Qiaochu_Yuan comments on Morality is Awesome - Less Wrong

86 [deleted] 06 January 2013 03:21PM

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Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 05 January 2013 12:06:14PM 14 points [-]

This is interesting. Can we come up with a punchy name for good uses of "reverse tabooing"?

One reason I particularly like the choice of the word "awesome," which is closely related to and maybe just a rephrasing of your first point, is that it is much less likely to trigger redirects to cached thoughts that sound deep. Moreover, since "awesome" is not itself a word that sounds deep, talking about morality using the language of awesomeness inoculates against the trying-to-sound-deep failure mode.

Comment author: [deleted] 09 January 2013 03:44:45AM 11 points [-]

"blackboxing"?

As in "I blackedboxed metaethics by using the word 'awesome'".

Comment author: [deleted] 09 January 2013 04:02:37AM 2 points [-]

Nice, I wish I could blackbox in newcomb's problem (like eliezer does).

Comment author: MixedNuts 05 January 2013 07:44:04PM 4 points [-]

Isn't what "naming" means in the first place?

Comment author: AspiringRationalist 06 January 2013 04:15:55AM 5 points [-]

"Reverse tabooing" seems like a fine phrase. It's at least somewhat clear what it means, and it doesn't come pre-loaded with distracting connotations. I think it would be difficult to improve upon it.

Comment author: ialdabaoth 05 January 2013 12:18:24PM *  5 points [-]

Can we come up with a punchy name for good uses of "reverse tabooing"?

How about "Plancheting"?

A 'planchet' is a blank coin, ready to be minted - which seems analogous to what's being done with these words (and has the delightful parallelization of metaphor with "coining a phrase").

Comment author: jsteinhardt 05 January 2013 06:31:05PM 6 points [-]

The downside of this is that most people won't know what "planchet" means. The advantage of "taboo" is it's already intuitive what is meant when you here it.

Comment author: ialdabaoth 05 January 2013 06:32:10PM 3 points [-]

That's a good point.