Yes...it is a bit rambling. I think one idea might be to split it into two posts, where one has to do with the reliability or unreliability of certain people, and the other has to do with inferring that some particular person has used an irrational psychological mechanism based on what he has said. I take it that Less Wrong has discussed the latter form of genetic arguments (though not in so many words—and I was a bit surprised that Yudkowsky was so critical of genetic reasoning in his post http://lesswrong.com/lw/s3/the_genetic_fallacy/, given that many of his posts can be interpreted as elucidations of such arguments). I haven’t seen much discussion of the former idea though here.
Possibly I’ll split the post into two and make them more accessible later.
“I’m pretty sure the inferential distance between what you’re trying to say and the mind-frame of the average LW user is not as high as you may think.”
Could you elaborate on this please? I’m not quite sure I follow.
Yes...it is a bit rambling. I think one idea might be to split it into two posts, where one has to do with the reliability or unreliability of certain people, and the other has to do with inferring that some particular person has used an irrational psychological mechanism based on what he has said. I take it that Less Wrong has discussed the latter form of genetic arguments (though not in so many words—and I was a bit surprised that Yudkowsky was so critical of genetic reasoning in his post http://lesswrong.com/lw/s3/the_genetic_fallacy/, given that many of his posts can be interpreted as elucidations of such arguments). I haven’t seen much discussion of the former idea though here.
Possibly I’ll split the post into two and make them more accessible later.
“I’m pretty sure the inferential distance between what you’re trying to say and the mind-frame of the average LW user is not as high as you may think.”
Could you elaborate on this please? I’m not quite sure I follow.