I agree with Alicorn: having an OBLW quote thread is good, but there probably isn’t enough quotable stuff to justify having it every month. It should be rarer—how about the start of every season/quarter? Vote her post up if you prefer this alternative.
(If you say that the term “alternative” should only be used when there are two choices, you’re ETC not necessarily a terrorist, but are being excessively pedantic.)
And ‘alternative’ should be used for any number of choices, provided they’re mutually exclusive. I must, however, take issue with your usage of ‘terrorist’.
And ‘alternative’ should be used for any number of choices, provided they’re mutually exclusive.
For maximum pedanticness, an alternative is one of two or more time-identical, agent-identical actions or sets of actions that the agent in question is able to perform. An alternative set is the complete list of all alternatives available to a given agent for a given span of time.
Yeah, I also find that a touch disturbing. I have a rather large collection of OBLW quotes I’ve built up over the last few years, and needless to say, none of them are from me.
Do you get enough per month/season to be constrained by the 5 posts/person/thread limit? If so, you might want to disregard that limit, ironically in the interests of reducing your own influence.
That’s funny. As if not having collected any quotes from your own writings is good evidence of something other than your having some humility, or that they’re already all recorded in your writings, or that you can never really genuinely surprise yourself with an insight (and thus think it eminently quotable) unless you have a really bad memory.
On that topic, have others noticed that people very frequently say the silliest things when trying to be humble, making arguments with huge gaping holes that they could never not notice in practically any other context? It’s an extremely common failure mode. I think most of us find it endearing though, which is probably why it’s almost never commented on (argued against, perhaps, but not pointed out as 3 standard deviation below our norm stupidity).
I understand why someone may not think they’re a good idea. However, I like them. I don’t have the time to read all that gets posted on OBLW. I should allot more time. Good quotes motivate me to search out the source and read more.
I would probably not have posted it except that someone liked the idea last month, and I thought including the Z_M_Davis quote was too hilarious to pass up. YMMV.
Meta: I’m not sure we should actually have these threads. Vote up if you agree.
Vote this up if you disagree and think we should keep having OBLW quote threads.
Perhaps we could have them less frequently than the regular quote threads—every two or three months, instead of monthly.
I agree with Alicorn: having an OBLW quote thread is good, but there probably isn’t enough quotable stuff to justify having it every month. It should be rarer—how about the start of every season/quarter? Vote her post up if you prefer this alternative.
(If you say that the term “alternative” should only be used when there are two choices, you’re ETC not necessarily a terrorist, but are being excessively pedantic.)
Agreed. Tentatively renamed.
And ‘alternative’ should be used for any number of choices, provided they’re mutually exclusive. I must, however, take issue with your usage of ‘terrorist’.
For maximum pedanticness, an alternative is one of two or more time-identical, agent-identical actions or sets of actions that the agent in question is able to perform. An alternative set is the complete list of all alternatives available to a given agent for a given span of time.
Btw, weren’t you going to quote me on Allais-type paradoxes? :-(
Terrorist remark rewritten ;-)
There are extremely few quotes that are not Eliezer’s, so I guess we shouldn’t have those.
Yeah, I also find that a touch disturbing. I have a rather large collection of OBLW quotes I’ve built up over the last few years, and needless to say, none of them are from me.
Do you get enough per month/season to be constrained by the 5 posts/person/thread limit? If so, you might want to disregard that limit, ironically in the interests of reducing your own influence.
That’s funny. As if not having collected any quotes from your own writings is good evidence of something other than your having some humility, or that they’re already all recorded in your writings, or that you can never really genuinely surprise yourself with an insight (and thus think it eminently quotable) unless you have a really bad memory.
On that topic, have others noticed that people very frequently say the silliest things when trying to be humble, making arguments with huge gaping holes that they could never not notice in practically any other context? It’s an extremely common failure mode. I think most of us find it endearing though, which is probably why it’s almost never commented on (argued against, perhaps, but not pointed out as 3 standard deviation below our norm stupidity).
I understand why someone may not think they’re a good idea. However, I like them. I don’t have the time to read all that gets posted on OBLW. I should allot more time. Good quotes motivate me to search out the source and read more.
I would probably not have posted it except that someone liked the idea last month, and I thought including the Z_M_Davis quote was too hilarious to pass up. YMMV.