Let’s break it down, shall we? The comment contains the following three things:
A joke insinuating “rational programming” is the same as “rational toothpaste”. No claim is made explicitly, so no rebuttal can be made. This is pure dark arts if you ask me.
Negative instruction: Don’t do this. No attempt to explain why.
Positive instruction: Do that instead. Again, no attempt to explain why.
And you think this is more rational than the detailed, respectful, intelligent comments made by people who actually thought about the questions for five minutes and shared their expertise?
I’m appalled.
Maybe it’s obvious to you that having “most rational X” in the title is stupid. And to be honest in hindsight it seems a bit silly to me as well, now that I have explicitly thought about the reasons for it. But it wasn’t obvious when I wrote it, and it surely isn’t self-evident to everybody.
I’m not against setting up norms and rules, and yes they are gonna change on people, and yes people need to be humiliated from time to time for breaking them flagrantly, but it’s simply unfair to make humiliating jokes in retaliation for breaking them when there is no actual reason for the person to have known about the norm’s existence.
Note that Konkvistador didn’t even have a link to a top level post to substantiate the claim that this norm exists, just “I think this has been mentioned before”—am I supposed to read every comment on LessWrong to see what norms I’m supposed to be following?
Hmm, I guess people that follow most of the discussions here might be overestimating how much “community lore” others are aware of (or they may mistake “opinions shared by a few posters” for “community lore”).
I share your surprise that the grandparent was so positively received. It was briefly at −1, since I was the first to encounter the comment and I thought it was inane, obnoxious and wrong, without being sufficiently wrong that it could get any points for clever irony or humor.
Upvoted for being the most rational comment in this thread.
Snark isn’t the same as rationality.
Let’s break it down, shall we? The comment contains the following three things:
A joke insinuating “rational programming” is the same as “rational toothpaste”. No claim is made explicitly, so no rebuttal can be made. This is pure dark arts if you ask me.
Negative instruction: Don’t do this. No attempt to explain why.
Positive instruction: Do that instead. Again, no attempt to explain why.
And you think this is more rational than the detailed, respectful, intelligent comments made by people who actually thought about the questions for five minutes and shared their expertise?
I’m appalled.
Maybe it’s obvious to you that having “most rational X” in the title is stupid. And to be honest in hindsight it seems a bit silly to me as well, now that I have explicitly thought about the reasons for it. But it wasn’t obvious when I wrote it, and it surely isn’t self-evident to everybody.
I’m not against setting up norms and rules, and yes they are gonna change on people, and yes people need to be humiliated from time to time for breaking them flagrantly, but it’s simply unfair to make humiliating jokes in retaliation for breaking them when there is no actual reason for the person to have known about the norm’s existence.
Note that Konkvistador didn’t even have a link to a top level post to substantiate the claim that this norm exists, just “I think this has been mentioned before”—am I supposed to read every comment on LessWrong to see what norms I’m supposed to be following?
Give me a break!
Rational is a frequently used but unfortunately more and more meaningless applause light on LessWrong.
Hmm, I guess people that follow most of the discussions here might be overestimating how much “community lore” others are aware of (or they may mistake “opinions shared by a few posters” for “community lore”).
For prior discussions of this see here:
or here:
Most people seem to have liked the suggestion to use “optimal” instead.
Forgive my ignorance; so what is the most rational form of humor?
Note: Both of these comments are jokes and were intended to be funny, not snarky punishments for norm-breaking.
It turns out to be fart jokes. I have an elegant proof of this, but it is too long to fit in a comment.
Louis C.K. was deconstructing why farts are funny on the daily show the other day:
They come out of your ass.
They make a trumpet noise.
etc
Argh, I can’t believe that went completely over my head in both cases. Now that you’ve added the italics around “most rational” I can see it.
I share your surprise that the grandparent was so positively received. It was briefly at −1, since I was the first to encounter the comment and I thought it was inane, obnoxious and wrong, without being sufficiently wrong that it could get any points for clever irony or humor.
Mind you I upvoted Konk’s actual comment.