Will_Newsome comments on Consider giving an explanation for your deletion this time around. "Harry Yudkowsky and the Methods of Postrationality: Chapter One: Em Dashes Colons and Ellipses, Littérateurs Go Wild" - Less Wrong

3 Post author: Will_Newsome 08 July 2014 02:53AM

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Comment author: CronoDAS 08 July 2014 03:26:45AM 6 points [-]

I don't get it.

(Is this an attempt at parodying and/or mocking HPMOR?)

Comment author: Will_Newsome 08 July 2014 03:31:03AM *  6 points [-]

It's the first chapter of an attempt to explicate the skills and virtues of postrationality. It also serves as parody but I'm not poking fun just for the sake of poking. I'm trying to halfway-communicate real ideas via adianoeta. Also I'm trying to learn how to write fiction, 'cuz I suck, as is apparent.

Comment author: [deleted] 08 July 2014 06:20:59AM 8 points [-]

What's postrationality, what are it's skills, and what is the difference between those skills and the skills of rationality?

Comment author: Will_Newsome 08 July 2014 06:32:40AM *  1 point [-]

I was gonna go into that in Chapter Two: Analyzing the Fuck out of an Owl. But I guess I won't, since my stupid fanfic idea seems to be attracting more drama and pettiness than could possibly be justified by the content. Alas, it seems postrationality is just too meta for this base basement world.

Comment author: [deleted] 08 July 2014 07:26:36AM 15 points [-]

Not creating drama seems to be antithetical to creating popular literature :).

Comment author: Will_Newsome 08 July 2014 07:35:27AM 7 points [-]

Lol. Wow. It may seem absurd but that was the first LessWrong comment I've read in like a year that caused me to actually have a new idea. Thank you.

Comment author: DanielLC 08 July 2014 08:00:06AM 7 points [-]

You can just tell us without involving fanfiction.

Comment author: Will_Newsome 08 July 2014 08:05:15AM *  10 points [-]

Explaining things without targeted obfuscation? ...Do you know who I am?

Comment author: TheAncientGeek 08 July 2014 11:23:12AM 14 points [-]

Someone who seems to have something interesting to say, but is unable to say it.

Comment author: CronoDAS 08 July 2014 09:01:42AM *  19 points [-]

Do you know who I am?

I can't help myself...

It was the final examination for an introductory English course at the local university. Like many such freshman courses, it was designed to weed out new students, having over 700 students in the class!

The examination was two hours long, and exam booklets were provided.

The professor was very strict and told the class that any exam that was not on his desk in exactly two hours would not be accepted and the student would fail. Half an hour into the exam, a student came rushing in and asked the professor for an exam booklet.

"You're not going to have time to finish this," the professor stated sarcastically as he handed the student a booklet.

"Yes I will," replied the student. She then took a seat and began writing. After two hours, the professor called for the exams, and the students filed up and handed them in, all except the late student, who continued writing.

Half an hour later, the last student came up to the professor who was sitting at his desk preparing for his next class. She attempted to put his exam on the stack of exam booklets already there.

"No you don't, I'm not going to accept that. It's late."

The student looked incredulous and angry.

"Do you know WHO I am?"

"No, as a matter of fact I don't," replied the professor with an air of sarcasm in his voice.

"DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?" the student asked again.

"No, and I don't care." replied the professor with an air of superiority.

"Good," replied the student, who quickly lifted the stack of completed exams, stuffed her exam in the middle, and walked out of the room.

Comment author: mwengler 08 July 2014 10:50:17AM 12 points [-]

I was gonna go into that in Chapter Two: Analyzing the Fuck out of an Owl. But I guess I won't, since my stupid fanfic idea seems to be attracting more drama and pettiness than could possibly be justified by the content.

I'd prefer you not give up so easily.

The drama was created by whoever arbitrarily eliminated the original post. You don't get to censor something secretly, and then allow a repost but then claim the drama around the censorship is really just drama created by the original post and then use that drama to justify the censorship.

At least not if you are still paying lip service to rationality.

Comment author: [deleted] 08 July 2014 07:20:04PM *  6 points [-]

Smoke dat moose! Git dem maggots! Smoke dat moose! Analyze dat owl!

