Grognor comments on Rationality Quotes March 2012 - Less Wrong

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

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Comment author: Grognor 06 March 2012 02:39:37PM 6 points [-]

So when somebody else asks for your help, in the form of charity or taxes, or because they need you to help them move a refrigerator, you can cite all sorts of reasons for not helping ("I think you're lying about needing help" or "I don't care" or "I'm too tied up with my own problems"), but the one thing you can't say is, "Why should you need help? I've never gotten help!" Not unless you're either shamefully oblivious, or a lying asshole.

-David Wong

Comment author: Vaniver 07 March 2012 02:16:59AM 0 points [-]

Can one say "I've never gotten that form of help?" And does "I think that help will hurt you in the long run" fall under "I think you're lying about needing help"?

Comment author: Bugmaster 07 March 2012 02:24:56AM 2 points [-]

And does "I think that help will hurt you in the long run" fall under "I think you're lying about needing help" ?

At best, it would fall under "you are mistaken about needing help".

Comment author: Grognor 08 March 2012 06:05:58AM *  0 points [-]

Why did this quote get down-voted by at least two people? I thought it was much, much better than the other quote I posted this month, which is currently sitting pretty at 32 karma despite not adding anything we didn't already know from the Human's Guide to Words sequence.

Comment author: saturn 08 March 2012 08:05:37PM 3 points [-]

Although not directly contradictory, the idea expressed in the quote is somewhat at odds with libertarianism, which is popular on LW.

Comment author: [deleted] 10 March 2012 08:57:32AM 1 point [-]

libertarianism, which is popular on LW.

Is this true? I mean, isn't that universally recognized as a mind killer?, just like most other political philosophies?

Are there any demographical studies of LW's composition in personspace?

Comment author: satt 10 March 2012 01:46:26PM 3 points [-]

Is this true? [...] Are there any demographical studies of LW's composition in personspace?

The closest things we have to those are probably the mid-2009 and late 2011 surveys. People could fill in their age, gender, race, profession, a few other things, and...politics!

The politics question had some default categories people could choose: libertarian, liberal, socialist, conservative & Communist. In 2009, 45% ticked the libertarian box, and in 2011, 32% (among the people who gave easy-to-categorize answers). Although those obviously aren't majorities, libertarianism is relatively popular here.

I mean, isn't that universally recognized as a mind killer?, just like most other political philosophies?

Political philosophies are like philosophies in general, I think. However mind-killy they are, a person can't really avoid having one; if they believe they don't have one, they usually have one they just don't know about.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 10 March 2012 03:12:51PM 2 points [-]

Well, it's true and it's false.
It's popular "on" LW in the sense that many of the people here identify as libertarians.
It's not popular "on" LW, in the sense that discussions of libertarianism are mostly unwelcome.
And, yes, the same is true of many other political philosophies.

Comment author: wedrifid 09 March 2012 06:54:31AM 0 points [-]

I upvoted it. The main point is sound as a point of plain logic. However I suspect it isn't quite clear enough and so prone to pattern matching to various political ideologies.

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