For what it’s worth, the situation isn’t really that we’ve established that it isn’t clear flossing helps, it’s that we haven’t established with the kind of evidence HHS requires that flossing helps. Those sorts of studies are hard to do reliably with things like flossing.
cody-bryce
Karma: 320
“Fortune favors the prepared mind.” -Louis Pasteur
GP clearly thinks so to, which is why they presented the question, clearly trying to accuse GGP of a similar equivocation.
Your actual claim is ridiculous. It is most certainly not the case that believing in God can only connect to Stage One morality. Even in the face of a punishing god, this wouldn’t be true, but not all gods are punishing anyway, making it even more off.
Convincing people to offer others programming help on the internet isn’t a special accomplishment of SO. From usenet to modern mailing lists to forums to IRC, there are tons and tons of thriving venues for it. The gamification might have helped SO’s popularity some, but taking time out of their busy lives to answer others’ questions was alive and well.
SO is a dangerous trash heap. It doesn’t encourage helping people make good programs; it answers extremely literal questions. Speed of post is important. Style of post is important. Blatantly wrong answers are upvoted by people who don’t know what they’re looking at when they are early, indicating that vote count isn’t telling ever. Doing anything but answering a question completely literally is treated with extreme hostility. These sorts of things have gotten worse with time.
The community relations are bizarre. Active members of the community buy into cheap salesman lines by the owners that are meant to favor the owners. The idea that the community can direct itself is thrown around as if it wasn’t blatantly untrue.
Yes, an incredible people jump at the chance to help strangers. SO didn’t invent that, they’re just one of the more popular current hosts to these people. It’s distasteful to act like it started by wondering if such people exist.
Cool comic, though a repeat http://lesswrong.com/lw/2o3/rationality_quotes_september_2010/2juu
“Because the dollar is dirty” is one of those pained, stretched explanations people come up with to explain why they do what they do, not the actual reason (even in some small part) the bookmark was invented and became popular.
But you don’t have to be perfect to be the right person in a team, and you don’t have to be “the” right person to be an asset to a team.
Who said anything about being perfect?
And if you’re an asset, you sound prettymuch like the right person to me.
Maybe. I don’t have any actual sources, so I could be totally wrong. Still, I’m not sure I like the focus on “being” rather than doing things.
To me the clause “be the right person” sounds very much active/action-based.
It would seem that most of the responders are hopelessly literal....
I assume the original intent of the quote was about romantic partners, where it means, “Instead of searching so hard, make sure to prioritize being awesome for its own sake.”
I was trying to repurpose it to express that action is better than preparing for something to fall into place more generally, and I think it’s appealed to people.
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A somewhat similar sentiment: http://lesswrong.com/lw/2o3/rationality_quotes_september_2010/2kol
You still have to be the right person to be the right person in a team....?
This is both insightful and highly quotable.
I’m afraid I don’t know what that stands for.
There are no happy endings. Endings are the saddest part, So just give me a happy middle And a very happy start.
-Shel Silverstein
If Tetris has taught me anything it’s that errors pile up and accomplishments disappear.
-Unknown
Why spend a dollar on a bookmark? … Why not use the dollar as a bookmark?
-Steven Spielberg
Far too many people are looking for the right person, instead of trying to be the right person.
-Gloria Steinem
I just think it’s good to be confident. If I’m not on my team why should anybody else be?
-Robert Downey Jr.
Quite possibly.
The epidemiological studies, as I understand it, make the association between claims of flossing and improved tooth health unambiguously exist (though not huge). HHS didn’t analyse them and find them too week, exactly; they simply want controlled studies for this purpose (for good reason, of course). Nonetheless, everything we know makes it sound like flossing is at least a little effective.
Whether the effect justifies spending minutes every week, who knows.