Yes! The amount of rational awareness that people seem to pick up from Cracked is astounding. But the majority of their material is simply humor that has little to do with rationality and is only marginally educational.
Agreed. I’m certainly not advocating that we abandon LessWrong and count on Cracked to raise the sanity waterline, nor am I advocating that LW posts be filled with profanity, pop-culture references, and humorously-captioned photos (maybe a FEW photos). I just wouldn’t mind seeing posts that took themselves a LITTLE less seriously and were a little less stuffy and a little more accessible. Maybe some of the Sequences should have humorous summaries written so that casual readers can absorb the rough outline of the ideas and hopefully be pulled in gently.
Ah, I see. “Matter of fact,” in my post, was code for not making unwarranted assumptions about the reader and eliminating all the beating around the bush. I didn’t mean “try to be as boring as possible.”
I learnt more history from Cracked than from all other sources put together, and my country thinks it’s very important to make all kids sit through twelve years of history classes.
Yes! The amount of rational awareness that people seem to pick up from Cracked is astounding. But the majority of their material is simply humor that has little to do with rationality and is only marginally educational.
Agreed. I’m certainly not advocating that we abandon LessWrong and count on Cracked to raise the sanity waterline, nor am I advocating that LW posts be filled with profanity, pop-culture references, and humorously-captioned photos (maybe a FEW photos). I just wouldn’t mind seeing posts that took themselves a LITTLE less seriously and were a little less stuffy and a little more accessible. Maybe some of the Sequences should have humorous summaries written so that casual readers can absorb the rough outline of the ideas and hopefully be pulled in gently.
Ah, I see. “Matter of fact,” in my post, was code for not making unwarranted assumptions about the reader and eliminating all the beating around the bush. I didn’t mean “try to be as boring as possible.”
I learnt more history from Cracked than from all other sources put together, and my country thinks it’s very important to make all kids sit through twelve years of history classes.
Not trying to rebut you, just thought this was very relevant and might interest you. http://www.cracked.com/article_19468_5-logical-fallacies-that-make-you-wrong-more-than-you-think.html
Yes Robert made a subthread about it here.