The first interpretation you link to seems particularly sensible. I don’t think Eliezer spent enough time generating additional hypotheses for why this story looks different from stories he’s used to.
The first interpretation that Novalis links to below.
Like, without any ambiguity. I had a fair bit of exposure to traditional storytelling in Native American communities growing up and while the style of the West African narrative is a little different, it’s eminently comprehensible. I’m doing language study now in another Native American culure, one not my own, and their story traditions feature the same theme even more prominently: a trickster figure demonstrates bad behavior by example, usually with tons of scatalogical humor (it gets the kids’ attention by provoking laughter; plus many cultures have fewer hangups about discussing the human body and its byproducts in very frank terms so the humor isn’t strictly aimed at kids either). The consequences for the social order are explored; a moral is suggested. This is VERY often accompanied by pantomime; I just attended a public performance where an elder of my acquaintance did a few such stories; there’s a reason skilled storytellers are so prized even today in that culture—point is, it’s better to understand this tale as something performed rather than simply told, and where the most-literal surface reading is manifestly not the interpretation that would be suggested in context.
So how would you interpret it?
These two interpretations seem to be much stronger: http://lesswrong.com/lw/yl/an_african_folktale/r4y http://lesswrong.com/lw/yl/an_african_folktale/r5q
The first interpretation you link to seems particularly sensible. I don’t think Eliezer spent enough time generating additional hypotheses for why this story looks different from stories he’s used to.
The first interpretation that Novalis links to below.
Like, without any ambiguity. I had a fair bit of exposure to traditional storytelling in Native American communities growing up and while the style of the West African narrative is a little different, it’s eminently comprehensible. I’m doing language study now in another Native American culure, one not my own, and their story traditions feature the same theme even more prominently: a trickster figure demonstrates bad behavior by example, usually with tons of scatalogical humor (it gets the kids’ attention by provoking laughter; plus many cultures have fewer hangups about discussing the human body and its byproducts in very frank terms so the humor isn’t strictly aimed at kids either). The consequences for the social order are explored; a moral is suggested. This is VERY often accompanied by pantomime; I just attended a public performance where an elder of my acquaintance did a few such stories; there’s a reason skilled storytellers are so prized even today in that culture—point is, it’s better to understand this tale as something performed rather than simply told, and where the most-literal surface reading is manifestly not the interpretation that would be suggested in context.