When I write for a very bright “puzzle-solving-type” audience, I do the mental equivalent of deleting every fourth sentence or at least the tail part of every fourth sentence to prevent the reader from getting bored. I believe that practice helps my writings to compete with the writings around it for the critical resource of attention. There are of course many ways of competing for attention, and this is one of the least prejudicial to rational thought. I recommend this practice only in forums in which the reader can easily ask followup questions. Nothing about this practice is incompatible with the practices Eliezer is advocating. This week I am experimenting with adding three dots to the end of a sentence to signal to the reader the need mentally to complete the sentence.
So, what sentence did I delete from the above? A sentence to the effect that I only do this for writing that resembles mathematical proof fairly closely: “Suppose A. Because B, C. Therefore D, from which follows E, which is a contradiction, so our original assumption A must be false.”
After writing a first draft, I go back and add a lot more words than I had saved with the “do not bore the reader” practice. E.g. I add sentences explicitly to contradict interpretations that would lead to my being dismissed as hopelessly socially inept, eccentric or evil. Of course because I advocate outlandish positions here, I still get dismissed a lot.
When I write for a very bright “puzzle-solving-type” audience, I do the mental equivalent of deleting every fourth sentence or at least the tail part of every fourth sentence to prevent the reader from getting bored. I believe that practice helps my writings to compete with the writings around it for the critical resource of attention. There are of course many ways of competing for attention, and this is one of the least prejudicial to rational thought. I recommend this practice only in forums in which the reader can easily ask followup questions. Nothing about this practice is incompatible with the practices Eliezer is advocating. This week I am experimenting with adding three dots to the end of a sentence to signal to the reader the need mentally to complete the sentence.
So, what sentence did I delete from the above? A sentence to the effect that I only do this for writing that resembles mathematical proof fairly closely: “Suppose A. Because B, C. Therefore D, from which follows E, which is a contradiction, so our original assumption A must be false.”
After writing a first draft, I go back and add a lot more words than I had saved with the “do not bore the reader” practice. E.g. I add sentences explicitly to contradict interpretations that would lead to my being dismissed as hopelessly socially inept, eccentric or evil. Of course because I advocate outlandish positions here, I still get dismissed a lot.