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komponisto comments on Absolute Authority - Less Wrong
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Comments (72)
Your reasoning is correct. The below quote is not self contradictory. You may consider substituting the 'too' with 'also' or moving the word order around to make the sentence flow better. When you are saying things forcefully as with "you screwed that up" it pays to be extra careful with wording - higher standards are expected.
I was a little careless with "you screwed that up"; I honestly did not intend for it to sound mean, and I could have chosen better words. I simply meant he obviously intended to use the word omnipotent instead of omnipresent.
Regarding the word too, however, I completely disagree. That is a valid use of the word, unconventional sure, but valid. I've always enjoyed seeing it employed in such a manner.
[Edit] Maybe putting "too" before "must" would sound a little nicer to some, but I liked the way "God must too" sounded in my head.
The order affects the meaning: "must too" doesn't mean "must also"; it means "on the contrary, must!" (Cf. "did too!") I don't think that's the meaning you wanted here.
Just noticed this comment when I was looking through my messages for an old comment, and I wanted to respond.
It is the word "too" that is important there, and the usage you describe is only used as an affirmative for contradicting a negative statement (at least, that's proper grammar anyway).
For example, if the original statement had been "God must not make a boulder he cannot lift!" and I had responded with "God must too make a boulder he cannot lift!" you would be right, but the original statement is an affirmative statement ("God can make a boulder he cannot lift."), my own sentence before it is an affirmative (in the grammatical sense - not so much in the "uplifting" sense), so trying to contradict either with an affirmative doesn't make any sense.
Also, I did a Google search, and while using "too" between must and another verb is not common, using "must too" to mean "must also" is by far the most common usage I could find. I do admit that other combinations of verb "too" verb seem to imply contradicting a negation even without the proper context, so that usage is definitely not as clear as I originally thought it would be. I still think it's pretty, though.