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.

elharo comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 20, chapter 90 - Less Wrong Discussion

9 Post author: palladias 02 July 2013 02:13AM

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

Comments (609)

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

Comment author: elharo 02 July 2013 10:48:13AM *  3 points [-]

Question: what does it mean to say "X is a thing"?

Does it mean:

A) The concept exists? (e.g. Unicorns are a thing)

B) The concept may not exist yet, but it could exist? (E.g. lunar colonization is a thing; but unicorns are not a thing.)

C) the concept actually exists (Space stations are a thing.)

Comment author: Velorien 02 July 2013 12:19:01PM *  5 points [-]

I believe in general Internet parlance its usage is closest to A, and more rarely C. Obviously, since A could be made about pretty much anything, it is typically restricted to "the concept exists, and is acknowledged by a sufficient number of people" (e.g. "Rule 34 is a thing").

Comment author: D_Malik 02 July 2013 01:54:08PM *  14 points [-]

And since the phrase "is a thing" is acknowledged by many people, we could say that "is a thing" is a thing. Unfortunately, ""is a thing" is a thing" is not yet a thing.

Comment author: tondwalkar 04 July 2013 03:28:36AM 1 point [-]

""is a thing" is a thing" is a thing in sense C.

Comment author: ShardPhoenix 02 July 2013 11:56:11AM *  4 points [-]

Saying "x is a thing" is a way of reminding people of a relevant concept that may have been overlooked. Whether it's an actual physically existing thing or not depends on context.

Comment author: Decius 02 July 2013 09:38:57PM 1 point [-]

Context dependent, and possibly the distinction between the three is not really a thing.