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tedks comments on Rationality Quotes February 2014 - Less Wrong
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What is the relationship of this to rationality?
If you look over the Best of 2013 and Best of All Time rationality quotes thread, you'll quickly notice nearly none of the top ones relate to rationality.
Just like subreddits converge to images and jokes, less wrong converges to in-group circlejerkery.
Aside from the regrettable anti-death quote that crowns the All Time list, most of the top quotes on both seem to be directly about epistemic rationality.
Although I agree that the anti-death joke is overrated, it can be read as a general statement on instrumental rationality, a recognition of the fact that Type I and Type II errors can have very asymmetric consequences. The question of "what hypothesis should I act on when under great uncertainty" often boils down to "which action is easier to correct if/when I turn out to be wrong later". Under this reading the joke isn't "death really sucks amirite?" but rather "if I'm alive by mistake it's much easier to change that than if I'm dead by mistake".
I like that interpretation, and it's a lesson I'm glad to be reminded of. Something tells me, though, (and I suspect you agree) that most people who upvoted the original quote did not do so on the basis of that interpretation.
(And since we can do a similar pedagogical interpretation of anyone expressing a well-reasoned sentiment, I don't think it's very likely that the original poster intended it that way either)