Generally, I don’t think it’s good to gate “is subquestion X, related to great cause Y, true?” with questions about “does addressing this subquestion contribute to great cause Y?” Like I don’t think it’s good in general, and don’t think it’s good here.
I can’t justify this in a paragraph, but I’m basing this mostly of “Huh, that’s funny” being far more likely to lead to insight than “I must have insight!” Which means it’s a better way of contributing to great causes, generally.
(And honestly, at another level entirely, I think that saying true things, which break up uniform blocks of opinion on LW, is good for the health of the LW community.)
Edit: That being said, if the alternative to following your curiosity on one thing is like, super high value, ofc it’s better. But meh, I mean I’m glad that post is out there. It’s a good central source for a particular branch of criticism, and I think it helped me understand the world more.
Generally, I don’t think it’s good to gate “is subquestion X, related to great cause Y, true?” with questions about “does addressing this subquestion contribute to great cause Y?” Like I don’t think it’s good in general, and don’t think it’s good here.
I can’t justify this in a paragraph, but I’m basing this mostly of “Huh, that’s funny” being far more likely to lead to insight than “I must have insight!” Which means it’s a better way of contributing to great causes, generally.
(And honestly, at another level entirely, I think that saying true things, which break up uniform blocks of opinion on LW, is good for the health of the LW community.)
Edit: That being said, if the alternative to following your curiosity on one thing is like, super high value, ofc it’s better. But meh, I mean I’m glad that post is out there. It’s a good central source for a particular branch of criticism, and I think it helped me understand the world more.