jimmy comments on Rationality Quotes November 2013 - Less Wrong

5 Post author: malcolmocean 02 November 2013 08:35PM

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

Comments (388)

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

Comment author: jimmy 04 November 2013 01:04:46AM 15 points [-]

I don't really like quotes like this. It's not that it's not true and it's not that it's not that no one commits the error it warns against.

It's that no one who is blind to fallacies due to popularity is going to notice their mistake and change - it's too easy to agree with the quote without firing up the process that would lead you to making the mistake.

Good quotes will make it easy to put yourself in either position so that you can mentally bridge the two. If you're thinking "I can't imagine how they might make that mistake!", then you won't recognize that thought process when you go through it yourself.