MrMind comments on Explicit and tacit rationality - Less Wrong

40 Post author: lukeprog 09 April 2013 11:33PM

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

Comments (76)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: MrMind 11 April 2013 10:07:47AM 0 points [-]

That is not a relationship that can be called "equals"

It's an incorrect translation of a figure of speech that exists in Italian but apparently not in English: the correct formulation is "rationality never decreases your probability of winning".

Comment author: RichardKennaway 11 April 2013 10:35:06AM 0 points [-]

I'm curious to know what the literal Italian would be. In English, people do often say "X is Y", "X equals Y", "X is objectively Y" (political historians will recognise that one), X means Y, etc. when X and Y are different things that the speaker is rhetorically asserting to be so closely connected as to be the same thing. For example, the extreme environmental slogan, "a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy". I believe it is a figure of speech better avoided.

Comment author: MrMind 11 April 2013 12:34:48PM 0 points [-]

Well, if you're curious: "essere razionali equivale a vincere maggiormente solo nei domini strategici". 'equivale' I translated to 'equals', but a more precise meaning would be on the line of 'implies', 'leads to'. It's used most often when listing the component of a process: "A equivale a B che equivale a C" usually is in the meaning of "A -> B -> C" rather than "A = B = C".