I agree with the above comment that use of the term debunking seems objectionable on “epistemological arrogance” grounds, but ‘response’ seems a bit too weak. ‘Response’ doesn’t really capture the connotation that the responses given are taken to provide grounds for the position criticized as being less plausible. There may be a better term, and the choice of terminology in this germinal stage of concocting some type of terminology for this sort of thing might be important enough to consider this further.
LanceSBush
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That sounds good. I’ll do that. I may take slightly longer than someone experienced with Wikipedia (I need to familiarize myself a bit with the specifics, but it looks pretty darn easy, so that shouldn’t be an issue) but unless someone more capable than me wants to run with this, I’ll retain my commitment to doing it myself.
I will certainly keep those considerations in mind. I don’t personally intend any substantial revisions without them being reviewed. I have no explicit interest in promoting any particular agenda, but I am of course aware that my interests and affiliations could lead me to have particular biases or to over- or underemphasize certain issues; that’s another reason why having multiple eyes look at these pages makes more sense than going at it alone. I don’t want these pages to reflect my take on an issue. I just want the pages to be better.
Low-hanging fruit: improving wikipedia entries
Hey everyone, long-time lurker here (I ran a LW group in Ft. Lauderdale, FL for about a year) and this is my first comment. I would like to post a discussion topic on a proposal for potential low-hanging fruit: fixing up Wikipedia pages related to LessWrong’s interests (existential risk, rationality, decision theory, cognitive biases, etc. and organizations/people associated with them). I’d definitely be interested in getting some feedback on creating a wiki project that focusing on improving these pages.
I haven’t had any questions yet; just looking over the details. I’m doubtful I’ll be able to corral everybody into going to this, but we’ll see.
That definitely sounds like a good idea. I will discuss it with the group tomorrow and see what they have to say, then get back to you. It would probably make sense for us to just head up to that instead of having our normal meetup on the 28th.
I didn’t find much information on this conference—could you fill me in on any details? It looks like it’s in Deerfield Beach, which isn’t too far from where we meet up at all.
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Sorry to be less helpful...if one had occurred to me right away, I’d mention it. Surprisingly, one’s not coming to me, either. I like the connotations associated with demystifying, and ‘rebuttal’ doesn’t seem terrible, as it has the connotation of an explicit criticism of some claim or other, without quite so strong a connotation as ‘debunk’. However, it’s close enough that I think it may fall onto the other side back into the epistemological arrogance category. Maybe refutation? Unfortunately I think introspection fails me on how adequate these terms are since the connotation I take them to have may differ from how others take them—more feedback from others might be more helpful than whatever my own conclusions might be. Response seems sufficient for now at least.