All of hoofwall's Comments + Replies

9[anonymous]
Dude, chill. We don't define and quantify everything we say because that's massively impractical. But if you insist, we can do that. Let's start with your post. I want you to take your argument against censorship and formalize it mathematically. If you do that, it'll be clear if your argument is logically sound. If it turns out that it is logically sound, we can get to empirically verifying the assumptions of your model. How does the scientific method sound to you? If you find this difficult for whatever reason, perhaps there are things about formal reasoning you don't know. Go read a math book, or a philosophy book, or even the sequences. Finally, let me just point out that if your goal was to have a productive conversation you're clearly not doing so well. Around here, we define rationality to be what lets us achieve our goals (more or less). By that standard, your chosen tactics aren't very rational.
6DanielLC
Maybe I committed the Like Mind Fallacy and you really are like you said? If so, I think there's something seriously wrong with you. Being that extreme about everything can't be healthy. Being turned on is fun and all, but I don't think it's supposed to happen as often as you suggest.
hoofwall-10

...Clearly people use them because it is easier to invoke the emotion than through e.g. meditation or whatever you are proposing.

This assumes of course that the human's world and the human's lifestyle is rational. I believe it is not. Humans deciding to do one thing over another does not necessarily mean that their choice is the best. Humans have collectively done some really stupid shit in the past...

Besides, this philosophy also applies to the other side. Is there an inherent correlation between what other people do (say, make noise that makes our e

... (read more)
4DanielLC
In that sentence, the words "And what does this mean?" were used to convey information. The words "the niggershitting babyfuck" were meant to piss me off, and did not actually add anything to the sentence. It is possible that some of your last post was meant to convey information, but it's not as simple as removing the swearing. I can see how you could piss someone off with that, but taking it as a list of facts they're just too silly. You consider everything to be either evil or sexually gratifying? What about the color blue? Is blue evil? And you said that anger is evil, but you admitted to trying to make people angry.
hoofwall-40

In your first scenario, I just cannot understand... perhaps it is my simply lacking certain mental faculties here that would render my mind normal, but I cannot sympathize with just not wanting certain food while not actually claiming that your consuming that certain food will be inherent evil, or that the certain food is in itself inherent evil. If the evil is not inherent then the argument is arbitrary, as the evil you claim is not a fundamental property of that construct as it exists naturally in this universe. If I don't want to eat something you could... (read more)

2DanielLC
I consider the discomfort that will result if I attempt to eat the food to be inherently evil. Does that count?
5DanielLC
That looks like you're just attempting to piss me off. It doesn't seem to actually mean anything.
4Jiro
I don't know if you're still reading this, but the answer is "the rational reason to consider them is that if you don't, you will get very hurt, and you don't want to get very hurt".
hoofwall-30

I think the same thing is going on here. You're not swearing because "fucking" is such an amazingly useful word. You're signalling something. If I had to guess, I'd say that you're signalling that you don't need us by burning your bridges with us.

Who is "us"? Is "us" those who live by LessWrong's philosophy? This community disagrees with my argument? But yes, I believe your conclusion is what I said outright... I use it because it is a trigger word to humans... It pisses them off, despite the fact that I may have said or wr... (read more)

3DanielLC
But why do you consider it important to piss people off? If you're just doing it for fun, I'd suggest doing it on YouTube or something so that you're not getting in the way of anything productive.
2ChristianKl
Whether or not a word is inherently evil is besides the point.
2VoiceOfRa
Except as we've just established you would (and should treat them differently). "Discriminate" is another word that's sometimes used in a confused manner. Although, here it's less about confusing two meanings and more about ritually saying statements perceived as socially desirable even if it would be insane to actually act on the literal advice. This by the way is not just a harmless word game, it means that anybody could be accused of hypocrisy (or usually worse) by noting a specific instance where they do in fact discriminate.
hoofwall-10

I suppose I wouldn't want someone incompetent for a certain task to accomplish that certain task but what I meant was, I do not actively hate any of those things I mentioned as distinguished from just the idea of the human.

