Re: politeness in posting

From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Tue May 15 2001 - 20:30:01 MDT


Lee Corbin wrote:
>
> 1. "The flaw in your argument..."
>
> 2. "Perhaps you've noticed..." (when it's something the
> person probably already knows)
>
> 3. "That's a common misperception..." (about what someone
> just wrote)
>
> 4. "*We* believe that ..." (when the speaker could possibly
> be read as belonging to an elite)
>
> 5. "I used to think that too."

"Wrong," said Renner.

"The tactful way," Rod said quietly, "the polite way to disagree with the
Senator would be to say, 'That turns out not to be the case.'"

        -- "The Mote in God's Eye", Larry Niven and J.E. Pournelle

-- -- -- -- --
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence



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