I certainly agree that it’s far from the most offensive way of encouraging someone to “update on how little they really know.”
I sympathize with the difficulty of being asked simple-sounding questions that conceal a lot of complexity. And I agree with you that this is often maliciously exploited. Of course, it is also often the genuine consequence of being new to and interested in a subject.
I’m intrigued by the notion that Grey’s question can be so obvious that he should have obtained an answer via a simple web search without wasting anyone’s time here (which is what I understood gwern to be saying) and at the same time so layered and multifaceted that Grey probably isn’t ready for the answer. I suspect I’ll have to think about that some more before I fully understand it.
I didn’t get the impression that gwern was implying that it could be solved quickly and easily with a google search, so much as that it’s the kind of question you are better off flexing your intellectual muscles a bit and at least trying fairly hard to find an answer before offering an opinion, given the high probability that lots of smart cryonics advocates have had a similar experience already.
I didn’t provide any useful links beyond ESR’s excellent guide because I didn’t have the energy to go looking at the time. (I only had enough energy to point out why one should expect there to be a resource answering the question and that the general comment was not very thoughtful.)
I also thought that there was at least 1 obvious reason why the corpses would be kept vitrified that a person should be able to think of in a few seconds with only a passing familiarity with cryonics organizations: because that’s what the trust fund/organization is paying for!
So I was also little disgusted that Gray was ignorant, did nothing to remedy his ignorance—that involved work on his part—and didn’t even think about it a little. Which destroyed whatever was left of my motivation to make a good, as opposed to snarky, comment by doing the research he should’ve. (And cryonics is an important issue, too. If you aren’t willing to even google about a technique that plausibly promises to transport you into the distant awesome future and save your life, that says a lot.)
EDIT: Although lsparrish is quite correct when he points out that it can be dangerous to try to quickly answer a deceptively simple question. We all know that if someone argues for a position, they can brainwash themselves into believing the position more than they did before. So what happens if you fail to link the authoritative industrial-strength explanations and instead post a few quick flawed arguments, which your interlocutor then knocks down? You may have done them a deep disservice.
I certainly agree that it’s far from the most offensive way of encouraging someone to “update on how little they really know.”
I sympathize with the difficulty of being asked simple-sounding questions that conceal a lot of complexity. And I agree with you that this is often maliciously exploited. Of course, it is also often the genuine consequence of being new to and interested in a subject.
I’m intrigued by the notion that Grey’s question can be so obvious that he should have obtained an answer via a simple web search without wasting anyone’s time here (which is what I understood gwern to be saying) and at the same time so layered and multifaceted that Grey probably isn’t ready for the answer. I suspect I’ll have to think about that some more before I fully understand it.
I didn’t get the impression that gwern was implying that it could be solved quickly and easily with a google search, so much as that it’s the kind of question you are better off flexing your intellectual muscles a bit and at least trying fairly hard to find an answer before offering an opinion, given the high probability that lots of smart cryonics advocates have had a similar experience already.
I didn’t provide any useful links beyond ESR’s excellent guide because I didn’t have the energy to go looking at the time. (I only had enough energy to point out why one should expect there to be a resource answering the question and that the general comment was not very thoughtful.)
I also thought that there was at least 1 obvious reason why the corpses would be kept vitrified that a person should be able to think of in a few seconds with only a passing familiarity with cryonics organizations: because that’s what the trust fund/organization is paying for!
So I was also little disgusted that Gray was ignorant, did nothing to remedy his ignorance—that involved work on his part—and didn’t even think about it a little. Which destroyed whatever was left of my motivation to make a good, as opposed to snarky, comment by doing the research he should’ve. (And cryonics is an important issue, too. If you aren’t willing to even google about a technique that plausibly promises to transport you into the distant awesome future and save your life, that says a lot.)
EDIT: Although lsparrish is quite correct when he points out that it can be dangerous to try to quickly answer a deceptively simple question. We all know that if someone argues for a position, they can brainwash themselves into believing the position more than they did before. So what happens if you fail to link the authoritative industrial-strength explanations and instead post a few quick flawed arguments, which your interlocutor then knocks down? You may have done them a deep disservice.
Thanks for the clarification.
My impression was different from yours, but I agree that your impression doesn’t contradict the text.