Skeptityke comments on Rationality Quotes July 2014 - Less Wrong

6 Post author: VAuroch 06 July 2014 06:51AM

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Comment author: Skeptityke 07 July 2014 02:16:05AM *  14 points [-]

It wasn’t easier, the ghost explains, you just knew how to do it. Sometimes the easiest method you know is the hardest method there is.

It’s like… to someone who only knows how to dig with a spoon, the notion of digging something as large as a trench will terrify them. All they know are spoons, so as far as they’re concerned, digging is simply difficult. The only way they can imagine it getting any easier is if they change – digging with a spoon until they get stronger, faster, and tougher. And the dangerous people, they’ll actually try this.

-Aggy, from Prequel.

On the importance of looking for more efficient ways to do things.

Comment author: bbleeker 07 July 2014 11:29:58AM 4 points [-]

And the dangerous people, they’ll actually try this.

What is dangerous about that?

Comment author: Skeptityke 07 July 2014 03:12:34PM 18 points [-]

The part after it was about how bad guys tend to be like people who have overspecialized in a less useful skill. You will never be able to beat them at what they do, but you don't need to. Said in the context of a very under-powered protagonist. Time for the rest of the quote, though it makes less and less sense as time goes on.

Everyone who will ever oppose you in life is a crazy, burly dude with a spoon, and you will never be able to outspoon them. Even the powerful people, they’re just spooning harder and more vigorously than everyone else, like hungry orphan children eating soup. Except the soup is power. I’ll level with you here: I have completely lost track of this analogy.

Comment author: dspeyer 07 July 2014 08:52:17PM 10 points [-]

I don't know the original context, but I see several possibilities:

  • If the trench really needs to get dug, and it looks like it's going to take digging night and day, then they won't care if they're standing on your toes because stepping off would distract from digging.
  • Similarly, they may conclude everyone needs to be conscripted into the spoon-gangs, including the infirm who will die there and the nerd who was about to invent shovels.
  • If they devote the time and energy to develop their spoon skills they're likely to expect public deference commensurate to their sacrifice, and may get angry when they don't get it.
  • If they do get that deference, and then shovels are developed, they may try to suppress shovels to protect their status.
Comment author: CCC 07 July 2014 12:02:25PM 8 points [-]

Imagine that the only way you could dig a trench was with a spoon. Imagine that you'd done that - that you'd got stronger, faster, tougher until you, digging with your spoon, could dig a deep trench several metres long.

Now imagine someone gives you a spade. You'd probably be able to divert a fairly large river.

Comment author: Roxolan 07 July 2014 06:24:41PM 13 points [-]

Now imagine someone gives you a spade.

I'd probably call it unethical and try to get it banned.

Comment author: sixes_and_sevens 07 July 2014 02:37:46PM 10 points [-]

I'm not sure it plays out this way in real life all that often. For example, anyone who got a digital photography degree before the year 2002 spent three years learning how to accomplish what anyone with a knock-off copy of Photoshop can learn to do in half an hour. They're not super-badass, they're just obsolete.

Comment author: RolfAndreassen 08 July 2014 03:35:04AM 3 points [-]

To complete your argument, you need to demonstrate that what the man with a degree can do with Photoshop is not super awesome. Maybe the skills transfer; maybe not. But at any rate you haven't demonstrated, or even argued that, they don't.

Comment author: sixes_and_sevens 08 July 2014 09:13:12AM *  6 points [-]

I don't think I need to do that at all. Demonstrating equivalence seems entirely sufficient.

EDIT: Wait, I totally misread your comment the first time round, and yes, from the position you're approaching it, the argument isn't complete. In the context of the original spoon/spade argument, I think I'd need to demonstrate that the person with the pre-2002 photography degree can't accomplish equivalent feats to a person with a contemporary photography degree, adjusting for experience.

In this case, it seems that the contemporary photography graduate has the advantage of not having to learn a large quantity of material that is no longer necessary with the advent of better tools. This points to a possible difference between badass spoon-diggers and obsolete spoon-diggers: the badass spoon-digger develops general skills, whereas the obsolete spoon-digger develops obsolescent skills.

EDIT EDIT: Some explanation on this particular example -- this is a complaint I've heard a couple of times from people with such degrees, that they spent a lot of time learning how to achieve effects which are trivial under contemporary methods. From their perspective, this was time wasted.

Comment author: CCC 08 July 2014 08:22:02AM 5 points [-]

At the very least, the man with the digital photography degree knows what makes a really good picture - how to fiddle with composition and lighting and stuff to make the sort of picture that makes the viewer go 'wow'. Given a little bit of time to learn how to use Photoshop, or the GIMP, or other similar tools, and the man with the degree will be able to do at least the same as he could do before, but substantially faster.

While anyone with a knock-off copy of Photoshop might be able to do the same technical tricks, he probably won't know which technical tricks to use to best improve a given photograph; and he might very well end up making it look a good deal worse.

Comment author: sixes_and_sevens 08 July 2014 09:19:17AM 11 points [-]

"My digital photography degree from an era of obsolescent technology isn't rendered completely useless through the passage of time" is a far cry from "I can divert the course of rivers".

Comment author: CCC 13 July 2014 12:30:12PM 6 points [-]

That is true. This implies that new tools can be divided into two categories; those that use the same skills as the old tools but have a multiplicative effect on the results for all users (spoons->spades), and those that bring even an untrained user up to a certain basic level of competancy but make little or no difference to an expert user.

...having said that, I now realise that there is a third category of tool as well; that which can be used to great effect by an expert but is next to useless to a completely untrained user. An example of this sort of tool would be a bicycle; someone who knows how to ride a bicycle can use it to travel at great speed, while someone who does not know how to use it is likely to simply fall off.

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