3 ms·
I always feel like the goal of every Scott Alexander sentence is to show how he is smarter and/or more rational than other people.
by thefaux 3y ago
I always feel like the goal of every Scott Alexander sentence is to show how he is smarter and/or more rational than other people.
- Cthulhu_ 3y agoIt might, but does it come off as pretentious or genuine? It doesn't read like he keeps a thesaurus next to him to sound smarter. Keep in mind he's been doing this for a very long time as well. Also he's well-versed on the subject of rationality, so I would argue that he's probably more rational than most people.
- CoffeeOnWrite 3y agoI am not familiar with the author, and read it as genuine, examples where they exhibit humorous self-awareness and humility: "If your brains are still too small to process such esoteric terms" "It’s a crazy thing to try, when even your own local predictions are so far from perfect accuracy." "I cannot quite remember why I thought this would be a good idea. I blame the pronatalist influencer conspiracy."
- zozbot234 3y agoI just feel like a genuinely smart and rational person would not want to describe his newborn kids as "engines" or robot AI's in training as OP does here. That's just ridiculously out of touch, it reads like satire of what some AI-obsessed founder or VC might post here to pitch their new startup. And OP has even written satire of his own about SV social attitudes, how could he possibly fail to see this?
- jpm_sd 3y agoIt is, of course, intentionally satire, with a "maybe it's actually true?" cog-sci perspective. I found this piece very funny and charming.
- hindsightbias 3y agoHe's the Mike Judge of Rationalists.