[a note for them what don't get it, as our democracy demands: I am referencing someone else who wrote allegedly impenetrable and seemingly drug-fueled masses of insight in order to incentivize the creation of more things that might fit that model, and hoping to create a meta-norm that's more conducive to stylistic experimentation, for reasons which will probably not be obvious to anyone here so go try to understand continental philosophy or something. Except you don't even need to do that since the relevant ideas are already contained to some nonzero extent in the rationalist corpus! PS most of y'all lose a not-Quirrell not-point for not seeing that certain relevant issues have been discussed here before.]

Comment author: Tenoke 08 July 2014 09:34:03AM *  1 point [-]

But I guess I won't, since my stupid fanfic idea seems to be attracting more drama and pettiness than could possibly be justified by the content

Uhm, there isn't that much drama. Are you telling me you actually expected even less drama when you decided to post a short drunken-rambling-turned-fanfiction as a criticism of rationality/EY/HPMOR (if that is what it is, I am not sure), and then re-post it at the same place upon deletion?

I can only assume that you are pretending to be badly calibrated here.

Comment author: mwengler 08 July 2014 10:52:48AM *  2 points [-]

I can only assume that you are pretending to be badly calibrated here.

The drama of being summarily deleted should not be underestimated. Censorship, orthodoxy, these are major themes of prerationality that I honestly thought had been decided against rather definitively in modern rationality. But lesswrong has reopened the question many times, including when it summarily deleted the original of this post.

Comment author: TheAncientGeek 08 July 2014 11:22:10AM 18 points [-]

Maybe you could communicate better by being less tricksy , not more.

Comment author: Will_Newsome 11 July 2014 03:31:20PM 1 point [-]
Comment deleted 08 July 2014 12:50:57PM [-]
Comment author: MrMind 08 July 2014 01:01:06PM 1 point [-]

In this method, are worthy people suppose to work to get some sense in what you say? Or they are supposed to get it instantly? Because in the first case, I'm not clear what are the incentives.

Comment author: Kawoomba 08 July 2014 01:49:34PM 0 points [-]

Solving riddles isn't its own incentive?

Comment author: MrMind 08 July 2014 02:03:51PM 5 points [-]

When you know for a fact that they are riddles, yes, for some. But to me until now Will failed to clearly show that.
Those who mistake noise for riddles are quite accurately termed schizophrenic.

Comment author: Tenoke 08 July 2014 09:28:30AM 3 points [-]

It's the first chapter of an attempt to explicate the skills and virtues of postrationality

I admit, I never got a clear idea of what postrationality is about except that it is somewhat less rigorous and more into mysticism (?), but are you suggesting that your movement is about writing lame parodies with a few clever jokes in them in order to criticize what you dislike (or maybe what you like - it isn't very clear)?

I swear, this movement becomes weirder and weirder with every mention.

Comment author: Will_Newsome 08 July 2014 09:52:16AM *  11 points [-]

are you suggesting that your movement is about writing lame parodies with a few clever jokes in them in order to criticize what you dislike

Yes, Tenoke. That is a completely fair and accurate summary of my "movement".

Comment author: Luke_A_Somers 08 July 2014 01:16:22PM 7 points [-]

Since that's all you've given us to work with, I can only see this as taunting us with yet another hint that something is behind the curtain.

This isn't Let's Make a Deal. Just open the freaking curtain.

Comment author: [deleted] 08 July 2014 07:33:47PM 8 points [-]
Comment author: Luke_A_Somers 08 July 2014 07:43:04PM *  5 points [-]

Not applicable to the current situation. For one thing, EY emphasized that this was not for now when we need maximum efficiency to survive (so that puts off applying it for the foreseeable portion of the future), and for another, it was as marketing to the people who wouldn't be interested otherwise.

And on top of that, I don't even agree with it.

Comment author: [deleted] 08 July 2014 08:25:25PM 5 points [-]

Sure it's relevant: it's a demonstration that just opening the curtain is not always the optimal solution. There's one reason why not; why couldn't there be others?

I don't know what the reasons are here for not opening the curtain, since I'm not the one who's deciding whether to. But I've had reasons not to before -- and some of the possibilities suggest that I shouldn't be trying to convince anyone to accept the style, so I won't say more than this here.

Comment author: mwengler 08 July 2014 10:48:38AM 1 point [-]

I swear, this movement becomes weirder and weirder with every mention.

But when the next sentence is "I think we should burn it," that is when it becomes relevant to a site devoted to the discovery and correction of human biases.