private_messaging comments on Should you try to do good work on LW? - Less Wrong

36 Post author: cousin_it 05 July 2012 12:36PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (32)

You are viewing a single comment's thread.

Comment author: private_messaging 05 July 2012 04:07:45PM *  2 points [-]

Likewise, my own work on decision theory math would've been held to a higher standard if the primary audience were mathematicians (though I hope to remedy that).

Furthermore non mathematicians tend to hold work to some different standards. Focussing, for instance, on the verbal match of your verbal description of what goes on (the filler between equations), with the verbal descriptions in the cited papers, which tends to get irritating in the advanced and/or confusing subjects. Additionally the mathematicians would easily find something tailored to non-mathematicians overly verbose but very insufficiently formal, which drops their expected utility from reading the text. (Instead of having the description of what you are actually doing with equations, designed to help understand your intent, you end up having, in parallel, a handwaved argument with the same conclusion)