Jay_Schweikert comments on Personal examples of semantic stopsigns - Less Wrong

44 Post author: Alexei 06 December 2013 02:12AM

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

Comments (69)

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

Comment author: Jay_Schweikert 07 December 2013 10:05:55PM 2 points [-]

I'm torn on "it's complicated." Clearly, you're correct that it can function as a powerful semantic stopsign. But increasingly, I also find that it's actually an entirely appropriate and even useful response (or at least an initial response) to many questions, especially political/policy/legal/normative questions.

For example, imagine a poll asking American citizens the following question: "In one sentence, what would you say is the major problem with the American health care system?" Now imagine the people who respond with something like "It's complicated," and ask yourself whether these individuals might ultimately have something interesting and productive to say about health care (compared to the average responder).