FWIW I do have nice short useful mental handles for a lot of the things I’ve learned from this community, many of which come from things written in this community, but they make no sense to anyone who can’t unpack them into a version at least as long as that and aren’t useful to those who haven’t done the thinking. Tsuyoku naritai, whale cancer, you get about five words, expecting short inferential distances, double illusion of transparency. Things like that.
Back during covid I once quoted Zvi to a friend who didn’t read his stuff or LW about “pretending to pretend to try to try” and she was thrilled that there was some audience, anywhere, that could read that and nod along because it made sense to them. And it does make sense. You just need a lot of context to see it.
MV here I think explains why. You don’t need slogans to explain things that are obvious to children. And you maybe can’t make short slogans that are both immediately comprehensible and sufficiently accurate counters to the slogans people make to confuse others into disbelieving the things that are obvious to children.
Well, actually, there are a few, but I think they sound a bit silly and childish and condescending unless you know what they’re a response to. For example:
Death is bad.
If the sky is blue, I want to believe the sky is blue, and if the sky is not blue, I want to believe the sky is not blue.
If Hitler says the sun is shining that doesn’t make it dark out.
What is true is already so, and admitting it doesn’t make it worse.
FWIW I do have nice short useful mental handles for a lot of the things I’ve learned from this community, many of which come from things written in this community, but they make no sense to anyone who can’t unpack them into a version at least as long as that and aren’t useful to those who haven’t done the thinking. Tsuyoku naritai, whale cancer, you get about five words, expecting short inferential distances, double illusion of transparency. Things like that.
Back during covid I once quoted Zvi to a friend who didn’t read his stuff or LW about “pretending to pretend to try to try” and she was thrilled that there was some audience, anywhere, that could read that and nod along because it made sense to them. And it does make sense. You just need a lot of context to see it.
MV here I think explains why. You don’t need slogans to explain things that are obvious to children. And you maybe can’t make short slogans that are both immediately comprehensible and sufficiently accurate counters to the slogans people make to confuse others into disbelieving the things that are obvious to children.
Well, actually, there are a few, but I think they sound a bit silly and childish and condescending unless you know what they’re a response to. For example:
Death is bad.
If the sky is blue, I want to believe the sky is blue, and if the sky is not blue, I want to believe the sky is not blue.
If Hitler says the sun is shining that doesn’t make it dark out.
What is true is already so, and admitting it doesn’t make it worse.