Potato is proposing a deffenition as an emperical pointer. It means plenty, it means when people think “success”, they think “happiness up”. He’s just saying that the probabilities of the application of the two phrases are correlated to some significant degree.
No, he’s dodging the question. There are two definitions under discussion, one (the one potato is proposing, also incidentally the nonstandard one) in which he is by definition correct, another in which he has been proven wrong. He’s explicitly attempting to conflate the two:
Could you give me three examples of a successful policy which doesn’t increase net happiness [...] ?
If successful means “promotes happiness”, then I trivially can’t. If it means “works as planned”, then Holocaust was quite successful in elimination of Jews, to give an extreme example.
Nah, I mean “successful” as in: you and I are both capable of agreeing as well as at least not the minority of experts about that use of “successful”. … when you and I and at least some experts will be tempted to say “That policy was successful.”, i.e., “worked”, “rocked”,
Are you new man? Check this out: http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/A_Human%27s_Guide_to_Words
Potato is proposing a deffenition as an emperical pointer. It means plenty, it means when people think “success”, they think “happiness up”. He’s just saying that the probabilities of the application of the two phrases are correlated to some significant degree.
No, he’s dodging the question. There are two definitions under discussion, one (the one potato is proposing, also incidentally the nonstandard one) in which he is by definition correct, another in which he has been proven wrong. He’s explicitly attempting to conflate the two: