I do not write top-level posts because my standards for ideas that are sufficiently important, valuable, novel, etc., to justify contributing to the flood of words that is the blogosphere, are fairly high. I would be most gratified to see more people follow my example.
I also think that there is great value to be found in commentary (including criticism). Some of my favorite pieces of writing, from which I’ve gotten great insight and great enjoyment, are in this genre. Some of the writers and intellectuals I most respect are famous largely for their commentary on the ideas of others, and for their incisive criticism of those ideas. To criticize is not to rebuke—it is to contribute; it is to give of one’s time and mental energy, in order to participate in the collective project of cutting away the nonsense and the irrelevancies from the vast and variegated mass of ideas that we are always and unceasingly generating, and to get one step closer to the truth.
In his book Brainstorms, Daniel Dennett quotes the poet Paul Valéry:
“It takes two to invent anything.” He was not referring to collaborative partnerships between people, but to a bifurcation in the individual inventor. “The one”, he says, “makes up combinations; the other one chooses, recognizes what he wishes and what is important to him in the mass of the things which the former has imparted to him. What we call genius is much less the work of that first one than the readiness of the second one to grasp the value of what has been laid before him and to choose.”
We have had, in these past few years (in the “rationalist Diaspora”) and in these past few months (here on Less Wrong 2.0), a great flowering of the former sort of activity. We have neglected the latter. It is good, I think, to try and rectify that imbalance.
I do not write top-level posts because my standards for ideas that are sufficiently important, valuable, novel, etc., to justify contributing to the flood of words that is the blogosphere, are fairly high. I would be most gratified to see more people follow my example.
I also think that there is great value to be found in commentary (including criticism). Some of my favorite pieces of writing, from which I’ve gotten great insight and great enjoyment, are in this genre. Some of the writers and intellectuals I most respect are famous largely for their commentary on the ideas of others, and for their incisive criticism of those ideas. To criticize is not to rebuke—it is to contribute; it is to give of one’s time and mental energy, in order to participate in the collective project of cutting away the nonsense and the irrelevancies from the vast and variegated mass of ideas that we are always and unceasingly generating, and to get one step closer to the truth.
In his book Brainstorms, Daniel Dennett quotes the poet Paul Valéry:
We have had, in these past few years (in the “rationalist Diaspora”) and in these past few months (here on Less Wrong 2.0), a great flowering of the former sort of activity. We have neglected the latter. It is good, I think, to try and rectify that imbalance.