Rationality Quotes February 2013

arundelo

Another monthly installment of the rationality quotes thread. The usual rules apply:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be upvoted or downvoted separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself.
Do not quote comments or posts from Less Wrong itself or from Overcoming Bias.
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

Another monthly installment of the rationality quotes thread. The usual rules apply:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be upvoted or downvoted separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself.
Do not quote comments or posts from Less Wrong itself or from Overcoming Bias.
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

That reminds me of http://xkcd.com/690/.

Also:

If one group of editors were to say the Earth is flat and another group were to say it is round, it would not benefit Wikipedia for the groups to compromise and say the Earth is shaped like a calzone.

-- Raymond Arritt

(Quoting this before dinner is making me hungry.)

Wikipedia may ultimately have to do one of two things, or both:

1) Provide better structure for alternate versions of contested ideas

2) Construct a practically effective demarcation between strictly factual domains, and anything more interpretive.

Such a demarcation will always be challenged; I don't see any way around that, but I'd also insist that it's necessary for our sanity. Supposed it was possible, maybe using a browser with links to a database, to try to "brand" (or give the underwriters seal of approval to) those pages that provided strai... (read more)