Re: META: To my fellow Extropians

From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Thu Apr 26 2001 - 12:02:24 MDT


Jim Fehlinger wrote:
>
> You know, not so very long ago (mere weeks, in fact), I would
> have taken a blast like this very much to heart myself, checking
> my fly, running to the mirror to see if green stuff was stuck between
> my teeth, and in general angsting about whether I had any business
> "bothering the grownups" of this august company.

Carlos Gonzalia wrote:
>
> I very much share Mr Fehlinger's feelings on this regard. If it bothers you this
> much to have us newbies around, you only need to ask and I'm sure many of us
> would promptly unsubscribe. I know I would be one of them. I'm not a brilliant
> person at all, heck I'm prone to utter honest gibbering in my attempt to learn
> or argue a point. And that if I'm on a good day. Should I keep silent then? I
> have no problems in being "educated" through smart flames, arguing,
> well-intended being making fun of, and even brutal objective criticism. However,
> when snobbism rears its ugly head, I tend to leave for more welcoming grounds.

Note for future personal reference: If you attempt to criticise babblers,
your entire audience will consist of smart people who have mistaken your
criticism as meant for them, because the babblers don't care.

Neither of you are the target audience for this. You have just posted a
grammatical, correctly reasoned, correctly spelled message. I don't think
of Fehlinger as a newbie. Gonzalia is a lurker as far as I know, but I
already wish he wasn't.

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



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