The other day I was thinking about Discworld, and then I remembered this and figured it would make a good rationality quote...
[Vimes] distrusted the kind of person who’d take one look at another man and say in a lordly voice to his companion, “Ah, my dear sir, I can tell you nothing except that he is a left-handed stonemason who has spent some years in the merchant navy and has recently fell on hard times,” and then unroll a lot of supercilious commentary about calluses and stance and the state of a man’s boots, when exactly the same comments could apply to a man who was wearing his old clothes because he’d been doing a spot of home bricklaying for a new barbecue pit, and had been tattooed once when he was drunk and seventeen and in fact got seasick on a wet pavement. What arrogance! What an insult to the rich and chaotic variety of the human experience!
Encyclopedia Brown? What a hack! To this day, I occasionally reach into my left pocket for my keys with my right hand, just to prove that little brat wrong.
Well, the quote made me think of this. Now that I looked up that post I notice that it is downvoted, so perhaps it isn’t relevant. But the behavior that Vimes expresses distrust of in the Pratchett quote is pretty much the exact behavior that is used to show off how intelligent/perceptive Holmes is, and which the poster wants to use as an example for rationalists.
The other day I was thinking about Discworld, and then I remembered this and figured it would make a good rationality quote...
-- Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay
Reminded of a quote I saw on TV Tropes of a MetaFilter comment by ericbop:
Sounds like Vimes doesn’t like Sherlock Holmes much.
Gee, you think?
Well, the quote made me think of this. Now that I looked up that post I notice that it is downvoted, so perhaps it isn’t relevant. But the behavior that Vimes expresses distrust of in the Pratchett quote is pretty much the exact behavior that is used to show off how intelligent/perceptive Holmes is, and which the poster wants to use as an example for rationalists.
It is relevant and obvious. I suppose it was downvoted for the latter.