wedrifid comments on Rationality Quotes February 2012 - Less Wrong

5 [deleted] 01 February 2012 09:03PM

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Comment author: wedrifid 02 February 2012 03:14:38PM *  7 points [-]

Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.

That advice seems to be predicated on poor reasoning. Not only are most eccentric opinions that have been held not accepted, those that gain the benefit of the eccentric opinions on their way to being accepted are not necessarily those that first hold them.

Comment author: thomblake 02 February 2012 03:50:16PM 8 points [-]

It's bad advice if the advice is supposed to help a particular person get ahead. If you want a new good opinion to be generated, give that advice to ten thousand people.

Comment author: [deleted] 02 February 2012 06:16:34PM 1 point [-]

Not only are most eccentric opinions that have been held not accepted those that gain the benefit of the eccentric opinions on their way to being accepted are not necessarily those that first hold them.

I gave up trying to parse that sentence after the third attempt. Punctuation exists for a reason! :-)

Comment author: gwern 02 February 2012 07:41:15PM *  9 points [-]

No no, it's not that bad if you try to figure out where the commas go:

Not only are most eccentric opinions that have been held not accepted, those that gain the benefit of the eccentric opinions on their way to being accepted, are not necessarily those that first hold them.

So to rewrite with fewer negations:

Most eccentric opinions are not ultimately accepted. And when those rare eccentric opinions get accepted, their original accepters don't benefit much; but instead, the credit or rewards are reaped by those who accept them later in the acceptance process.

Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 02 February 2012 03:17:44PM 1 point [-]

Good point.

Comment author: Desrtopa 02 February 2012 03:38:28PM 0 points [-]

those that gain the benefit of the eccentric opinions on their way to being accepted are not necessarily those that first hold them.

Not necessarily, but it's often an effective way to gain status by being seen as visionary.

Comment author: wedrifid 02 February 2012 03:40:43PM 1 point [-]

Not necessarily, but it's often an effective way to gain status by being seen as visionary.

I'd recommend the alternative of gaining enough status and power that you can easily take credit for other people's opinions when you have reason to believe they will be adopted.

Comment author: Desrtopa 02 February 2012 03:52:57PM 1 point [-]

I don't see how a method of gaining status that begins with an unelucidated "First, gain status" is very helpful.

Comment author: wedrifid 02 February 2012 04:00:55PM *  7 points [-]

I don't see how a method of gaining status that begins with an unelucidated "First, gain status" is very helpful.

It's rather a lot more useful than "Be weird because it doesn't always backire".

There are some social moves that do only work once you have sufficient status to pull them off. Gaining more status through differentiation is one of those.

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