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satt comments on Open Thread, May 19 - 25, 2014 - Less Wrong Discussion

2 Post author: somnicule 19 May 2014 04:49AM

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Comment author: satt 26 May 2014 08:36:09PM 1 point [-]

The pair "tend to always" or "always tend to". Sometimes they come off to me as a way to exploit the rhetorical force of "always" while committing only to a hedged "tend to", in which case they can condense a two-step of terrific triviality into three words. There are likely other phrases that can provide plausibly deniable pseudo-certainty but I can't think of any.

More generally, the Unix utility diction tries to pick out "frequently misused, bad or wordy diction", which is a kinda related precedent.

Comment author: sixes_and_sevens 26 May 2014 11:12:15PM 1 point [-]

two-step of terrific triviality

When they come in the form of portentous pronouncements, Daniel Dennett calls these "deepities"; ambiguous expressions having one meaning which is trivially true but unimportant, and another that is obviously false but would be earth-shatteringly significant if it were true.

Also related in cold reading is the Rainbow Ruse.