It’s the first chapter of an attempt to explicate the skills and virtues of postrationality. It also serves as parody but I’m not poking fun just for the sake of poking. I’m trying to halfway-communicate real ideas via adianoeta. Also I’m trying to learn how to write fiction, ’cuz I suck, as is apparent.
Perhaps it depends on the meaning of “communicate better”. I don’t want to communicate to ignorant or intellectually lazy people, i.e. most people. They’re worthless and I don’t want them parroting me. I abhor ideologues. But I’m sure I could improve at reaching people who aren’t worthless, while still remaining sufficiently inaccessible to hoi polloi. I just haven’t gotten precise advice on how to do that yet. It seems to require a lot of cleverness and very careful crafting. Maybe I have to resign myself to only writing precisely crafted sentences here and there, and give up on anything longer than a paragraph, for now at least. Sigh.
In this method, are worthy people suppose to work to get some sense in what you say? Or they are supposed to get it instantly? Because in the first case, I’m not clear what are the incentives.
When you know for a fact that they are riddles, yes, for some. But to me until now Will failed to clearly show that. Those who mistake noise for riddles are quite accurately termed schizophrenic.
I was gonna go into that in Chapter Two: Analyzing the Fuck out of an Owl. But I guess I won’t, since my stupid fanfic idea seems to be attracting more drama and pettiness than could possibly be justified by the content. Alas, it seems postrationality is just too meta for this base basement world.
I was gonna go into that in Chapter Two: Analyzing the Fuck out of an Owl. But I guess I won’t, since my stupid fanfic idea seems to be attracting more drama and pettiness than could possibly be justified by the content.
I’d prefer you not give up so easily.
The drama was created by whoever arbitrarily eliminated the original post. You don’t get to censor something secretly, and then allow a repost but then claim the drama around the censorship is really just drama created by the original post and then use that drama to justify the censorship.
At least not if you are still paying lip service to rationality.
Smoke dat moose! Git dem maggots! Smoke dat moose! Analyze dat owl!
[a note for them what don’t get it, as our democracy demands: I am referencing someone else who wrote allegedly impenetrable and seemingly drug-fueled masses of insight in order to incentivize the creation of more things that might fit that model, and hoping to create a meta-norm that’s more conducive to stylistic experimentation, for reasons which will probably not be obvious to anyone here so go try to understand continental philosophy or something. Except you don’t even need to do that since the relevant ideas are already contained to some nonzero extent in the rationalist corpus! PS most of y’all lose a not-Quirrell not-point for not seeing that certain relevant issues have been discussed here before.]
It was the final examination for an introductory English course at the local university. Like many such freshman courses, it was designed to weed out new students, having over 700 students in the class!
The examination was two hours long, and exam booklets were provided.
The professor was very strict and told the class that any exam that was not on his desk in exactly two hours would not be accepted and the student would fail. Half an hour into the exam, a student came rushing in and asked the professor for an exam booklet.
“You’re not going to have time to finish this,” the professor stated sarcastically as he handed the student a booklet.
“Yes I will,” replied the student. She then took a seat and began writing. After two hours, the professor called for the exams, and the students filed up and handed them in, all except the late student, who continued writing.
Half an hour later, the last student came up to the professor who was sitting at his desk preparing for his next class. She attempted to put his exam on the stack of exam booklets already there.
“No you don’t, I’m not going to accept that. It’s late.”
The student looked incredulous and angry.
“Do you know WHO I am?”
“No, as a matter of fact I don’t,” replied the professor with an air of sarcasm in his voice.
“DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?” the student asked again.
“No, and I don’t care.” replied the professor with an air of superiority.
“Good,” replied the student, who quickly lifted the stack of completed exams, stuffed her exam in the middle, and walked out of the room.
This is the Nth time, for some high value of N, that I’ve seen this joke presented in a context which implies that it is funny because the protagonist was clever. The protagonist was not clever. “Do you know what I am” in contexts other than grading exams means “do you know what significance I have”, not “do you associate my name with my person”. You can, of course, laugh at the joke because of the stupidity of the protagonist, or because of incongruity between definitions or whatever, but I sense that this is not how the joke is typically presented.
