Cameron_Taylor comments on Of Gender and Rationality - Less Wrong

41 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 16 April 2009 12:56AM

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Comment author: dclayh 16 April 2009 04:07:26PM 7 points [-]

(Side-note) I have also seen communities "name-drop" terms in attempts at status. That seems less of a concern here.

Agreed. I know that when I'm talking with philosophers I tend to use their special prepositions ("On X's view...", "Y consists in...") to sound more in-groupy and thus give extra weight to my arguments.

On OB/LW this primarily takes the form (started by Eliezer, I think) of embedding a link to a previous article in every other sentence, which certainly comes off as intimidating, at least to me.

Comment deleted 16 April 2009 08:16:58PM *  [-]
Comment author: pjeby 16 April 2009 09:49:51PM 6 points [-]

It's interesting to see how that comes across to you. When I include links one of my motivations is actually to towards less exclusiveness. Something along the lines of "I'm using this term but acknowledge that it is in group jargon. Here's the several pages of text I saved reproducing for anyone who wants it." I usually associate the in group status game with making it difficult to get information and so ensuring that you can gain status through every piece of knowledge the newcomers must aquire.

When Eliezer does it, I interpret it as a desire not to repeat himself. When other people do it, sometimes my first impression is that the person is implying they are better-read and more knowledgeable, i.e., that they're trying to signal superior status by implying "I have been here longer and know more," as well as implying a stronger in-group affiliation, by the amount of work they've done to dig up appropriate scriptures and link to them.

The tone of the non-linked portion of the comment of course makes a big difference, of course. "Have you read XYZ? It seems to me like what you're saying contradicts point Q; how would you address that?" would be a lot different than some of the comments I've seen that look like trying to win an argument by the volume of their citations.

Comment author: MrHen 16 April 2009 10:05:55PM 2 points [-]

I think I see it as something between you two. I sometimes see it as "I agree with these articles so these articles agree with me." This probably qualifies as a weird form of appealing to authority.

To make it fit better with your view, "If I put my article in a list of their articles I am like them."

The charitable side of me thinks of it as tracing someone's train of thought backwards. "Oh, so that's why they were thinking about this subject."

Comment author: taryneast 20 March 2011 10:41:33PM 0 points [-]

Yup - especially when the linked-to post doesn't actually support what they were trying to say. I sometimes see it as a form of thought-stoppage.

Comment author: JackChristopher 17 April 2009 02:37:25AM *  2 points [-]

I get link fatigue when read LW/OB. But I think it's unavoidable. It has to be done for at least two reasons:

  1. There's a lot of conceptual "bittage". As the writer, you not only have to close the inferential gap between new concepts, but close it for every new word. That's a lot to explain (and to see, if a new reader) at once.

  2. The medium of blogging wasn't designed to visualize information of this depth.

And that means heavy link back.

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