MWI, Aumann’s Agreement Theorem, Great Filter concerns for existential risk, anthropic arguments in general, Bayes’s Theorem in the non-finite case. But even these are not in general high priority issues for rationality. I think it is fair to say that most of the important ideas can have bumpersticker size statements. But, the level of unpacking may be so large from the bumpersticker forms that they only reason the bumpersticker form seems to do anything useful is just illusion of transparency.
If you want the “back cover blurb” for a 600-page book, that’s an entirely sensible request… but it seems weird to criticize a 600-page book on the grounds that it isn’t as accessible as a back-cover blurb. Back-cover blurbs can exist in addition to the books; they needn’t be instead of.
What I challenge is the idea that most posts/comments here ought to make good cover blurbs.
If I need a cover blurb, it seems more productive to say “Hey, I need a cover blurb, any recommendations?” than to point to arbitrary contributions and say “This isn’t a very good cover blurb.”
Ok. If they are that large, say a one paragraph blurb, then I really don’t think there’s anything generally discussed here that could not if carefully phrased get the primary points across if someone is willing to read the paragraph and then actually think about it.
Off the top of my head, the first thing that comes to mind is: supergoals and how to assess them. Second: the process of figuring out how to parse a true utility function from a fake utility function.
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MWI, Aumann’s Agreement Theorem, Great Filter concerns for existential risk, anthropic arguments in general, Bayes’s Theorem in the non-finite case. But even these are not in general high priority issues for rationality. I think it is fair to say that most of the important ideas can have bumpersticker size statements. But, the level of unpacking may be so large from the bumpersticker forms that they only reason the bumpersticker form seems to do anything useful is just illusion of transparency.
.
If you want the “back cover blurb” for a 600-page book, that’s an entirely sensible request… but it seems weird to criticize a 600-page book on the grounds that it isn’t as accessible as a back-cover blurb. Back-cover blurbs can exist in addition to the books; they needn’t be instead of.
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Agreed.
What I challenge is the idea that most posts/comments here ought to make good cover blurbs.
If I need a cover blurb, it seems more productive to say “Hey, I need a cover blurb, any recommendations?” than to point to arbitrary contributions and say “This isn’t a very good cover blurb.”
.
Cool; glad we got that cleared up.
As for Blurb Ninjas… see comment elsewhere for my thoughts on how to encourage that.
Ok. If they are that large, say a one paragraph blurb, then I really don’t think there’s anything generally discussed here that could not if carefully phrased get the primary points across if someone is willing to read the paragraph and then actually think about it.
.
Off the top of my head, the first thing that comes to mind is: supergoals and how to assess them. Second: the process of figuring out how to parse a true utility function from a fake utility function.