Yes, but that quote is written in such a way that most readers¹ would assume it’s true (or at least that the writer believes it’s true); so it’s not like storytelling. And most readers¹ would find it interesting because they’d think it’s true; if I pulled some claim about $natural_language having $weird_feature directly out of my ass and concluded with “… Just kidding.”, I doubt many people¹ would find it that interesting.
OK, I admit I’m mostly Generalizing From One Example.
Would you be satisfied if I edited the original post to read something like “note: I have no particular reason to believe that this is literally true, but I think it holds an interesting rationality lesson either way. Feel free to substitute ‘Zorblaxians’ for ‘Japanese’”?
Yes, but that quote is written in such a way that most readers¹ would assume it’s true (or at least that the writer believes it’s true); so it’s not like storytelling. And most readers¹ would find it interesting because they’d think it’s true; if I pulled some claim about $natural_language having $weird_feature directly out of my ass and concluded with “… Just kidding.”, I doubt many people¹ would find it that interesting.
OK, I admit I’m mostly Generalizing From One Example.
Would you be satisfied if I edited the original post to read something like “note: I have no particular reason to believe that this is literally true, but I think it holds an interesting rationality lesson either way. Feel free to substitute ‘Zorblaxians’ for ‘Japanese’”?
Yes.