You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

David_Gerard comments on LW Philosophers versus Analytics - Less Wrong Discussion

38 Post author: potato 28 November 2011 03:40PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (84)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: David_Gerard 29 November 2011 01:33:20PM 2 points [-]

Of course, this may very well be true, but a priori at least I would not so readily dismiss people who spend most of their time doing philosophy rather than outsiders having a different opinion about the emperor's wardrobe.

I don't know if it's up to going up against professionals on their home ground, but I have found LessWrong to be excellent training for philosophical street-fighting. Arguing on the Internet, arguing with theists, that sort of thing. "C'MON IF YOU THINK YER ROBUST ENOUGH."

Comment author: TheOtherDave 29 November 2011 03:21:09PM 2 points [-]

Thereby contributing to the time-honored goal of ensuring that nobody on the Internet is wrong.

Comment author: David_Gerard 29 November 2011 08:19:40PM 0 points [-]

Or, at least, that they're wrong much better.

Comment author: Normal_Anomaly 12 December 2011 10:00:13PM 0 points [-]

Interesting that that's your experience. I found the high quality of discussion on LW made me less able to enjoy arguing with theists. Once I learned what conversation between two relatively sane people both willing to change their minds felt like, it was painfully obvious that my internet arguments weren't like that.