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wedrifid comments on SotW: Check Consequentialism - Less Wrong
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Comments (311)
Short exercise. Does anyone actually think pirates stand a chance against professionally trained assassins? I thought the only reason people defend pirates is because it's a way to say both of them (or their identity-memes) are just so damn cool.
I was mistaken. I'm amazed how much debate the question prompted here even with this framing. I really thought it was just a closed question.
I'm amazed at your amazement.
I'd have expected at least this much out of any such silly comparison, even here. Try:
Or any other conflict between trochees.
Most of your amazement can be explained by you thinking that that 'pirates vs ninjas' belongs in the same reference class as:
That seems utterly ridiculous. Are you being disingenuous or are you serious?
I'm being serious. See http://xkcd.com/856/
I think the relevant reference class is "trochees with a 'vs.' between them", and you can find many such engaging debates on the Internet. I'm skeptical that anyone would care to compare pirates and ninjas if they were called something else.
I don't think the trochee pattern is so critical to these debates. Cavemen vs. astronauts is a notorious counterexample.
I wonder why no one ever phrases it cavemen vs. spacemen.
Cavemen is a trochee. Astronauts is a dactyl, which is why it's less funny, but still close enough to a trochee.
Well cavemen are well-known in the literature for their pterodactyl-defeating skills, so I suppose that would generalize to other dactyls.
Oddly, I don't think I've encountered anything vs. astronauts before.
I retract my statement. I've seen the entirety of Angel.
Come to think of it the only times I've heard the debate is between Angel and Spike and Bones and Booth. I hadn't caught the easter egg until now.
Like thomblake, I'm amazed at your amazement, but on a different track. Unless you're an expert in the histories of navies, espionage, and other miscellany, why would you expect your intuition to both identify closed questions and the correct answers?
The experts you appeal to are indeed far more impressive than I and I wouldn't dream of claiming their status as my own. That said the fact that very impressive people can answer trivial questions too doesn't make questions non-trivial. (Or useful, for that matter.)