Rationality Quotes January 2013

katydee

Happy New Year! Here's the latest and greatest installment of rationality quotes. Remember:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself
Do not quote comments/posts on LessWrong or Overcoming Bias
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please

Happy New Year! Here's the latest and greatest installment of rationality quotes. Remember:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself
Do not quote comments/posts on LessWrong or Overcoming Bias
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please

I don't care whether it's actually true or not; ... I posted it.

I think the technical term for that is “bullshit”.

That is a hugely unfair assessment of my motives (unlike abody97's comment which claims not to be about my motives, which I also doubt). People say untrue things all the time, e.g. when storytelling. The goal of storytelling is not to directly relate the truth of some particular experience, and I didn't think the goal of posting rationality quotes was either, considering how many quotes these posts get from various works of fiction. I posted this quote for no reason other than to suggest an interesting rationality lesson, and calling that "bullshit" sneaks in unnecessary connotations.