As a side and personal comment, I don’t like too much the tendency in EA to link to articles when trying to make a point. Years ago I hung out a bit with Objectivists, both in person and online. Something that frustrated me a lot was that, for every question I asked, they linked (if online) or referred (if offline) an article from Ayn Rand or from Leonard Peikoff, saying “read this”. Instead of linking articles, I think it’s way better to try to explain ourselves in our own words.
P.s. I am referring to this passage
As a minor point, I want to push back a tiny bit on asking native speakers to do things for us. I’m a bit afraid it would add a trivial inconvenience for native speakers to talk less with non-native speakers, and increase instead of reduce the EA English-native “bias”
I think the point is well made by Lorenzo, as someone who understands what the linked text is referring to and doesn’t need to click on the link. I think it is good that the link is there for those who do not know what he meant or want clarification.
In general I think it is a bad idea to demand more work from people communicating with you—it discourages them from trying to communicate in the first place. This is similar to the trivial inconvenience point itself.
To be fair mine regarding the link-to-articles tendency is not a well-formed opinion, just something I’ve felt during some online and offline conversations. Especially from other fellow rationalists, when they quote a Scott’s article or an obscure post on the sequences when not absolutely needed.
By the way, I think it’s also a bad idea to demand more work from people you are communicating with, like informally requesting them to read a full article instead of trying to explain your point in plain terms.
Let’s put it this way: we can have the privilege to link/refer to articles/concepts in our bubble because we kinda know what we’re talking about and we are people who like to spend time reading, but what if we have to communicate with someone who is from outside the bubble? We will not have that privilege and we will have to explain ourselves in plain terms. It’s not a trivial inconvenience: if we don’t exercise our ability to reduce the inferential distance (yes, I am guilty of the same sin) between “us” and “others” starting from ourselves we will always be unable to communicate our ideas properly.
But, again, I haven’t thought about this issue properly so I reserve to myself the faculty to take some time to refine or abdicate my arguments.
As a side and personal comment, I don’t like too much the tendency in EA to link to articles when trying to make a point. Years ago I hung out a bit with Objectivists, both in person and online. Something that frustrated me a lot was that, for every question I asked, they linked (if online) or referred (if offline) an article from Ayn Rand or from Leonard Peikoff, saying “read this”. Instead of linking articles, I think it’s way better to try to explain ourselves in our own words.
P.s. I am referring to this passage
I think the point is well made by Lorenzo, as someone who understands what the linked text is referring to and doesn’t need to click on the link. I think it is good that the link is there for those who do not know what he meant or want clarification.
In general I think it is a bad idea to demand more work from people communicating with you—it discourages them from trying to communicate in the first place. This is similar to the trivial inconvenience point itself.
To be fair mine regarding the link-to-articles tendency is not a well-formed opinion, just something I’ve felt during some online and offline conversations. Especially from other fellow rationalists, when they quote a Scott’s article or an obscure post on the sequences when not absolutely needed.
By the way, I think it’s also a bad idea to demand more work from people you are communicating with, like informally requesting them to read a full article instead of trying to explain your point in plain terms.
Let’s put it this way: we can have the privilege to link/refer to articles/concepts in our bubble because we kinda know what we’re talking about and we are people who like to spend time reading, but what if we have to communicate with someone who is from outside the bubble? We will not have that privilege and we will have to explain ourselves in plain terms. It’s not a trivial inconvenience: if we don’t exercise our ability to reduce the inferential distance (yes, I am guilty of the same sin) between “us” and “others” starting from ourselves we will always be unable to communicate our ideas properly.
But, again, I haven’t thought about this issue properly so I reserve to myself the faculty to take some time to refine or abdicate my arguments.