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Mac comments on Open thread, Dec. 8 - Dec. 15, 2014 - Less Wrong
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I appreciate your reasoning, but...
First, I assume this exchange takes place among a group (part of my personal definition of “mouthing off”).
I further assume that your goal is to disparage the “pseudo-blowhard”.
Given these assumptions, your strategy can only succeed if you “blank” the pseudo-blowhard AND if the group doesn’t believe your question is trivial AND ALSO if the group does not confuse this blanking with a reasonable reaction to a surprisingly difficult question.
I think the odds are against you. Furthermore, if you do not succeed, I predict the group will think less of you. Your question will seem like a waste of time, an unwelcome redirection of the conversation, or a lame attempt to express your disagreement with the speaker.
Some people seem to have read the OP and thought "this guy is describing a way to socially humiliate people". I would have liked them to read it and think "this guy is describing a way of testing one's self-perceived understanding on a topic, informed by observations on how social humiliation seems to work".