But if you say “Shut up and do what seems impossible!”, then that, to me, sounds like dispelling part of the essential message—that what seems impossible doesn’t look like it “seems impossible”, it just looks impossible.
“Shut up and do what seems impossible!” is the literally correct message. The other one is the exaggerated form. Sometimes exaggeration is a good rhetorical device, but it does turn off some serious readers.
“Don’t do it, even if it seems right” sounds merely clever by comparison
This was my point. This advice is useful and clever, though not profound. This literal presentation is both more clear in what it is saying and clear that it is not profound. I would have thought that the enterprise of creating statements that sound more profound than they are is not a very attractive one for rationalists. Memorable statements are certainly a good thing, but making them literally false and spuriously paradoxical does not seem worth it. This isn’t playing fair. Any statement can be turned into a pseudo-profundity with these methods: witness many teachings of cults throughout the ages. I think these are the methods of what you have called ‘Dark Side Epistemology’.
But if you say “Shut up and do what seems impossible!”, then that, to me, sounds like dispelling part of the essential message—that what seems impossible doesn’t look like it “seems impossible”, it just looks impossible.
“Shut up and do what seems impossible!” is the literally correct message. The other one is the exaggerated form. Sometimes exaggeration is a good rhetorical device, but it does turn off some serious readers.
“Don’t do it, even if it seems right” sounds merely clever by comparison
This was my point. This advice is useful and clever, though not profound. This literal presentation is both more clear in what it is saying and clear that it is not profound. I would have thought that the enterprise of creating statements that sound more profound than they are is not a very attractive one for rationalists. Memorable statements are certainly a good thing, but making them literally false and spuriously paradoxical does not seem worth it. This isn’t playing fair. Any statement can be turned into a pseudo-profundity with these methods: witness many teachings of cults throughout the ages. I think these are the methods of what you have called ‘Dark Side Epistemology’.