I’m curious whether writing something to rationalists (my response above) you feel the style is significantly different than when I’m not writing to them. As in, my line of thinking and way of explaining things.
For positive reinforcement: I’ve found your writing on less wrong good enough to be here so far. Reinforced bits: organization, use of emphasis, footnotes, engaging style, neutral tone, not taking incompatibility personally, a focus on sharing compatible, mutually useful knowledge.
The organizational problems you have written about here are concrete and easily supported. When I read your organizational writing and I come to a place where I need to evaluate if what you’re saying is true, the problem is transformed into a question of whether I believe that churches and missionary groups are successful at these things. So far you’ve been distilling and translating institutional knowledge.
I haven’t seen you write about harder issues here. Issues that require weighing competing mental processes, avoiding self-deception, tracing several levels of implication, being careful about what constitutes evidence, etc.
Of your writing elsewhere, it feels like you are snorkeling with fins and a mask. You’re staying on the surface in warm water and are checking out the beautiful tropical fish. You can see some of the terrain below you because your mask isn’t that foggy, but you don’t touch it because that just isn’t the activity you’re doing. You’re not surface diving, or deep water diving, and you’re having fun with your current activity.
I’m curious whether writing something to rationalists (my response above) you feel the style is significantly different than when I’m not writing to them. As in, my line of thinking and way of explaining things.
For positive reinforcement: I’ve found your writing on less wrong good enough to be here so far. Reinforced bits: organization, use of emphasis, footnotes, engaging style, neutral tone, not taking incompatibility personally, a focus on sharing compatible, mutually useful knowledge.
The organizational problems you have written about here are concrete and easily supported. When I read your organizational writing and I come to a place where I need to evaluate if what you’re saying is true, the problem is transformed into a question of whether I believe that churches and missionary groups are successful at these things. So far you’ve been distilling and translating institutional knowledge.
I haven’t seen you write about harder issues here. Issues that require weighing competing mental processes, avoiding self-deception, tracing several levels of implication, being careful about what constitutes evidence, etc.
Of your writing elsewhere, it feels like you are snorkeling with fins and a mask. You’re staying on the surface in warm water and are checking out the beautiful tropical fish. You can see some of the terrain below you because your mask isn’t that foggy, but you don’t touch it because that just isn’t the activity you’re doing. You’re not surface diving, or deep water diving, and you’re having fun with your current activity.
Said much better and more technically by Kutta above, your writing elsewhere: