Admittedly, almost no one who is attracted by discussion of sports and celebrity meets community standards for rationality, most of us would find it difficult to include such references
I don’t know … there are plenty of references to people in comments in the style of celebrity fawning, just that they are niche celebrities instead of mainstream ones.
See this summary of rationality quotes—has fantasy author Terry Pratchett really said more rational quotable things than Einstein, Darwin, Descartes, Dennett, Jaynes, Aristotle and Sagan? Or is it just that people like him more?
Well, sort the same list [by karma votes] instead of number of quotes, and Pratchett moves up from 4th to 2nd.
That seems like either evidence that Pratchett and his fictional worlds have more relevance to rationality than the opening post wants to accept, or evidence that Pratchett is treated as a bit of a celebrity around here and your suggestion that people find it hard to throw in celebrity references isn’t quite right, it’s throwing in the right kind of celebrity references for people who celebrate vastly different properties in people which is hard.
has fantasy author Terry Pratchett really said more rational quotable things than Einstein, Darwin, Descartes, Dennett, Jaynes, Aristotle and Sagan?
Yes (emphasis mine). As an author, especially an author of humorous novels, Terry Pratchett has much stronger pressures to generate text which humans find aesthetically pleasing than famous scientists, who can count on prestige to carry their words to the world.
I don’t know … there are plenty of references to people in comments in the style of celebrity fawning, just that they are niche celebrities instead of mainstream ones.
Every single one of the names you mention are community celebrities, and yes, we fawn on our chosen ones. However, when I say that we should include more celebrity references, I don’t mean we should fawn on celebrities more (neither the community’s or mainstream), I mean that we should be more willing to talk about contemporary gossip, give examples about very widely known people, etc. I know it sounds strange to suggest the former, but I think that having topics which we can use when attempting to interact with normal folk on a non-intellectual level can only help us evangelize, break down stereotypes around rationality, and actually interact with normal people, which I’m told can be intrinsically rewarding. The latter just helps reduce pointless inferential gaps created by culture, not knowledge (for similar reasons, we should avoid the accumulation of jargon).
I don’t know … there are plenty of references to people in comments in the style of celebrity fawning, just that they are niche celebrities instead of mainstream ones.
See this summary of rationality quotes—has fantasy author Terry Pratchett really said more rational quotable things than Einstein, Darwin, Descartes, Dennett, Jaynes, Aristotle and Sagan? Or is it just that people like him more?
Well, sort the same list [by karma votes] instead of number of quotes, and Pratchett moves up from 4th to 2nd.
That seems like either evidence that Pratchett and his fictional worlds have more relevance to rationality than the opening post wants to accept, or evidence that Pratchett is treated as a bit of a celebrity around here and your suggestion that people find it hard to throw in celebrity references isn’t quite right, it’s throwing in the right kind of celebrity references for people who celebrate vastly different properties in people which is hard.
I don’t think the issue is Pratchett’s rationality so much as his quotability.
Yes (emphasis mine). As an author, especially an author of humorous novels, Terry Pratchett has much stronger pressures to generate text which humans find aesthetically pleasing than famous scientists, who can count on prestige to carry their words to the world.
Every single one of the names you mention are community celebrities, and yes, we fawn on our chosen ones. However, when I say that we should include more celebrity references, I don’t mean we should fawn on celebrities more (neither the community’s or mainstream), I mean that we should be more willing to talk about contemporary gossip, give examples about very widely known people, etc. I know it sounds strange to suggest the former, but I think that having topics which we can use when attempting to interact with normal folk on a non-intellectual level can only help us evangelize, break down stereotypes around rationality, and actually interact with normal people, which I’m told can be intrinsically rewarding. The latter just helps reduce pointless inferential gaps created by culture, not knowledge (for similar reasons, we should avoid the accumulation of jargon).