This is well-executed satire; the author should be proud.
That said, it doesn’t belong among the top 50 posts of 2024, because this is not a satire website. Compare to Garfinkel et al.’s “On the Impossibility of Supersized Machines”. It’s a cute joke paper. It’s fine for it to be on the ArXiV. But someone who voted for it in a review of the best posts of 2017 in the cs.CY “Computers and Society” categorization on ArXiv is confessing (or perhaps, bragging) that the “Computers and Society” category is fake. Same thing with this website.
I feel confused about this but I think my current take is “it is good for Best of LW to have like 1 playful thing in it every 1-2 years, but I think I feel worse about satire than like Elephant seal 2, where satire is playing a political game that feels like can deal slight damage to the landscape (esp. if if it’s not also succeeding as intellectual work qua intellectual work).
(this is not saying I think satire is bad on LW, just, I feel worse about it showing up in our Best Of collection)
This is well-executed satire; the author should be proud.
That said, it doesn’t belong among the top 50 posts of 2024, because this is not a satire website. Compare to Garfinkel et al.’s “On the Impossibility of Supersized Machines”. It’s a cute joke paper. It’s fine for it to be on the ArXiV. But someone who voted for it in a review of the best posts of 2017 in the cs.CY “Computers and Society” categorization on ArXiv is confessing (or perhaps, bragging) that the “Computers and Society” category is fake. Same thing with this website.
Disagree; LW is not an academic journal for rationality either. The best content should go in the top 50 whether it’s satire or not.
I feel confused about this but I think my current take is “it is good for Best of LW to have like 1 playful thing in it every 1-2 years, but I think I feel worse about satire than like Elephant seal 2, where satire is playing a political game that feels like can deal slight damage to the landscape (esp. if if it’s not also succeeding as intellectual work qua intellectual work).
(this is not saying I think satire is bad on LW, just, I feel worse about it showing up in our Best Of collection)