Thanks so much for your insights. Can’t really argue with what you say here: I think you articulated the idea of subtlety and the importance of correct application with humor far better than I did. Admittedly, John Oliver is an extreme example of humor, perhaps so extreme as to be unhelpful as a model for EA. Overall, maybe my use of the word “humor” in this post was too strong. I really liked Tiger Lava Lamp’s comment below on “microhumor,” which Scott Alexander describes as “things that aren’t a joke in the laugh-out-loud told-by-a-comedian sense, but still put the tiniest ghost of a smile on your reader’s face while they’re skimming through them.” This seems to be a more accurate description of the MacAskill and Karnosfky examples I gave. It seems like we both have a sense that something like Alexander’s microhumor can fall within EA’s humor threshold and be an effective tool for EA to an extent.
Agreed—Scott Alexander does this very well, as does Yudkowsky in Rationality: A-Z. Both of these also benefit from being blogs of their own creation, where they can dictate a lot of the norms, and so I expect to have a fair bit more slack in how high the ceiling is.
Thanks so much for your insights. Can’t really argue with what you say here: I think you articulated the idea of subtlety and the importance of correct application with humor far better than I did. Admittedly, John Oliver is an extreme example of humor, perhaps so extreme as to be unhelpful as a model for EA. Overall, maybe my use of the word “humor” in this post was too strong. I really liked Tiger Lava Lamp’s comment below on “microhumor,” which Scott Alexander describes as “things that aren’t a joke in the laugh-out-loud told-by-a-comedian sense, but still put the tiniest ghost of a smile on your reader’s face while they’re skimming through them.” This seems to be a more accurate description of the MacAskill and Karnosfky examples I gave. It seems like we both have a sense that something like Alexander’s microhumor can fall within EA’s humor threshold and be an effective tool for EA to an extent.
Agreed—Scott Alexander does this very well, as does Yudkowsky in Rationality: A-Z. Both of these also benefit from being blogs of their own creation, where they can dictate a lot of the norms, and so I expect to have a fair bit more slack in how high the ceiling is.