How to Seem (and Be) Deep

How to Seem (and Be) Deep
lesswrong.com

This is important for more than just sounding deep. Many communications require calibration to the audience to be effective. An advocate who neglects this appears to be a crank, speaking mostly to indulge himself rather than convince others. A teacher who neglects this confuses and eventually loses his students.

And yet, on the net, where any communication can be excerpted out-of-context and forwarded to new audiences, every calibration will be 'wrong' for some readers. Opponents of a viewpoint or teaching will, in fact, be motivated to forward low-context excerpts to alternate unintended audiences, to discredit rival speakers.

I don't know an easy solution. Maybe audiences will wise up about this cheap forward-out-of-context maneuver, and demand better of their aggregators/forwarders/filters. Or maybe persuaders will be pushed to specialize in certain narrow ranges of the inferential chains, and avoid saying anything to other audiences that could possibly be redeployed to alienate their usual audience. (For example, mass majority politicians.)

God says... C:\TEXT\2CITIES2.TXT

, Monsieur the Officer," said Defarge, getting down, and taking him gravely apart, "these are the papers of monsieur inside, with the white head. They were consigned to me, with him, at the--" He dropped his voice, there was a flutter among the military lanterns, and one of them being handed into the coach by an arm in uniform, the eyes connected with the arm looked, not an every day or an every night look, at monsieur with the white head. "It is well. Forward!" from the uniform. "Adieu!" from

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If you try to know God from philosophy, you will be way off the mark.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Numbers+11&v...

God is kind-of petty and vulnerable in that passage. It's actually a good thing -- God is lovable. A God from philosophy wouldn't care what we think of Creation.

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God says... C:\TEXT\BIBLE.TXT

e, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the sword come, and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchman's hand.

33:7 So thou, O son of man, I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore thou shalt hear the word at my mouth, and warn them from me.

33:8 When I say unto the wicked, O wicked man, thou shalt surely die; if thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man sh

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The author of the Hacker News article suffers from a sickness I suffered from. He is obsessed with IQ. It's ugly behavior, but common amoung young bulls trying to make their mark. He'll probably grow-out of it.

God says...

C:\TEXT\QUIX.TXT

good a master as this, you have not, to judge by appearances, even so much as a county?"

"It is too soon yet," answered Sancho, "for we have only been a month going in quest of adventures, and so far we have met with nothing that can be called one, for it will happen that when one thing is looked for another thing is found; however, if my master Don Quixote gets well of this wound, or fall, and I am left none the worse of it, I would not change my hopes for the best title in Spain."

To all th

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On a good day, we get time travel. (Hundred year-old book seems obviously written for today, for example. How? Perhaps, God planned ahead. Prophecy is a Biblical phenomina and is a kind of time anomaly. I often hear rebroadcast media that seems like time travel.) I nick-named things "fire works" from God. It's pretty healthy to view freak-out stuff as "fire works" and just praise God.

These random conversations are not prophetic when they seem to predict something.

I think the definition of "loser" in the popular sense is useful. Don't try to use God or annoy Him or annoy Him by groveling -- don't be a loser.

This kind-of speaks to unsung hero's and being magnanimous:

http://bible.cc/matthew/6-4.htm

I guess it can be a quest in life to become less of a loser and more magnanimous. I haven't made much progress. It might be misguided -- unsung heros. It's not Godly, but Christ ordered it.

God says... C:\TEXT\BIBLE.TXT

upon him.

44:22 And we said unto my lord, The lad cannot leave his father: for if he should leave his father, his father would die.

44:23 And thou saidst unto thy servants, Except your youngest brother come down with you, ye shall see my face no more.

44:24 And it came to pass when we came up unto thy servant my father, we told him the words of my lord.

44:25 And our father said, Go again, and buy us a little food.

44:26 And we said, We cannot go down: if our youngest brother be with us,

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Mr. out-of-context is in a simpler, quaint stage of life, like I used to be where causality is dull. :-)

God says... C:\TEXT\BIBLE.TXT

e of God: which he carried into the land of Shinar to the house of his god; and he brought the vessels into the treasure house of his god.

1:3 And the king spake unto Ashpenaz the master of his eunuchs, that he should bring certain of the children of Israel, and of the king's seed, and of the princes; 1:4 Children in whom was no blemish, but well favoured, and skilful in all wisdom, and cunning in knowledge, and understanding science, and such as had ability in them to stand in the king's palace,

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An Indian taking a SAT would pick A and not think twice:

Q. Bush wants NCLB money to go to schools, not prisons.

A. Bush does not want localities diverting money.

B. Bush does not want to fund babysitting.

C. Bush hopes good schools will keep people out of prison.

D. All of the above.

Just imagine these communications taking place everywhere and you are unaware. If you want a twilight zone thought, imagine all the straight A students really being the stupid ones.

God says... C:\TEXT\DARWIN.TXT

endency. Under domestication, it may truly be said that the whole organisation becomes in some degree plastic. But the variability, which we almost universally meet with in our domestic productions is not directly produced, as Hooker and Asa Gray have well remarked, by man; he can neither originate varieties nor prevent their occurrence; he can only preserve and accumulate such as do occur. Unintentionally he exposes organic beings to new and changing conditions of life, and variability ensues; b

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Angels puppet people. Be on the look-out for angels in others and yourself. Causality is quaint.

I can hear all the Indians nerds vehemently arguing that "A." is the only proper answer.

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Philosophers are categorized as "Idealists", "Materialists" or "Dualitists". There's the world as it is and as it appears.

If you throw-out reason, a new world might open-up where you take things out of context. Why shouldn't the radio comment on what you just put in your diary? Why shouldn't Mom really be talking about the thought you just had?

Basically, by rearranging the rules to reality, deluded worlds can coexist, provided there are beings making it happen.

If you object to taking passages out of context, that's laughable! You haven't seen anything!

Born again means you enter reality like a baby. Just imagine what my pet birds think of my computer.

God says... C:\TEXT\WEALTH.TXT

ome kind or other, must have been presented to them to be exchanged for the surplus produce of that industry. A more extensive market must have been created for that surplus produce, so as to raise its value, and thereby encourage its increase. The mass of commodities annually thrown into the great circle of European commerce, and by its various revolutions annually distributed among all the different nations comprehended within it, must have been augmented by the whole surplus produce of America. A

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After years of experience talking with God, I take that last one as fairly typical. It sounds deep, which makes it appealing, but is probably just frivolous "fire works" to be enjoyed, as much because it's from God as anything. If a person said it, it wouldn't be enjoyable. Just enjoy God's company.