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JoshuaZ comments on This post is for sacrificing my credibility! - Less Wrong Discussion

-29 Post author: Will_Newsome 02 June 2012 12:08AM

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Comment author: JoshuaZ 02 June 2012 12:26:18AM 5 points [-]

Separate comment: Some of your remarks like this look almost like you are engaging in intellectual exhibitionism. This one fits into that and is a potential source of irritation.

Now to more substantially answer the question: people should pay attention to my idea and thoughts exactly how much they are credible or not. Trying to deliberately modify how credible I am in a general context will interfere with people make their most informed decisions about whether or not to listen to anything I have to say.

Comment author: Will_Newsome comment score below threshold [+] (11 children)

Comment author: JoshuaZ 02 June 2012 01:15:56AM 15 points [-]

Good!

No. Not good. It damages the signal to noise ratio. LW normally has a very good ratio. Having every single stray thought show up like this is not increasing that ratio. While you do sometimes have interesting ideas, you are not bright enough, informed enough, or a careful enough thinker that we gain much from a not highly censored stream of your thoughts.

For the rest of your reply, the fact that people can't do something perfectly doesn't mean they can't do a useful approximation, and it doesn't mean I should interfere with attempts to get the best estimates they can. If my ideas are generally good, then they will pay attention and that's a good thing. If my ideas are not worthwhile then people will stop paying attention and that's a good thing then also.

Comment author: CarlShulman 02 June 2012 01:52:29AM 4 points [-]

That's the Cooperate-Cooperate equilibrium. In the broader intellectual world one can make an argument against unilateral disarmament in self-promotion (particularly if others engage in it for quite different reasons). OTOH, the C-C equilibrium is better, and LW is closer to it, thanks in significant part to LWers' negative reaction to self-promotion.

Comment author: wedrifid 02 June 2012 01:34:26AM 12 points [-]

you are not bright enough, informed enough, or a careful enough thinker that we gain much from a not highly censored stream of your thoughts.

He is bright enough and informed enough.

Comment author: CarlShulman 02 June 2012 01:50:22AM 3 points [-]

Presumably, "good enough" depends on at least all three factors, and strength in one can offset deficits in others.

Comment author: Will_Newsome 02 June 2012 01:48:37AM * -2 points [-]

Thanks, wedrifid, that means a lot to me. :) (Not that I should ignore the part about not being nearly careful enough in your eyes, of course.)

Comment author: wedrifid 02 June 2012 02:03:33AM 2 points [-]

Not that I should ignore the part about not being nearly careful enough in your eyes, of course

You could actually take that as a third validation. After all I am declaring that you are successfully achieving what you set out to achieve as an instrumental goal - portray a lack of credibility. It would be totally implausible for me to maintain (or for you to cause me to maintain) a significantly lowered estimation of your credibility while simultaneously believing that you excelled in the 'careful thinking' department as well as the previously mentioned categories.

Comment author: mwengler 02 June 2012 04:22:48PM 5 points [-]

I disagree entirely, and think there is some sort of "lets pretend we are talking about what we say we are talking about" bias at work here.

Will SAYS he is talking about reducing his credibility. He then does not use a host of tools which would do that very effectively ( I think there are many choices, but making errors of fact and logic would be a good start). Speaking cryptically is NOT a very good way to reduce your credibility, except possibly among some subset of people.

What Will is more successfully doing is 1) intriguing a subset of people 2) tweaking the crap out of a large subset of people (in a way that seems orthogonal to credibility seems to me)

Just because he SAYS he is trying to reduce his credibility does not mean that is what he is actually trying to do. I am not sure what he IS trying to do.

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JoshuaZ comments on This post is for sacrificing my credibility! - Less Wrong Discussion

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