Rationality Quotes: May 2011

CronoDAS

It looks like, this month, I get to be the one to start the quotes thread.

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself.
Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB.
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

It looks like, this month, I get to be the one to start the quotes thread.

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself.
Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB.
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

I find it very interesting that this quote, which is also political, does not appear to have been heavily downvoted. It's doubtlessly much less contentious among the particular demographics of this site, but it's probably more politically antagonistic among the population in general - I don't know, but I suspect pacifists are at least as common as libertarians, and this is far more antagonistic towards them.

So why upvote that quote but downvote this one?

Upvotes and downvotes probably weight various factors. Hypothetically, two equally political statements might not be equally false, equally obnoxious, equally brilliant, equally hilarious, and so on.

7wedrifid15y

* Because it has Nobby at his best. * It is about cutting through bullshit. Ruthlessly. It takes a slogan "War. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing." and utterly tears it to shreds. Because it is obviously and overwhelmingly wrong for the kind of reasons we have all sorts of posts about here. * It's exactly the response I would make if someone tried the "What is it good for?" rhetorical question on me. Come to think of it I have used the same response. * If something is transparently and obviously contradicted without even having to make two inferential leaps then politics hasn't even had a chance to kill your mind. * Naive pacifists are annoying. (And dangerous.) * It is a necessary counter to that obnoxious 'never ever never nerr nerr bullet' quote that somehow became popular here. [...] I upvoted (or rather countered one downvote) on this one.