The expected return from a reader doing something like that is way too low, even in a community like this one. Most new ideas are wrong, and if your idea is wrong then people trying to traverse the same inferential path will get nowhere
I disagree with these statements. (Even in the case of “most new ideas are wrong”, I would ADBOC.)
You’re basically just stating the view that “false positives are a bigger problem than false negatives”, which I already disagreed with explicitly (as applied to this context) in my previous comment.
why shouldn’t you write an good explanation
Because what constitutes a “good explanation” is strongly reader-dependent, and I don’t have good enough models of most readers to know in advance what will satisfy them. It’s worth it to try being very foundational sometimes, but not all the time. It’s also worth it for readers to sometimes practice the skill of traversing inferential paths more nimbly.
if your position is that we should more vigorously encourage an interest in artistic pursuits
I wouldn’t presume to take such a detailed position on how you should relate to your child. (Though I can think of someone you might want to talk to, about not only this but the whole subject of “what to do” with children who are, or who are at “risk” of being, “gifted”—the best way to get into contact with that person would probably be through Jonah Sinick.)
My concern here is only to explain (insofar as is possible within the number of words I’m willing to expend) something about what the value of traditional artistic pursuits is, and, in particular, the ways in which it’s similar to the value of less traditional artistic pursuits like programming. I think you (like many, no doubt, in the LW audience) have bad priors about this due to insufficient exposure in early life (perhaps for socioeconomic reasons—as you said above, “My parents didn’t have the time or money to deliberately cultivate these kinds of interests in me when I was a child). I myself also had relatively little deliberate exposure (for the same reasons), but, exceptionally, was drawn in the relevant direction by an unusually strong intrinsic attraction (such that, had I come from an upper-class background, I would very likely have been involved at a much higher level much earlier). As a result, I think I am in the position of perceiving something about this that most LW readers are probably missing (insofar as they seem to want to reduce interest in these pursuits, implicitly and even explicitly, as we’ve seen here, to some kind of mere class signal—indeed, a form of conspicuous consumption).
There is a kind of pleasure, when one performs a complex movement “just so”, that attracts some people to e.g. martial arts without the goal of learning to defend themselves. (It was so with me, but, well, socioeconomic reasons.) There’s a kind of a message that some people get out of poetry, besides the ‘prosaic sense’ of it, which sometimes gets related in another piece of poetry or even a very different way. I used to wonder, what exactly is its impact on different people’s understanding of the whole, & might not ‘understanding’ be an umbrella word for some orthogonal things… Some of which get called ‘spiritual’ for lack of a better term:)
I disagree with these statements. (Even in the case of “most new ideas are wrong”, I would ADBOC.)
You’re basically just stating the view that “false positives are a bigger problem than false negatives”, which I already disagreed with explicitly (as applied to this context) in my previous comment.
Because what constitutes a “good explanation” is strongly reader-dependent, and I don’t have good enough models of most readers to know in advance what will satisfy them. It’s worth it to try being very foundational sometimes, but not all the time. It’s also worth it for readers to sometimes practice the skill of traversing inferential paths more nimbly.
I wouldn’t presume to take such a detailed position on how you should relate to your child. (Though I can think of someone you might want to talk to, about not only this but the whole subject of “what to do” with children who are, or who are at “risk” of being, “gifted”—the best way to get into contact with that person would probably be through Jonah Sinick.)
My concern here is only to explain (insofar as is possible within the number of words I’m willing to expend) something about what the value of traditional artistic pursuits is, and, in particular, the ways in which it’s similar to the value of less traditional artistic pursuits like programming. I think you (like many, no doubt, in the LW audience) have bad priors about this due to insufficient exposure in early life (perhaps for socioeconomic reasons—as you said above, “My parents didn’t have the time or money to deliberately cultivate these kinds of interests in me when I was a child). I myself also had relatively little deliberate exposure (for the same reasons), but, exceptionally, was drawn in the relevant direction by an unusually strong intrinsic attraction (such that, had I come from an upper-class background, I would very likely have been involved at a much higher level much earlier). As a result, I think I am in the position of perceiving something about this that most LW readers are probably missing (insofar as they seem to want to reduce interest in these pursuits, implicitly and even explicitly, as we’ve seen here, to some kind of mere class signal—indeed, a form of conspicuous consumption).
There is a kind of pleasure, when one performs a complex movement “just so”, that attracts some people to e.g. martial arts without the goal of learning to defend themselves. (It was so with me, but, well, socioeconomic reasons.) There’s a kind of a message that some people get out of poetry, besides the ‘prosaic sense’ of it, which sometimes gets related in another piece of poetry or even a very different way. I used to wonder, what exactly is its impact on different people’s understanding of the whole, & might not ‘understanding’ be an umbrella word for some orthogonal things… Some of which get called ‘spiritual’ for lack of a better term:)