alt Hacker NewsMy controversial thesis was about author's poor reading skill. The dilemma of the rationalist writer is about whether be skipped by wizards or be understandable by maglesses.
You can take the truthest truth ever like "god does not exist". This statement is rationalist and true and short so the author is supposed to cry with a tears of happiness. But making a wisard to behave like this requires something more thorough to be sent. Maybe the author's post also has a chance to become a rationalist if it would be a little bit... longer?
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I score way above average on reading skill and I can still tell that many rationalist articles have a word count higher than the subject matter itself requires. If the point of a rationalist article is to exclude people by requiring them to have a willingness to absorb long overly verbose writing then they have succeeded admirably. But that is still bad writing.
> My controversial thesis was about author's poor reading skill.
What makes you think the author has poor reading skill?
Like a certain Terry Pratchett character you think you are a wizard but also spelled wizard wrong...
Do you not think their belief to some extent involves believing formalizing things [even to a reductively useless point] makes them more adept at understanding the world?
I'll cite an example: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/qDmnyEMtJkE9Wrpau/simulacra-.... I can make the case that one might feel smarter simply having read through the grating writing.
What's a magless? Is that some weird variation on muggle? If so, oh my god, get a life.