbook.com/predictions/5124 But you'd better ask him now!

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 04 January 2012 07:12:07AM *  4 points [-]

I was already aware of the quote. It's on James and Lily's tombstone (in canon).

Comment author: gwern 04 January 2012 02:54:45PM 3 points [-]

I see; but the predictions/questions wasn't were you aware of it at all, but were you planning to incorporate it ex ante, and did you ex post.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 04 January 2012 09:13:13PM 5 points [-]

If it's incorporated it will have been planned beforehand.

Comment author: gwern 05 January 2012 04:18:32PM 2 points [-]

You and your silly hatred of spoilers. (The recent experimental evidence, BTW, suggests spoilers are not harmful but helpful for enjoyment.) But I guess that statement works.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 05 January 2012 04:46:35PM 5 points [-]

For what it's worth, there are stories where I've appreciated going in with no knowledge except for some reason to think I'd like it (the movie Hugo 3D is a recent example, for Mieville's Un Lun Dun I just had a reasonable guess about genre).

I think I lost some of the impact of A Deepness in the Sky because I knew what Focus was before I started reading.

Comment author: [deleted] 05 January 2012 06:23:44PM 0 points [-]

I think whether spoilers are harmful varies among works and among readers. (For example, ‘finding out how it ends’ was the only reason why I finished reading Digital Fortress by Dan Brown rather than throwing it in the garbage bin right after the first couple chapters; if I had already known the ending I would likely not have enjoyed it at all (except possibly for laughing at it).)

Comment author: wedrifid 05 January 2012 08:54:19PM *  12 points [-]

I think whether spoilers are harmful varies among works and among readers. (For example, ‘finding out how it ends’ was the only reason why I finished reading Digital Fortress by Dan Brown rather than throwing it in the garbage bin right after the first couple chapters;

This is an example of when spoilers are good, right? Every person saved from reading Dan Brown...

Comment author: TheOtherDave 05 January 2012 06:54:32PM 3 points [-]

I'm confused by what this is an example of.

Had you known how it ended, would you have finished reading the book? If so, why? If not, how would that have been harmful?

Comment author: [deleted] 05 January 2012 07:46:26PM 0 points [-]

1) Probably not; 2) that would have taken away from me the enjoyment of reading the book to find out the ending. (I was quite bored that day, and I didn't have my computer or my music player or anything else to do with me.)

Comment author: TheOtherDave 05 January 2012 08:01:35PM 1 point [-]

(nods) OK, sure... if the most enjoyable thing I can do right now is read a book that isn't enjoyable to read, in order to get the enjoyment of reading the book and being surprised by its ending, then telling me the ending is harmful.

Agreed.

I have trouble imagining actually being in that state personally, but of course people vary.

Comment author: Raemon 04 January 2012 09:30:39PM *  0 points [-]

If I had been thinking better I would have specified "did he know" rather than "did he plan" so that we could resolve the issue. (I think there is at least a 30% chance one (if not both) of us will have forgotten this wager by the time the reveal happens)

Comment author: gwern 03 April 2012 02:11:00PM 0 points [-]

I think there is at least a 30% chance one (if not both) of us will have forgotten this wager by the time the reveal happens

That's what PredictionBook is for. So far I have a good record for long-term use of it...