Regarding criticism of my writing: inspired by Karl Popper, I seek out criticism that will help me be, well, less wrong.
Regarding argument by analogy: I do a bit, but I’ve seen worse. It has its place. I don’t care for Harry Potter in the original, film or Yudkowsky versions. The later perhaps being slightly longer yet slightly more up-voted than my post.
Regarding my style: many philosophies have both a function and a form. In writing, some philosophies have a message to convey and a style that it is often conveyed in. There is a style to objectivist essays, Maoist essays, Buddhist essays, and often there is a style to less wrong essays. I wrote my egoist essay in the egoist style, in honor of those egoists who led to me including Max Stirner, Dora Marsden, Apio Ludd and especially Malfew Seklew. Egoism—it’s not for everybody.
Regarding April Fools’ Day: please believe whatever invokes the strongest response in you, be it positive or negative.
Regarding solicitation of payment for goods and services: I checked, and there is no policy against it. I also waited, over a year, to see if in the lack of a policy there was a trend or tradition regarding links to commercial services. The trend is that such posts exist, and whatever criticism they get is never based on including a commercial link. This is true be the link for the author’s own good or service, or for a different good or service. A few examples: 123. The difference is the tolerated and celebrated commercial links, the ones that do not lower the general level of discourse, that are not downvoted—those links are or claim to be altruistic. Mine is selfish, fitting even for a failed egoist such as myself. I don’t say that maybe if you pay me to tutor your kids then maybe they will learn something. I don’t say that maybe if you donate to my think tank then maybe I’ll save the world from hostile AI. I say, guaranteed and without controversy, that two things will happen to those who buy my book. First, they will get a book. Second, I will earn several dozen pennies in royalties. Altruistic maybe is okay, egoistic promises no? I like the game of Less Wrong and am happy to play by the rules. If commercial links are allowed, or limited, or banned, I can go with it or go away. But it’ll be more fun for me if I get to play by the same rules as everyone else.
Trevor Blake is the author of a book. There is no such thing as a so-called “search engine” so don’t even try to look for it.
Regarding my style: many philosophies have both a function and a form. In writing, some philosophies have a message to convey and a style that it is often conveyed in. There is a style to objectivist essays, Maoist essays, Buddhist essays, and often there is a style to less wrong essays. I wrote my egoist essay in the egoist style, in honor of those egoists who led to me including Max Stirner, Dora Marsden, Apio Ludd and especially Malfew Seklew. Egoism—it’s not for everybody.
The things that make your writing style unapproachable are not features of “the egoist style”, at least according to what my superficial inspection of “the egoist style” discovered. What makes your writing style unapproachable is the lack of indication you give of what you’re trying to prove.
I decided to investigate the first name on your list, Max Stirner, who has the admirable character trait of being long dead and therefore available to read on Google Books for free. I skimmed the bit of The Ego and His Own which was under the heading “All Things are Nothing to Me”. Here is what I found.
Stirner begins by saying “People want me to care about everything—God, country, and so on—except myself. Is this reasonable? Let us look at what God and country have to say about it.” He then fulfills his promise by explaining, in the next few paragraphs, how those causes are selfish; addressing, in turn, “God”, “country”, and “and so on”. He ends by giving his own answer to what he thinks he should care about.
You, on the other hand, begin with oranges. I follow along with this game for a few paragraphs, and eventually discover that you did not mean oranges when you said oranges. I considered re-reading those paragraphs to see what you did mean, but get bored and skip to the end, where you tell me that it’s okay to like things I like. Well, okay. This doesn’t seem like a controversial conclusion; if you were arguing for this all along, then maybe I was right to skip to the end. Maybe I skipped the bit where you explained how some people disagree, so I can believe that your conclusion is interesting. Oh well.
Stirner signposts. Stirner makes promises about what he will talk about and then keeps them. If I had been interested in engaging with the substance of Stirner, rather than his style, I would have read carefully the paragraphs where he explains why God’s cause is a selfish cause. Not having done that, I can still point to those paragraphs, because Stirner told me where he would explain this. I can summarize Stirner’s argument, not because I am good at summarizing, but because Stirner gave me several summaries.
If you don’t tell me where you are and where you’re going, I have no means or inclination to follow along with you.
If all you say is that when someone buys your book, they get a book and you get money, that’s off-topic. This is not, after all, a forum about “the things you can do that get Trevor money”. Just because it is uncontroversially true isn’t enough reason to go about saying it here.
