talisman comments on What's in a name? That which we call a rationalist… - Less Wrong

4 Post author: badger 24 April 2009 11:53PM

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Comment author: talisman 25 April 2009 03:05:03AM *  9 points [-]

A week ago I would have thought this was a silly discussion. As I've thought more about LW's group nature, I've realized that this kind of cultural thing does matter.

It feels group-narcissistic to waste time on this, but the small difference this makes will be magnified over years and hundreds of thousands of repetitions. E.g.: at some point a major news outlet will do an article on OB/LW, and it will repeatedly use whatever the self-moniker is, and impressions of OB/LW will be slightly altered. (Parallel: I can't stop being marginally more negative on Google because their employees call themselves "googlers.")

The name will also subtly affect internal psychology and self-perception, and act as a slight magnet or a slight repellent over time.

It's worth taking the time to think about this and work on it, even if it takes a couple of weeks. Don't give up if the right answer doesn't show up in the next twelve hours.