Document comments on The Trouble With "Good" - Less Wrong

83 Post author: Yvain 17 April 2009 02:07AM

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Tags: ethics utilitarianism

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Comment author: komponisto 17 April 2009 06:05:42AM 1 point [-]

Excellent post. Upvoted! (Literally.)

Comment author: Document 11 April 2010 09:41:31AM -2 points [-]

Are you generally not literal when you say "upvoted"?

Comment author: komponisto 11 April 2010 06:05:37PM 2 points [-]

Um, did you miss the following paragraph (emphasis added)?:

To make an outrageous metaphor: our brains run a system rather like Less Wrong's karma. You're allergic to cats, so you down-vote "cats" a couple of points. You hear about a Palestinian committing a terrorist attack, so you down-vote "Palestinians" a few points. Richard Dawkins just said something especially witty, so you up-vote "atheism". High karma score means seek it, use it, acquire it, or endorse it. Low karma score means avoid it, ignore it, discard it, or condemn it.

And...the rest of the post? Upvoting/karma as a metaphor was the whole point! In such a context, it was perfectly sensible (and even, I daresay, slightly witty) of me to append "literally" to the above comment.

(Honestly, did I really need to explain this?)

Comment author: Document 11 April 2010 07:16:01PM *  0 points [-]

No and yes, respectively. In my defense, your comment is 64th in New order, so it's not like it was closely juxtaposed with that paragraph.

Comment author: komponisto 11 April 2010 08:44:41PM -2 points [-]

That wasn't just some random paragraph; it was the whole freaking point of the post! It introduced a conceit that was continued throughout the whole rest of the article!

Before accusing me of hindsight bias (or the illusion of transparency, which is what I think you really meant), you might have noticed this reply, which should have put its parent into context immediately, or so I would have thought.

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