But I guess I won’t, since my stupid fanfic idea seems to be attracting more drama and pettiness than could possibly be justified by the content
Uhm, there isn’t that much drama. Are you telling me you actually expected even less drama when you decided to post a short drunken-rambling-turned-fanfiction as a criticism of rationality/EY/HPMOR (if that is what it is, I am not sure), and then re-post it at the same place upon deletion?
I can only assume that you are pretending to be badly calibrated here.
I can only assume that you are pretending to be badly calibrated here.
The drama of being summarily deleted should not be underestimated. Censorship, orthodoxy, these are major themes of prerationality that I honestly thought had been decided against rather definitively in modern rationality. But lesswrong has reopened the question many times, including when it summarily deleted the original of this post.
It’s the first chapter of an attempt to explicate the skills and virtues of postrationality
I admit, I never got a clear idea of what postrationality is about except that it is somewhat less rigorous and more into mysticism (?), but are you suggesting that your movement is about writing lame parodies with a few clever jokes in them in order to criticize what you dislike (or maybe what you like—it isn’t very clear)?
I swear, this movement becomes weirder and weirder with every mention.
Not applicable to the current situation. For one thing, EY emphasized that this was not for now when we need maximum efficiency to survive (so that puts off applying it for the foreseeable portion of the future), and for another, it was as marketing to the people who wouldn’t be interested otherwise.
Sure it’s relevant: it’s a demonstration that just opening the curtain is not always the optimal solution. There’s one reason why not; why couldn’t there be others?
I don’t know what the reasons are here for not opening the curtain, since I’m not the one who’s deciding whether to. But I’ve had reasons not to before—and some of the possibilities suggest that I shouldn’t be trying to convince anyone to accept the style, so I won’t say more than this here.
Okay fine. It turns out the one true God is actually just an ordinary fish, and all postrationality consists of properly devoting oneself to the fish. There, I spoiled the climax. I hope you’re happy.
I swear, this movement becomes weirder and weirder with every mention.
But when the next sentence is “I think we should burn it,” that is when it becomes relevant to a site devoted to the discovery and correction of human biases.
It’s the first chapter of an attempt to explicate the skills and virtues of postrationality. It also serves as parody but I’m not poking fun just for the sake of poking. I’m trying to halfway-communicate real ideas via adianoeta. Also I’m trying to learn how to write fiction, ’cuz I suck, as is apparent.
Maybe you could communicate better by being less tricksy , not more.
Sigh. As you wish.
Perhaps it depends on the meaning of “communicate better”. I don’t want to communicate to ignorant or intellectually lazy people, i.e. most people. They’re worthless and I don’t want them parroting me. I abhor ideologues. But I’m sure I could improve at reaching people who aren’t worthless, while still remaining sufficiently inaccessible to hoi polloi. I just haven’t gotten precise advice on how to do that yet. It seems to require a lot of cleverness and very careful crafting. Maybe I have to resign myself to only writing precisely crafted sentences here and there, and give up on anything longer than a paragraph, for now at least. Sigh.
In this method, are worthy people suppose to work to get some sense in what you say? Or they are supposed to get it instantly? Because in the first case, I’m not clear what are the incentives.
Solving riddles isn’t its own incentive?
When you know for a fact that they are riddles, yes, for some. But to me until now Will failed to clearly show that.
Those who mistake noise for riddles are quite accurately termed schizophrenic.
What’s postrationality, what are it’s skills, and what is the difference between those skills and the skills of rationality?
I was gonna go into that in Chapter Two: Analyzing the Fuck out of an Owl. But I guess I won’t, since my stupid fanfic idea seems to be attracting more drama and pettiness than could possibly be justified by the content. Alas, it seems postrationality is just too meta for this base basement world.
Not creating drama seems to be antithetical to creating popular literature :).
