I could have sworn that there was an LW comment or post from back in the day (prob 2014 or earlier) where someone argued this same point that Ronny is making — that people tend to judge a set of arguments (or a piece of writing in general?) by its average quality rather than peak quality. I’ve had that as a cached hypothesis/belief since then.
Just tried to search for it but came up empty. Curious if anyone else remembers or can find the post/comment.
in Ye Olden Days of Original Less Wrong when rationalists spent more time talking about rationality there was a whole series of posts arguing for the opposite claim (1, 2, 3)
Oh, and FWIW I don’t think I’m just thinking of Jonah’s three posts mentioned here. Those are about how we normatively should consider arguments. Whereas what I’m thinking of was just an observation about how people in practice tend to perceive writing.
(It’s possible that what I’m thinking of was a comment on one of those posts. My guess is not, because it doesn’t ring a bell as the context for the comment I have in mind, but I haven’t gone through all the comments to confirm yet.)
I could have sworn that there was an LW comment or post from back in the day (prob 2014 or earlier) where someone argued this same point that Ronny is making — that people tend to judge a set of arguments (or a piece of writing in general?) by its average quality rather than peak quality. I’ve had that as a cached hypothesis/belief since then.
Just tried to search for it but came up empty. Curious if anyone else remembers or can find the post/comment.
Oh, and FWIW I don’t think I’m just thinking of Jonah’s three posts mentioned here. Those are about how we normatively should consider arguments. Whereas what I’m thinking of was just an observation about how people in practice tend to perceive writing.
(It’s possible that what I’m thinking of was a comment on one of those posts. My guess is not, because it doesn’t ring a bell as the context for the comment I have in mind, but I haven’t gone through all the comments to confirm yet.)