I consider this evidence in favor of ‘keeping politics out of lesswrong does help with ’rationality″.
Sorry, I’m not following the reasoning here; can you say more? Why that specific hypothesis, rather than “ZMD’s writing is too long-winded in general”?
It’s long, hard to read/understand, and seem kind of wrong. Sometimes this is because the author is bouncing between (two) things that conflict, like: ‘I think I’m right about this interpretation’ and ‘multiple interpretations are possible’. (This confusion that might be fixable by breaking things up more.)
Given that the post is about a specific thing, maybe it’s written in a way that is really hard to read because references to thing have been moved/altered. (I could make some of the same points just using numbers and functions. An infinite number of series**** begin with 1, 4, 9, 16, 25, then don’t follow up with 36, 49, etc. And yet, upon seeing those numbers you may see a pattern, and expect the 36, and the 49. And if “our brains know what they’re doing” there’s a reason for that. (But beware the Law of Small Numbers.))
It’s also like a dialgoue, but without the two sides delineated, or the reader doesn’t get to read half the conversation and it’s really confusing because the rebuttals are confusing on their own.
The issue with removed references/abstracting politics has been mentioned before. On it’s own it’s slightly convincing. Looking these specific examples, it seems like it’s horribly accurate.
*Like probability, but with wide error bars.
**Do more general hypotheses ‘need’ more evidence, or less?
***The word “the” might be out of place in that title. (And borders are drawn on maps. And they’re messy around the edges.)
****Similarly, an infinite number of functions have the properties that f(1) = 1, and f(2) = 4, and...
Sorry, I’m not following the reasoning here; can you say more? Why that specific hypothesis, rather than “ZMD’s writing is too long-winded in general”?
A)
Charity (see B.)
I didn’t generalize that much.
Confidence (distinct from probability)*
Decision making heuristic (also distinct from probability)**
B)
I’ve read stuff that you’ve written that didn’t seem bad the same way.
Reading Where to Draw the Boundaries?***
It’s long, hard to read/understand, and seem kind of wrong. Sometimes this is because the author is bouncing between (two) things that conflict, like: ‘I think I’m right about this interpretation’ and ‘multiple interpretations are possible’. (This confusion that might be fixable by breaking things up more.)
Given that the post is about a specific thing, maybe it’s written in a way that is really hard to read because references to thing have been moved/altered. (I could make some of the same points just using numbers and functions. An infinite number of series**** begin with 1, 4, 9, 16, 25, then don’t follow up with 36, 49, etc. And yet, upon seeing those numbers you may see a pattern, and expect the 36, and the 49. And if “our brains know what they’re doing” there’s a reason for that. (But beware the Law of Small Numbers.))
It’s also like a dialgoue, but without the two sides delineated, or the reader doesn’t get to read half the conversation and it’s really confusing because the rebuttals are confusing on their own.
The issue with removed references/abstracting politics has been mentioned before. On it’s own it’s slightly convincing. Looking these specific examples, it seems like it’s horribly accurate.
*Like probability, but with wide error bars.
**Do more general hypotheses ‘need’ more evidence, or less?
***The word “the” might be out of place in that title. (And borders are drawn on maps. And they’re messy around the edges.)
****Similarly, an infinite number of functions have the properties that f(1) = 1, and f(2) = 4, and...