3VoiceOfRa
Then why did you use the word "discriminate" when you meant "hate"? Words may ultimately be arbitrary in some sense, but a language constitutes a consensus mapping of arbitrary symbols to things in the real world, and if you want to have a conversation with someone, it's helpful to follow the mapping. Or worse use the same word for two different things and slip between the two meanings when making an argument, it is even possible to confuse oneself this way. This problem is not restricted to you, in our culture there is a tendency to do this with the word "hate".
3TheAncientGeek
They could think it leads indirectly to undesirable consequences.
6DanielLC
I'm a picky eater. There are a lot of foods that I don't want. But I don't consider them inherently evil. Swearing decreases my status, which means that I will make less money, which means that I won't be able to afford to buy as many mosquito nets for poor africans, which means that more of them will die of malaria. If I swear, evil things will happen, but it's not the swearing itself that's evil.
[anonymous]120

Passive aggression aside, I still do not understand how what I written was poor at all. I don't understand what I did wrong. Why should I do any of what you suggest I do?

You might find you don't get downvoted to oblivion

9DanielLC
I don't think either of us were addressing the real issue, so I'll start over. This reminds me of a story from Change of Heart. If you're not familiar with signalling, I suggest reading up on it. A lot of human behavior is explained by it. People are built for politics. If you're in a group of people who have long hair and wear funny clothes and preach about the environment being great, then by doing the same thing you can show that you're loyal to them. If you really want to signal loyalty, you can burn your bridges with everyone else and do something crazy like getting arrested. If cut your hair and put on a suit, it signals that you're loyal to your workplace, and by extension not them. It might help the environment, but you're not built to save the environment. You're built to maximize inclusive genetic fitness, and politics is a great way to do it. I think the same thing is going on here. You're not swearing because "fucking" is such an amazingly useful word. You're signalling something. If I had to guess, I'd say that you're signalling that you don't need us by burning your bridges with us.
5indexador2
I don't think that was the implication. What I took from it is that you shouldn't be a dick. What would insulting/infuriating the person with whom you're discussing possibly accomplish, besides making them less likely to cooperate?

I like this question. It is a lot less intimidating that a lot of the other posts on this site I've seen in my short time being here, and I feel I can actually contribute using only my philosophy and ability to express myself in the English language, rather than also needing knowledge on other constructs.

In my opinion, emotion starts and ends with the mind, so the notion that for instance a specific human's emotion can exist outside of their mind is completely asinine. As such, listening to music in reality, in itself, is total redundancy. It is not mandat... (read more)

4[anonymous]
Why do you turn an empirical question into a philosophical one? The question whether people can invoke emotions in themselves just as efficiently without external crutches such as music, horror movies, or romantic restaurants, is easily falsified by the simple existence of these services and the willingness to pay for them. Clearly people use them because it is easier to invoke the emotion than through e.g. meditation or whatever you are proposing. Besides, this philosophy also applies to the other side. Is there an inherent correlation between what other people do (say, make noise that makes our ears hurt) and subjective pain felt? If you have some sort of a meditation technique that can make people as elevated as they are made by a good song, can't this be used the same way to detach from pain, in which other people infringing on our rights or not respecting the live and let live fully becomes a moot point?

Sorry, I suppose I misused the word "devolve"... I've seen others use it as I have in my post here so I thought it was okay, but I suppose not. Perhaps they misused it, and if so I should not be tolerating the arbitrary and blatant misuse of words. What I meant by that word though was simply falling in stature. My using the word was to express that I believed humans have fallen in stature to the point that they cannot fall in stature anymore, and that the humans who roam the earth today will continue to breed and forge the world they want without... (read more)

Sorry, before I mention my personal goals I just want to say that I disagree with the notion that logic is meaningless without being founded on an underlying goal... Logic as I understand it is by definition merely a method of thinking, or the concept of sequencing thought to reach conclusions, and determining why some of such sequences are right. I believe logic in itself- according to the second definition I proposed- tends to the end of a goal, and that goal is rationality. Naturally, without having anything to sequence logic is nothing and has no bread... (read more)

Hi. I did indeed mean what you express as "to reason" when I said "rationalize"... I am entirely unfamiliar with the distinctions made on this site so thanks for pointing out to me how others might misinterpret what I say. Also, thanks for the welcome.

Sorry for using you like this but, do you know whether or not swearing is against the rules here, and if so would you please tell me if it is or not? The closest to a rule list I found was just about etiquette. I'm wondering whether or not uttering like the "n word" for instance ... (read more)

0polymathwannabe
This is the official etiquette policy. However, it is true that it offers very little guidelines about what language is allowed. From what I've perceived here, people are very formal and behave like adults, i.e. I haven't seen anyone throwing angry insults or wishing someone were dead or using hateful terms toward a demographic group. In short, this is not the YouTube comments section.

