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.

wedrifid comments on Our Phyg Is Not Exclusive Enough - Less Wrong Discussion

25 [deleted] 14 April 2012 09:08PM

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

Article Navigation

Comments (513)
Tags: meta

Comments (513)

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

Comment author: wedrifid 15 April 2012 06:34:10AM 4 points [-]

Read map and territory, and understand the way of Bayes.

See, it's exactly this kind of ponderous verbiage that leads to the necessity for rot13-ing certain words.

Specifically 'the way of'. Would you have the same objection with 'and understand how bayesian updating works'? (Objection to presumptuousness aside.)

Comment author: Bugmaster 15 April 2012 08:06:05AM 5 points [-]

Probably. The same sentiment could be expressed as something like this:

The map is not the territory; if you understood how Bayesian updating works, you would know that facts and opinions are qualitatively the same.

This phrasing is still a bit condescending, but a). it gives an actual link for me to read an educate my ignorant self, and b). it makes the speaker sound merely like a stuck-up long-timer, instead of a creepy phyg-ist.

Comment author: wedrifid 15 April 2012 08:23:02AM -1 points [-]

The map is not the territory; if you understood how Bayesian updating works, you would know that facts and opinions are qualitatively the same.

This phrasing is still a bit condescending

Educating people is like that!

What I would have said about the phrasing is that it is wrong.

Comment author: Bugmaster 15 April 2012 08:30:42AM 0 points [-]

Educating people is like that!

Merely telling people that they aren't worthy is not very educational; it's much better to tell them why you think they aren't worthy, which is where the links come in.

What I would have said about the phrasing is that it is wrong.

Sure, but I have no problem with people being wrong, that's what updating is for :-)

Comment author: wedrifid 15 April 2012 09:25:28AM 1 point [-]

Merely telling people that they aren't worthy is not very educational; it's much better to tell them why you think they aren't worthy, which is where the links come in.

Huh? This was your example, one you advocated and one that includes a link. I essentially agreed with one of your points - your retort seems odd.

Sure, but I have no problem with people being wrong, that's what updating is for :-)

Huh again? You seemed to have missed a level of abstraction.

Powered by Reddit Powered by Reddit