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Benito comments on Explanations for Less Wrong articles that you didn't understand - Less Wrong Discussion

18 Post author: Kaj_Sotala 31 March 2014 11:19AM

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Comment author: shminux 31 March 2014 10:26:46PM -1 points [-]

The purpose of the essay, is so that when you're in an argument, you provide evidence, and the person goes "but all truth is relative" or "nothing is true, it's all just oppression of the many by the powerful" you can send them ...

... to jump off a cliff. I can certainly get behind this approach. But I doubt that this is the main point of this convoluted if entertaining essay.

Comment author: Benito 01 April 2014 08:32:23AM *  3 points [-]

Often I have seen – especially on Internet mailing lists – that amidst other conversation, someone says “X is true”, and then an argument breaks out over the use of the word ‘true’. This essay is not meant as an encyclopedic reference for that argument. Rather, I hope the arguers will read this essay, and then go back to whatever they were discussing before someone questioned the nature of truth.

-The Simple Truth

Comment author: shminux 01 April 2014 02:45:15PM 0 points [-]

I see. Preventing tangential arguments about the nature of truth is the intended point of the essay, just poorly expressed, as far as I can tell. Thanks.

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