= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
AspiringRationalist comments on NKCDT: The Big Bang Theory - Less Wrong Discussion
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (206)
When the purpose of something is signaling and the effort is conspicuous, it often is an argument in favor, and humor is largely about signaling how much spare brainpower you have.
On the other hand, conspicuous lack of effort can also have signaling purposes -- you might want to convey the message that you're so skilled that you don't even need to put effort into it for the results to be worthy of recognition. "Try-hards" and "wannabes" generally have a pejorative sense.
In any case, what does the first clause (technically, the first two) have to do with the second? Even given that you're right about what humor is about, if you put more effort into signaling spare brainpower through humor and the results are not better than someone else's, what positive thing does this say about you? You'd just be that guy who has to read joke lists to entertain people at the party, and it's probably not the sort of thing you'd want to brag about. In status-competitive environments, people don't give you pats on the back just for trying.
Conspicous lack of effort is often a huge lie, though, as research proves. In the very best of cases, it is the dividend for enormous cumulative amounts of previous and strenuous effort.