I think I have more faith in Less Wrong readers than you do? I trust readers of this website to be able to interpret words like “extreme” acccording to their literal meanings, rather than being dominated by connotational halo effects.
Never said they’d be dominated by that effect. Nor did I say the majority of LW reader would be at all affected in that way. I think there’s at best a minor effect, which would impact within an OoM of 1% of readers. Which is why I said ‘it would be of minor benefit to change the word to “great”’. But it would also be pretty quick and maybe a good idea? This is all, of course, assuming Max H didn’t want some negative association attatched to your linked piece. I didn’t know if that’s what Max H was going for.
As for why I spent all this time on such a minor point, I guess something was bothering me about the word “extreme” in that sentence and I wanted to focus on it. When I focus like that, it commonly boots me out of a funk, which is what I was in, so doing this was positive EV for me.
I think I have more faith in Less Wrong readers than you do? I trust readers of this website to be able to interpret words like “extreme” acccording to their literal meanings, rather than being dominated by connotational halo effects.
Never said they’d be dominated by that effect. Nor did I say the majority of LW reader would be at all affected in that way. I think there’s at best a minor effect, which would impact within an OoM of 1% of readers. Which is why I said ‘it would be of minor benefit to change the word to “great”’. But it would also be pretty quick and maybe a good idea? This is all, of course, assuming Max H didn’t want some negative association attatched to your linked piece. I didn’t know if that’s what Max H was going for.
As for why I spent all this time on such a minor point, I guess something was bothering me about the word “extreme” in that sentence and I wanted to focus on it. When I focus like that, it commonly boots me out of a funk, which is what I was in, so doing this was positive EV for me.
I’m glad you’re out of your funk!