Your rationality test is pointless, because people who are following the issue will already know that the definition is not ‘mere’; it has significant political consequences. (So people not following the issue, who successfully deduced that the argument was pointless because it was over a mere definition, would actually be wrong.)
I think these kinds of rationality tests tend to appear disrespectful of the audience, since they present the poster’s rationality as being in excess of the audience’s; and as long as the ‘correct solution’ is arguable, which it very often is, it becomes not-very-defensible to hide the purpose of the post from the readers in order to try to force them to find the ‘correct solution’ on their own.
I think pretty much only Eliezer can get away with this sort of material, since people seem to feel he’s smart enough to outthink us all.
Concluding that the definition is pointless is not the passing condition. Backing up to ask what the point of the definition is is the passing condition.
Your rationality test is pointless, because people who are following the issue will already know that the definition is not ‘mere’; it has significant political consequences. (So people not following the issue, who successfully deduced that the argument was pointless because it was over a mere definition, would actually be wrong.)
I think these kinds of rationality tests tend to appear disrespectful of the audience, since they present the poster’s rationality as being in excess of the audience’s; and as long as the ‘correct solution’ is arguable, which it very often is, it becomes not-very-defensible to hide the purpose of the post from the readers in order to try to force them to find the ‘correct solution’ on their own.
I think pretty much only Eliezer can get away with this sort of material, since people seem to feel he’s smart enough to outthink us all.
Concluding that the definition is pointless is not the passing condition. Backing up to ask what the point of the definition is is the passing condition.
The rest of what you say is good feedback.
There no good reason to assume that all relevant information to answer that question is contained in the article.