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The_Bird comments on Rationality Quotes April 2016 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (58)
Steve Sailer
If your project is to make sure that anybody who joins LW who has neoreactionary views get's banned I think you are on a good way by constantly reregistering accounts and training the jobs to pattern match accounts that contain neoreactionary views as accounts needing to be banned.
Acquiring knowledge requires a lot of work every time. Using fully general counterarguments doesn't. Also, for some reason people think that meta-things are higher status than things. Does anybody know why?
Going meta typically requires the ability to step out of the usual context (not a terribly common skill), a degree of reflexivity, and some intellectual power. Basically, idiots never go meta because they can't.
This seems true, if you're talking about what I think you're talking about.
I've had to teach myself a meta-textual awareness when reading academic stuff, in order to keep in mind why I'm reading this, compare the contents with what other authors say, connect with related concepts, see the implications, etc., while I'm reading. It certainly takes a lot more effort and presence of mind than just following the text.
I would call what you are describing "putting into context" or "inserting new information into an existing framework", but yes, to do that you need some meta awareness.
However if you're reading academic research, what I would consider fully "going meta" is not just looking at other authors or connecting with related concepts, but rather considering the authors' incentives and, say, trying to correct for the publication bias.
Yeah, that too.
Related thought: I think meta is a direction, rather than one specific level. What that would mean is that you can always go further meta; there's reading the text, and then there's considering the text within the academic landscape, then there's examining the text together with its whole branch of science amidst all the sciences, then with science in general amidst human endeavours, etc.
Does that make sense?
Sure, you can go meta again and again. I don't think in terms of meta as a direction, but I think of it as relative to the current level. So you go meta and step out of the current context, but this means you find yourself in a new context, and you can repeat: go meta and step out of this context. You find yourself in a new context and you can repeat: go meta and step out of this context. You find yourself in a new context... :-)
That still sounds like 'meta' is a direction of (metaphorical) movement, but that it can be a different direction every time. Do you suppose you could have a situation where repeatedly 'going meta' would have you moving from one subject to the other and then back again, and again?
If you want to think of it as a direction, the direction is outside. I don't think you can do loops.
That makes sense, I suppose.