AspiringRationalist 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: 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.