A pleasantly pithy remark, but also a nasty one to present without actual evidence. We don’t need cheerleading, especially at the expense of people who probably could contribute effectively to LW if they felt like it.
Ok, I was engaging in a bit of their proudly proclaimed SPOV. If they hand it out they’d better be able to take it as well.
As context for the joke, the most middle-class of the national supermarket chains in the UK is Waitrose. (Middle-class as opposed to working-class; the upper class would not be seen in such places.) Number two is Sainsburys. So, some comedian remarked, what’s the point of Sainsburys? To keep the riff-raff out of Waitrose.
Honestly I’m much more concerned about LessWrong staying as sane as it is. Overall I think there are several negative indications.
I agree. I always thought the “raising the sanity waterline” was a substitute for “refining the art of human rationality”, not a compliment. Imagine if the Logical Empiricists tried recruiting everyday people rather than the scientific elite (and other scientifically literate philosophers)? I fear that HPMOR, while I’ve gotten a lot of value from it, was the beginning of the end for this place. At the very least, I think these efforts should be spun off as much as possible (and without links leading back here). I say, let self-selection effects do their thing.
It keeps the riff-raff out of LessWrong.
A pleasantly pithy remark, but also a nasty one to present without actual evidence. We don’t need cheerleading, especially at the expense of people who probably could contribute effectively to LW if they felt like it.
Ok, I was engaging in a bit of their proudly proclaimed SPOV. If they hand it out they’d better be able to take it as well.
As context for the joke, the most middle-class of the national supermarket chains in the UK is Waitrose. (Middle-class as opposed to working-class; the upper class would not be seen in such places.) Number two is Sainsburys. So, some comedian remarked, what’s the point of Sainsburys? To keep the riff-raff out of Waitrose.
LOL apparently I am the riff-raff.
Aha, thanks for the explanation. Being an American I didn’t know the reference and interpreted it as a generic snark.
I’m from the UK and didn’t know the reference either.
Is that a good thing? We can hardly raise the sanity waterline if only the most sane people hang out here.
Honestly I’m much more concerned about LessWrong staying as sane as it is. Overall I think there are several negative indications.
I agree. I always thought the “raising the sanity waterline” was a substitute for “refining the art of human rationality”, not a compliment. Imagine if the Logical Empiricists tried recruiting everyday people rather than the scientific elite (and other scientifically literate philosophers)? I fear that HPMOR, while I’ve gotten a lot of value from it, was the beginning of the end for this place. At the very least, I think these efforts should be spun off as much as possible (and without links leading back here). I say, let self-selection effects do their thing.
CFAR appears to be precisely this.
The think the more sane getting more sane raises the water line.
EDIT—Even I don’t know what the hell I was saying here.