Oligopsony comments on Theism, Wednesday, and Not Being Adopted - Less Wrong

56 Post author: Alicorn 27 April 2009 04:49PM

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Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 31 January 2013 01:31:21AM *  4 points [-]

(Personally, I prefer to keep exactly one book.)

Really? I interpret this to mean "signal believing exactly the things I actually believe," which strikes me as a terrible idea in general. If you're determined to believe true things, some of the things you believe will end up being things you can't say, and saying them would not be instrumentally a good idea. Michael Vassar once pointed out that a commitment to saying what you believe disincentivizes believing things you can't say, which is, y'know, bad, and his advice was that rationalists should become more comfortable with lying.

(This is of course distinct from "signal that I signal believing exactly the things I believe," which is a great idea. If that's what you were doing, then great! Carry on.)

Comment author: Oligopsony 31 January 2013 01:39:25AM 0 points [-]

signal

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