Butterfly Ideas
lesswrong.com
Butterfly Ideas
1–10 of 19 posts
Re: Butterfly Ideas
#2We used to use "thinking out loud" as the tag for these...
Re: Butterfly Ideas
#3This website is written in a very self aggrandizing way. At this point I feel like I am biased against the articles before reading them because every article seems to explicitly state, or attempt to implicitly state, how smart the author is. Meanwhile, I read some blog posts that are posted onto HN that are not like that.
Re: Butterfly Ideas
#4This website is written in a very self aggrandizing way. At this point I feel like I am biased against the articles before reading them because every article seems to explicitly state, or attempt to implicitly state, how smart the author is. Meanwhile, I read some blog posts that are posted onto HN that are not like that.
Using an ad hominem isn't even a fair way to crush a butterfly.
I think it's a sign of maturity as a reader to be able to work around the bad to get to where one can see some of the good. This article is about letting that better nature in.
HN is one site where we really could permit some space & possibility better.
Re: Butterfly Ideas
#5This website is written in a very self aggrandizing way. At this point I feel like I am biased against the articles before reading them because every article seems to explicitly state, or attempt to implicitly state, how smart the author is. Meanwhile, I read some blog posts that are posted onto HN that are not like that.
The LW crowd is all like that, I think it's neat that they've been able to create this echo chamber for themselves because it leads to some really wonky ideas and norms. I think the rationalists have mostly failed at their stated goals ("raise the sanity waterline"?) at least on an object level. However, I do think there's a good amount of value in the second order effects of a big group of nerds who are rich enough off tech money to eschew a great deal of societal norms and create something so fucking odd when viewed through a normie lens.
I think society's annealing could use more heat, and they provide.
Re: Butterfly Ideas
#6Possibly worth noting that this is a crosspost of https://acesounderglass.com/2022/02/04/butterfly-ideas/
Re: Butterfly Ideas
#7"Butterfly idea" is a cute aphorism but there is already a term of art for this which ought to be in more widespread use especially among nerds: hypothesis, as in, "This is just a hypothesis, but ..."
Re: Butterfly Ideas
#8This point I thought was telling (the internet is not what it once was):-
>"...what I write in public ends up being on the very defensible end of the things I think"
Re: Butterfly Ideas
#9Therapy helps in overcoming pretentiousness, no doubt. This is an emotional problem, feelings of worthlessness, attaching one's sense of identity to how smart one is etc.
It's a big problem, especially among people with no life (family, self-care habits), eg nerds with no purpose.
Making up a term just so you can continue jerking each other off intellectually wont help you with anything.
Re: Butterfly Ideas
#10"Butterfly idea" is a cute aphorism but there is already a term of art for this which ought to be in more widespread use especially among nerds: hypothesis, as in, "This is just a hypothesis, but ..."
Different hypotheses differ in strength. While a butterfly idea is a sort of hypothesis, it specifically denotes a particularly weak one with the most minimal amount of support. I like the term because it allows you to express the magnitude together with the fact that it is a hypothesis with minimal effort. Of course the people you work with need to be familiar with this vernacular, but that’s doable.