pjeby comments on Shoulds can be changed to Cans - Less Wrong

2 Post author: Stabilizer 15 March 2014 09:05AM

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Comment author: pjeby 17 March 2014 01:32:27AM 4 points [-]

Other possible expansions of "I should X", which I find applicable at various times:

  • I could X
  • I might like the results of doing X
  • I think it might be a good idea to X
  • I wish I wanted to X
  • I think [bad thing] will happen if I don't X
Comment author: Stabilizer 17 March 2014 10:59:30AM 1 point [-]

This is fantastic!

I think I should've (it would've been better if I had) thought more carefully about the senses in which "should" is employed. I should also have identified more circumstances under which some substitutions might help and also where they won't. My single identification of one narrow circumstance with one particular potentially useful substitution was clearly underwhelming.

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