Hi! I am socially retarded... There are many things the standard human was born with the capacity to grasp that I never can. The word "autism" appears to me to be being thrown around a lot lately, mostly as a meaningless word used to convey that one thinks another is simply not normal but when I first noticed how heavily users on the internet threw around the word two years ago I identified as such for a bit to make conversation more expedient. I am able to comprehend metaphors and similes and such for some reason, but things such as having the c... (read more)

3Weedlayer
Edit: I misunderstood what you said by "rationalize", sorry. As Polymath said, rationalization means "To try to justify an irrational position later"", basically making excuses. Anyway, I wouldn't worry about the downvotes, based on this post the people downvoting you probably weren't being passive aggressive, but rather misinterpreted what you posted. It can take a little while to learn the local beliefs and jargon.
2polymathwannabe
Hi, Hoofwall. Welcome to LessWrong. I have considered the label "autistic" to describe myself at some points in the past, but now I'm not sure. I may be at another point in the spectrum, or I may be just imagining things. But I can definitely empathize with anyone who struggles to make themselves understood to humans. I'm confused about one point: Your usage of the verb " to rationalize" suggests that you intend it for a meaning that is slightly different from the standard meaning it has in logical jargon. We usually say that someone is "rationalizing" when they make an irrational decision and then, afterwards, make up an excuse to keep feeling good about it. I suspect that's not what you meant when you used that word; it feels like it would have been clearer to use the verb "to reason." Of course, this is only my speculation. Please correct me if I'm wrong. (Within the rationalist culture prevalent in this forum, correcting other people when they're wrong is socially accepted as something you can do, but also, accepting corrections when you're wrong is something you're expected to do.)

After seeing an image I thought was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen I tried to create an imaginary friend of her and after she became established enough in my mind I guess, she immediately gave me ideas on what it truly meant to be right(which was a first to me since my philosophy on everything was very unfortunate prior) and I've been effectively living vicariously through her since...

Sorry, never been here before and know nothing about this place and all the other "stupid questions" here seem super formal so I feel really out of place here but, how common is it for the users on this site, the likes of whom likely all refer to themselves as rationalists to be misanthropes?

I hate humans. I hate humans so much. I used to think I could change them. I used to think every human who exhibited behavior I found to be inferior was simply ignorant of true rationality. Mines is a very long story that I no longer want to tell but it was m... (read more)

6jimrandomh
If this is representative of your usual conversation style, then everyone above a certain level of competence will correctly infer that they should avoid you. This will leave you with conversation partners that are far below average. Your other statements make me think that this has, in fact, happened. This is a difficult skill. The first step, if you truly want to change someone, is to establish mutual respect. If they think you don't like them, they will resist all attempts to influence them. This is definitely the right strategic move on their part, and even if they don't think about strategy at all, their instincts and emotions will guide them to it. If you think that you should be able to convince people of things, with this style of writing or this style of writing translated into speech, then you have misunderstood the nature of social interaction and you need to study the basics with the humility of a beginner.
0hairyfigment
Possibly I don't understand your situation ("devolved" doesn't make sense to me except as Star Trek syence, a word I just invented based on the name SyFy. It could be a more polite version of 'syfyces'.) But I find it useful to remind myself that humans have no evolutionary reason to be perfectly rational. I tell myself that if any future I hope for comes to pass, the people there will see us (at the present time) as particularly foolish children who, rather horribly, age and die before growing up.
2monsterzero
Our culture typically presents rationality as opposed to emotion; I believe that a disproportionate number of misanthropes are drawn to rationality for that reason. However, logic is meaningless without having an underlying goal, and goals are generally determined by one's emotions. What are your goals? I find that thinking of other people as inferior or irrational is not particularly helpful in accomplishing my objectives. I feel less stress and make more progress by recognizing that other people have different goals than I do. It is possible to get others (even "irrational" others) to help you accomplish your goals by offering to help them with theirs.
0Victor Novikov
I self-describe as a rationalist and I don't like humans that much at all. Don't know how common this is. I like humans well enough when -I can have a sensible interaction with them -Or, they are willing to accommodate my needs with needing an explanation for everything -Or, if I can manage their irrationality with a strategy that has a low cost to myself Otherwise, I don't like humans very much or at all. Maybe disappointed? I wouldn't say hate (though the thought does come up). I have been depressed. I've learned to deal with it, and I don't feel I'm depressed now, though I am probably at risk for depression. Mostly I try to do things for myself. And to put myself in a position where I won't depend on any individual human for anything vital, and to have resources for as much self-reliance as possible.
0[anonymous]
[Do you self-identify as a misanthrope:]{yes}{no}{just show me the results}