Lol. Wow. It may seem absurd but that was the first LessWrong comment I’ve read in like a year that caused me to actually have a new idea. Thank you.
I’d prefer you not give up so easily.
The drama was created by whoever arbitrarily eliminated the original post. You don’t get to censor something secretly, and then allow a repost but then claim the drama around the censorship is really just drama created by the original post and then use that drama to justify the censorship.
At least not if you are still paying lip service to rationality.
Smoke dat moose! Git dem maggots! Smoke dat moose! Analyze dat owl!
[a note for them what don’t get it, as our democracy demands: I am referencing someone else who wrote allegedly impenetrable and seemingly drug-fueled masses of insight in order to incentivize the creation of more things that might fit that model, and hoping to create a meta-norm that’s more conducive to stylistic experimentation, for reasons which will probably not be obvious to anyone here so go try to understand continental philosophy or something. Except you don’t even need to do that since the relevant ideas are already contained to some nonzero extent in the rationalist corpus! PS most of y’all lose a not-Quirrell not-point for not seeing that certain relevant issues have been discussed here before.]
You can just tell us without involving fanfiction.
Explaining things without targeted obfuscation? …Do you know who I am?
I can’t help myself...
This is the Nth time, for some high value of N, that I’ve seen this joke presented in a context which implies that it is funny because the protagonist was clever. The protagonist was not clever. “Do you know what I am” in contexts other than grading exams means “do you know what significance I have”, not “do you associate my name with my person”. You can, of course, laugh at the joke because of the stupidity of the protagonist, or because of incongruity between definitions or whatever, but I sense that this is not how the joke is typically presented.
The funny part is how the threat turned out to have an entirely different meaning.
Someone who seems to have something interesting to say, but is unable to say it.
Uhm, there isn’t that much drama. Are you telling me you actually expected even less drama when you decided to post a short drunken-rambling-turned-fanfiction as a criticism of rationality/EY/HPMOR (if that is what it is, I am not sure), and then re-post it at the same place upon deletion?
I can only assume that you are pretending to be badly calibrated here.
The drama of being summarily deleted should not be underestimated. Censorship, orthodoxy, these are major themes of prerationality that I honestly thought had been decided against rather definitively in modern rationality. But lesswrong has reopened the question many times, including when it summarily deleted the original of this post.
I admit, I never got a clear idea of what postrationality is about except that it is somewhat less rigorous and more into mysticism (?), but are you suggesting that your movement is about writing lame parodies with a few clever jokes in them in order to criticize what you dislike (or maybe what you like—it isn’t very clear)?
I swear, this movement becomes weirder and weirder with every mention.
Yes, Tenoke. That is a completely fair and accurate summary of my “movement”.
Since that’s all you’ve given us to work with, I can only see this as taunting us with yet another hint that something is behind the curtain.
This isn’t Let’s Make a Deal. Just open the freaking curtain.
♪ ♬ ヾ(´︶`♡)ﾉ ♬ ♪〜(￣▽￣〜)•ᴥ• (▰˘◡˘▰) ∩(︶▽︶)∩(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧
Not applicable to the current situation. For one thing, EY emphasized that this was not for now when we need maximum efficiency to survive (so that puts off applying it for the foreseeable portion of the future), and for another, it was as marketing to the people who wouldn’t be interested otherwise.
And on top of that, I don’t even agree with it.
Sure it’s relevant: it’s a demonstration that just opening the curtain is not always the optimal solution. There’s one reason why not; why couldn’t there be others?
I don’t know what the reasons are here for not opening the curtain, since I’m not the one who’s deciding whether to. But I’ve had reasons not to before—and some of the possibilities suggest that I shouldn’t be trying to convince anyone to accept the style, so I won’t say more than this here.
Okay fine. It turns out the one true God is actually just an ordinary fish, and all postrationality consists of properly devoting oneself to the fish. There, I spoiled the climax. I hope you’re happy.
But when the next sentence is “I think we should burn it,” that is when it becomes relevant to a site devoted to the discovery and correction of human biases.