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simplicio comments on Rationality Quotes January 2013 - Less Wrong
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What does that mean?
Lambs are young sheep; they have less meat & less wool.
The punishment for livestock rustling being identical no matter what animal is stolen, you should prefer to steal a sheep rather than a lamb.
However, the parent says this is NOT an epistemological principle, that one should prefer to get the most benefit when choosing between equally-punished crimes.
So is it saying that epistemology should not allow for equal punishments for unequal crimes? That seems less like epistemology and more like ethics.
Should our epistemology simply not waste time judging which untrue things are more false than others because we shouldn't be believing false things anyway?
It would be great if Jason would give us more context about this one, since the meaning doesn't seem clear without it.
I think Eliezer has got the meaning more or less right. When Daniel asked "what it meant," I assumed he was merely referring to the idiom, not the entire quote.
As an example of the kind of thing I think the quote is warning against, the theist philosopher Plantinga holds (I'm paraphrasing somewhat uncharitably) that believing in the existence of other minds (i.e., believing that other people are conscious) requires a certain leap of faith which is not justified by empirical evidence. Therefore, theists are not any worse off than everybody else when they make the leap to a god.