I meant it to apply to both. I agree that estimating obviousness depends very much on the individuals and topics involved, and factors like inferential distance, but we still have a huge common store of knowledge and thought processes by virtue of the psychological unity of humankind… On a site like LW, we can also all be expected to be somewhat familiar with the many topics that are discussed again and again. I’m not saying we can get anywhere near perfect, but I think we do pretty well. Most of the time that somebody says something for reasons that others will find non-obvious, they correctly anticipate this and give justification. This whole thread started because somebody didn’t anticipate and didn’t give justifications, which is somewhat unusual.
I meant it to apply to both. I agree that estimating obviousness depends very much on the individuals and topics involved, and factors like inferential distance, but we still have a huge common store of knowledge and thought processes by virtue of the psychological unity of humankind… On a site like LW, we can also all be expected to be somewhat familiar with the many topics that are discussed again and again. I’m not saying we can get anywhere near perfect, but I think we do pretty well. Most of the time that somebody says something for reasons that others will find non-obvious, they correctly anticipate this and give justification. This whole thread started because somebody didn’t anticipate and didn’t give justifications, which is somewhat unusual.