All of ThoughtDancer's Comments + Replies

Finally noticed this conversation. If this meet-up isn't buried on the North side, we (SoulessAutomaton and I) could possibly make it. We'd have to drive in from Grand Rapids.

I have a BA and MA in English Lit, and I can't sincerely answer you. I know several of the standard answers--most of which are derived from and are designed to promote various literary theories and the associated coterie of career minded professors. I left Lit in large part because of those (non-) answers, and did my PhD in Rhetoric instead.

Painting with a very broad brush here, but mainly why people study lit groups into five areas.

Art for art's sake-->new criticism, structuralism, deconstructuralism: those fields that see studying literature of value... (read more)

The wiki is a good starting tool, but it's not yet as fully developed as I would like. I'm still working to develop sufficient background knowledge of the discussions, assumptions, and definitions used in Less Wrong so as to be sufficiently confident in commenting.

So I will forgive the occasions when someone who sincerely wants information and thoughtful reactions stumbles into spaces that have already been well-trodden.

Nevertheless, the wiki itself isn't yet fully developed with interconnections and links to definitions: until such internal tagging is co... (read more)

I am trying to contextualize this discussion, given that my background in rhetoric and ethos is far removed from the background of the author.

So, I'm going to ask this simply (pun intended) to hopefully generate some useful complexity.

Is the goal of this analysis to systematize the implementation of pre-established ethical guidelines, or, as implied by Soulless Automaton's comment, to derive the ethical guidelines themselves?

Also, does this assume that ethics are derived from observing behavior and then selecting the best behavior given observed results?... (read more)

Actually, I'm a bit afraid of the opposite--as an older fart who has a degree through an English Department... I'm often more than a little unsure and I'm concerned I'll be rejected out of hand, or, worse, simply ignored.

I suspect, though, that this crowd is inherently friendly, even when the arguments end up using sarcasm. ;-)

• Handle: thoughtdancer
• Name: Deb
• Location: Middle of nowhere, Michigan
• Age: 44
• Gender: Female
• Education: PhD Rhetoric
• Occupation: Writer-wannabe, adjunct Prof (formerly tenure-track, didn't like it)
• Blog: thoughtdances Just starting, be gentle please

I'm here because of SoullessAutomaton, who is my apartment-mate and long term friend. I am interested in discussing rhetoric and rationality. I have a few questions that I would pose to the group to open up the topic.

1) Are people interested in rhetoric, persuasion, and the systematic study thereof? Does... (read more)

Thanks. Last time I googled it--before there was a Google--I came up with nothing.

The dieting discussion seems to have slipped from the intended purpose into a discussion of, well, dieting. I'm wondering if some of that discussion belongs over here, under "open thread" discussion, instead?

Also, am I the only person who has problems dieting because sometimes, for causes yet to be identified, hunger can trigger a migraine? I'll do anything to avoid migraines, including being fat. (Though today I started experimenting with the Shangri-La diet: if it works and doesn't trigger migraines, I would be delighted.)

Thanks for the confirmation, and yes, I appear to be at 20.

Now to start thinking about how to open up a discussion about rationalist approach to rhetoric.

:-)

Wouldn't it take human readers to separate out the trolls from the new posters, and wouldn't such human readers need to be paid for that work? I'm assuming a lot, granted, but isn't this site volunteer work? Who would want to slough through the new posts to remove the trolls from the new people?

Ok, that could sound sarcastic. It isn't. I really don't think that many people would volunteer for such work for long, and I honestly don't know about any computer programs that could make that sort of judgment about posters.

Agreed, the karma system is not fundamentally flawed (I realize that there's further discussion on the karma system, like over here ). Maybe the karma system is a little frustrating because it does force the new person to be careful, but a bit of frustration now to improve the latter dialogue makes sense.

I just wanted to know that that was the intention here, not an accidental (if beneficial) by-product of the karma system.

Ah, but I have an ulterior motive. I'm here in part because I want to read discussions of a rationalist approach to rhetoric. And we can't create new posts until we hit 20 I believe.

But I'm really curious about how a rationalist group would approach rhetoric, so I want to get the discussion started. :-)

That's why I care about my karma score so much.

I just stopped myself from commenting on a thread because I was worried for my itty bitty karma score. I'm new, so my karma score is tiny. I'm new enough to know that I might not know all the relevant context, so I stopped myself in case what I was going to say was too obvious.

I wish that newbies could have a protected period from being downvoted to the pits of negative karma if the new person is clearly giving an honest effort. But at the same time, downvoting trolls makes very good sense. I realize it's not practical to separate out new people from... (read more)

Got it in one. I remember SoullessAutomaton saying that rhetoric was called one of the "Dark Arts" in the originating post, so it had to have been this one.

I should chat with Yvain sometime: it sounds like he? she? knows the old myth of Rhetorica as the dark sister of the goddess Philosophy. Yes, Rhetoric is very much one of the "Dark Arts"--for, unlike Philosophy--Rhetorica looks to derive her knowledge by paying attention to what actually works in the observed world. Her light sister Philosophy derives her knowledge from some great... (read more)

I will. My main advice to SoullessAutomaton was having a clear statement of context/purpose right at the top of the page, preferably followed by a table of contents. Wikipedia's format is the inspiration here, and it is a good one: the format is familiar and it handles the immediate question "what is this?" that is likely to be first on a new person's mind.

But, if I'm going to be a usability tester, I may be of more use if I leave the wiki alone until you all feel it's ready for a usability tester. I'm far less likely to be biased/predisposed to unhelpful reactions if I've not been watching the development process.

I've tried to find the thread that inspired SoullessAutomaton to chat with me about the thread, and I can't find it. I gather that the thread occurred a few weeks ago. So I don't have that context.

A rhetorical analysis assess the persuasiveness of a text/speech/communication act. Rhetorical analyses use the rhetorical concepts (ethos/logos/pathos, for instance, or concepts from Burke's Grammar of Motives, or any of the rest of the tools of the trade) to pick apart the communicative act to see how it makes its meaning (both the substance and style). I gath... (read more)

I live with one of that merry band, and a series of comments came up that inspired him to ask me about the content. (I gather you all stumbled onto and into the concepts of a rhetorical analysis, kairos, and pathos appeals the hard way.) So I'm going to lurk, learn, and see if there's a place for a PhD in Rhetoric to add her two cents.

I'm completely new to LessWrong, and so I could make a decent usability tester if you want one. I've also done usability testing and taught elements of it, so I could also help create / refine the usability procedures if there's an interest in creating such.