Lightwave comments on Avoid inflationary use of terms - Less Wrong

74 Post author: lsparrish 30 May 2012 08:31PM

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Comment author: Gastogh 30 May 2012 08:31:43AM 5 points [-]

Yeah, sounds like a misunderstanding. If you read through Xachariah's post again I think you'll find it's not just the word "rational"; he pretty much does roll call on all the inflationary words used as examples in the OP.

Comment author: Lightwave 30 May 2012 10:50:17AM *  5 points [-]

Oops, you're right.

Edit: I've gained way too much karma from this exchange when it seems I should've instead lost some for not paying attention.

Comment author: Strange7 05 June 2012 08:05:41AM 2 points [-]

Graceful recovery is more impressive, and useful to the community as a whole, than not having slipped up in the first place.

Comment author: Multiheaded 05 June 2012 08:34:07AM 1 point [-]

Christians seem to agree. :D

Comment author: Jotto999 02 June 2012 05:26:32PM *  1 point [-]

Perhaps a loss due to not paying attention, but I think making a rapid correction based on criticism is worthy of some amount of karma, even on something trivial. I've misunderstood loads of things and felt stupid every single time, and I do believe it helps some amount to see someone else publicly brush the dirt off here and there. For me one of the hallmarks of lousy dialogue quality is that it seems like 100% of participants either believe they have 0% error rate or that they cannot brush it off publicly for emotional reasons.

Beware my opinion though, it is possible that seeing you do something against my views, then later retract and agree with my views makes me feel good. I am sorry to say that it is difficult for me to tell if that is playing a significant role or if I am some sort of dialogue connoisseur. Perhaps more likely is that it is some finicky combination. Or even more insidiously, I could be pointing this out to try and seem more aware than I am. Oh how bias is like a six-headed, head-regenerating dragon.

Comment author: Strange7 04 June 2012 10:35:25AM 1 point [-]

The classical Lernaean hydra had one unkillable head which was eventually pinned under a rock and forgotten about.