After reading your comments and @Jiro ’s below, and discussing with LLMs on various settings, I think I was too strong in saying “large demerit” and “get a grip, Bob”. While it’s notable to me that Bob expressed himself with a status-defending post-hoc rationalization, that’s just one piece of weak evidence to Bob’s overall character.
TurnTrout’s essay includes this disclaimer:
The context for this essay is serious, high-stakes communication: papers, technical blog posts, and tweet threads.
This thread was started with a thought experiment about low-stakes verbal communication. I incorrectly applied intuitions from the opening essay outside of the intended context.
After reading your comments and @Jiro ’s below, and discussing with LLMs on various settings, I think I was too strong in saying “large demerit” and “get a grip, Bob”. While it’s notable to me that Bob expressed himself with a status-defending post-hoc rationalization, that’s just one piece of weak evidence to Bob’s overall character.
TurnTrout’s essay includes this disclaimer:
This thread was started with a thought experiment about low-stakes verbal communication. I incorrectly applied intuitions from the opening essay outside of the intended context.