Overview for abody97

In response to comment by abody97 on Rationality Quotes January 2013

Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 07 January 2013 10:07:02AM 0 points [-]

I don't care whether it's actually true or not; either way it still holds an interesting rationality lesson and that's why I posted it.

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In response to comment by Qiaochu_Yuan on Rationality Quotes January 2013

Comment author: abody97 07 January 2013 10:39:20AM * 2 points [-]

With all respect that I'm generically required to give, I don't care whether you care or not. The argument I made was handling what you posted/quoted, neither you as a person nor your motives to posting.

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In response to Rationality Quotes January 2013

Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 03 January 2013 08:49:14AM * 34 points [-]

In Japan, it is widely believed that you don't have direct knowledge of what other people are really thinking (and it's very presumptuous to assume otherwise), and so it is uncommon to describe other people's thoughts directly, such as "He likes ice cream" or "She's angry". Instead, it's far more common to see things like "I heard that he likes ice cream" or "It seems like/It appears to be the case that she is angry" or "She is showing signs of wanting to go to the park."

-- TVTropes

Edit (1/7): I have no particular reason to believe that this is literally true, but either way I think it holds an interesting rationality lesson. Feel free to substitute 'Zorblaxia' for 'Japan' above.

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In response to comment by Qiaochu_Yuan on Rationality Quotes January 2013

Comment author: abody97 07 January 2013 09:24:52AM * 1 point [-]

I have to say that's fairly stupid (I'm talking about the claim which the quote is making and generalizing over a whole population; I am not doing argumentum ad hominem here).

I've seen many sorts of (fascinated) mythical claims on how the Japanese think/communicate/have sex/you name it differently and they're all ... well, purely mythical. Even if I, for the purposes of this argument, assume that beoShaffer is right about his/her Japanese teacher (and not just imagining or bending traits into supporting his/her pre-defined belief), it's meaningless and does not validate the above claim. Just for the sake of illustration, the simplest explanation for such usages is some linguistic convention (which actually makes sense, since the page from which the quote is sourced is substantially talking about the Japanese Language).

Unless someone has some solid proof that it's actually related to thinking rather than some other social/linguistic convention, this is meaningless (and stupid).