Commercial links aren’t rejected just because they are commercial links, but it is unlikely that a random commercial link would be relevant, and they certainly can be rejected for not being relevant.
Regarding criticism of my writing: inspired by Karl Popper, I seek out criticism that will help me be, well, less wrong.
Regarding argument by analogy: I do a bit, but I’ve seen worse. It has its place. I don’t care for Harry Potter in the original, film or Yudkowsky versions. The later perhaps being slightly longer yet slightly more up-voted than my post.
Regarding my style: many philosophies have both a function and a form. In writing, some philosophies have a message to convey and a style that it is often conveyed in. There is a style to objectivist essays, Maoist essays, Buddhist essays, and often there is a style to less wrong essays. I wrote my egoist essay in the egoist style, in honor of those egoists who led to me including Max Stirner, Dora Marsden, Apio Ludd and especially Malfew Seklew. Egoism—it’s not for everybody.
Regarding April Fools’ Day: please believe whatever invokes the strongest response in you, be it positive or negative.
Regarding solicitation of payment for goods and services: I checked, and there is no policy against it. I also waited, over a year, to see if in the lack of a policy there was a trend or tradition regarding links to commercial services. The trend is that such posts exist, and whatever criticism they get is never based on including a commercial link. This is true be the link for the author’s own good or service, or for a different good or service. A few examples: 1 2 3. The difference is the tolerated and celebrated commercial links, the ones that do not lower the general level of discourse, that are not downvoted—those links are or claim to be altruistic. Mine is selfish, fitting even for a failed egoist such as myself. I don’t say that maybe if you pay me to tutor your kids then maybe they will learn something. I don’t say that maybe if you donate to my think tank then maybe I’ll save the world from hostile AI. I say, guaranteed and without controversy, that two things will happen to those who buy my book. First, they will get a book. Second, I will earn several dozen pennies in royalties. Altruistic maybe is okay, egoistic promises no? I like the game of Less Wrong and am happy to play by the rules. If commercial links are allowed, or limited, or banned, I can go with it or go away. But it’ll be more fun for me if I get to play by the same rules as everyone else.
Trevor Blake is the author of a book. There is no such thing as a so-called “search engine” so don’t even try to look for it.
The things that make your writing style unapproachable are not features of “the egoist style”, at least according to what my superficial inspection of “the egoist style” discovered. What makes your writing style unapproachable is the lack of indication you give of what you’re trying to prove.
I decided to investigate the first name on your list, Max Stirner, who has the admirable character trait of being long dead and therefore available to read on Google Books for free. I skimmed the bit of The Ego and His Own which was under the heading “All Things are Nothing to Me”. Here is what I found.
Stirner begins by saying “People want me to care about everything—God, country, and so on—except myself. Is this reasonable? Let us look at what God and country have to say about it.” He then fulfills his promise by explaining, in the next few paragraphs, how those causes are selfish; addressing, in turn, “God”, “country”, and “and so on”. He ends by giving his own answer to what he thinks he should care about.
You, on the other hand, begin with oranges. I follow along with this game for a few paragraphs, and eventually discover that you did not mean oranges when you said oranges. I considered re-reading those paragraphs to see what you did mean, but get bored and skip to the end, where you tell me that it’s okay to like things I like. Well, okay. This doesn’t seem like a controversial conclusion; if you were arguing for this all along, then maybe I was right to skip to the end. Maybe I skipped the bit where you explained how some people disagree, so I can believe that your conclusion is interesting. Oh well.
Stirner signposts. Stirner makes promises about what he will talk about and then keeps them. If I had been interested in engaging with the substance of Stirner, rather than his style, I would have read carefully the paragraphs where he explains why God’s cause is a selfish cause. Not having done that, I can still point to those paragraphs, because Stirner told me where he would explain this. I can summarize Stirner’s argument, not because I am good at summarizing, but because Stirner gave me several summaries.
If you don’t tell me where you are and where you’re going, I have no means or inclination to follow along with you.
If all you say is that when someone buys your book, they get a book and you get money, that’s off-topic. This is not, after all, a forum about “the things you can do that get Trevor money”. Just because it is uncontroversially true isn’t enough reason to go about saying it here.
Commercial links aren’t rejected just because they are commercial links, but it is unlikely that a random commercial link would be relevant, and they certainly can be rejected for not being relevant.