In any event: oh yah for sure I use language SUPER weird, on the regular, but I’m also a professional communicator whose speech and writing is widely acclaimed and effective and “nuh uh YOU’RE the one who uses words weird” is orthogonal to the question of whether Said has blind spots and disabilities here (which he does).
I dispute the claim of effectiveness. (As for “acclaimed”, well, the value of this really depends on who’s doing the acclaiming.)
And the question certainly is not orthogonal. My point was that your use of words is more weird and more often weird than mine. You have no place to stand, in my view, when saying of me that I use words weirdly, in some way that leads to misunderstandings. (I also don’t think that the claim is true; but regardless of whether it’s true in general, it’s unusually unconvincing coming from you.)
(If there was another copy of Said lying around, I might summon him to point out the sheer ridiculousness of responding to “You do X” with “how dare you say I do X when YOU do X”, since that seems like the sort of thing Said loves to do.
Indeed this is not ridiculous, when the X in question is something like “using words weirdly”, which can be understood only in a relative way. The point is not “how dare you” but rather “you are unusually unqualified to evaluate this”.
But in any event, I don’t think having a trait would in fact make me less able to notice and diagnose the trait in others.)
This could surely not be claimed for arbitrary traits, but for a trait like this, it seems to me to make plenty of sense.
Quick note re: “acclaimed”: Duncan had fairly largish number of posts highly upvoted during the 2021 Review. You might dispute whether that’s a noteworthy achievement, but, well, in terms of what content should be considered good on LessWrong, I don’t know of a more objective measure of “what the LessWrong community voted on as good, with lots of opportunity for people to argue that each other are mistaken.” (and, notably, Duncan’s posts show up in the top 50 and a couple in the top 20 whether you’re tracking votes from all users or just high karma ones)
(I suppose seeing posts actually cited outside the LessWrong community would be a better/more-objective measure of “something demonstrably good is happening, not potentially just circle-jerky”. I’m interested in tracking that although it seems trickier)
((Not intending to weigh in on any of the other points in this comment))
(I suppose seeing posts actually cited outside the LessWrong community would be a better/more-objective measure of “something demonstrably good is happening, not potentially just circle-jerky”. I’m interested in tracking that although it seems trickier)
In order from “slightly outside of LessWrong” to “very far outside of LessWrong,” I refactored the CFAR handbook against (mild) internal resistance from CFAR and it was received well, I semi-regularly get paid four or low-five figures to teach people rationality, I’ve been invited to speak at 4+ EA Globals and counting, my In Defense of Punch Bug essay has 1800 claps which definitely did not primarily come from this community, my Magic color wheel article has 18,800 claps and got a shoutout from CGPGrey, my sixth grade classroom was featured in a chapter in a book on modern education, and my documentary on parkour was translated by volunteers into like eight different languages and cited by the founder as his favorite parkour video of all time (at at least one moment in time). *shrug
I dispute the claim of effectiveness. (As for “acclaimed”, well, the value of this really depends on who’s doing the acclaiming.)
And the question certainly is not orthogonal. My point was that your use of words is more weird and more often weird than mine. You have no place to stand, in my view, when saying of me that I use words weirdly, in some way that leads to misunderstandings. (I also don’t think that the claim is true; but regardless of whether it’s true in general, it’s unusually unconvincing coming from you.)
Indeed this is not ridiculous, when the X in question is something like “using words weirdly”, which can be understood only in a relative way. The point is not “how dare you” but rather “you are unusually unqualified to evaluate this”.
This could surely not be claimed for arbitrary traits, but for a trait like this, it seems to me to make plenty of sense.
Quick note re: “acclaimed”: Duncan had fairly largish number of posts highly upvoted during the 2021 Review. You might dispute whether that’s a noteworthy achievement, but, well, in terms of what content should be considered good on LessWrong, I don’t know of a more objective measure of “what the LessWrong community voted on as good, with lots of opportunity for people to argue that each other are mistaken.” (and, notably, Duncan’s posts show up in the top 50 and a couple in the top 20 whether you’re tracking votes from all users or just high karma ones)
(I suppose seeing posts actually cited outside the LessWrong community would be a better/more-objective measure of “something demonstrably good is happening, not potentially just circle-jerky”. I’m interested in tracking that although it seems trickier)
((Not intending to weigh in on any of the other points in this comment))
In order from “slightly outside of LessWrong” to “very far outside of LessWrong,” I refactored the CFAR handbook against (mild) internal resistance from CFAR and it was received well, I semi-regularly get paid four or low-five figures to teach people rationality, I’ve been invited to speak at 4+ EA Globals and counting, my In Defense of Punch Bug essay has 1800 claps which definitely did not primarily come from this community, my Magic color wheel article has 18,800 claps and got a shoutout from CGPGrey, my sixth grade classroom was featured in a chapter in a book on modern education, and my documentary on parkour was translated by volunteers into like eight different languages and cited by the founder as his favorite parkour video of all time (at at least one moment in time). *shrug