Will_Newsome comments on Rationality Quotes March 2012 - Less Wrong

4 Post author: Thomas 03 March 2012 08:04AM

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Comment author: Will_Newsome 03 March 2012 12:52:39AM -1 points [-]

Heterogeneous audience and asymmetric costs/benefits to reading it: people who don't get it aren't harmed much by its presence, the few people who do get it should benefit quite a bit.

Comment author: Bugmaster 03 March 2012 12:56:18AM 2 points [-]

Shouldn't a good pithy saying work in the opposite way ? The people who don't get it walk away enlightened (or, at least, filled with curiosity regarding the topic), while the ones in the know are unharmed.

What's the point of telling the chosen few something which they already know ?

Comment author: Will_Newsome 03 March 2012 01:22:20AM -1 points [-]

It's something that you could have derived if you'd thought to but didn't, like Bayes' rule. Once it's pointed out you immediately see why it's true and gain a fair bit of insight, but first you have to understand basic algebra. It's basically like clichés like "be the change you want to see in the world" but on a higher level; most normal people don't have enough knowledge to correctly interpret "be the change you want to see in the world", and most smart people don't have enough knowledge to correctly interpret "interpret every phenomenon as a particular dealing of God with your soul", but the few who do should benefit a lot.

Comment author: Bugmaster 03 March 2012 02:11:29AM 1 point [-]

In that case I'm voting down your quote, because, not being one of the Elect, I see no particular meaning in it. But if you wrote some sort of a Sequence on the topic, I might vote it up.