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Why is every rationalist blog post way too long?
Hraness wrote this summary from a saved copy of the source. Quotations are taken word for word from the source.
gist
Alex Wennerberg argues that rationalist bloggers such as Scott Alexander, Eliezer Yudkowsky, and Gwern treat sheer length as a stand-in for thoroughness, piling on detail instead of questioning their starting assumptions. What the style lacks, he says, is wisdom: the discretion to know which ideas deserve pursuit and what does not need to be said.
ideas
- Cutting is the craft. His own 2,700-word piece citing a 25,000-word Scott Alexander post came from cutting about 70% of his draft.
- Effort on the wrong things. Rationalist posts add layers of nuance rather than interrogating their first assumptions or reading beyond their subculture's canon.
- Volume as proof. Long, heavily referenced posts like Gwern's 9,000-word nicotine essay can signal rigor while reaching conclusions he calls wrong.
- Wisdom over heterodoxy. The community discounts common sense and tradition and treats ink spilled on unconventional ideas as evidence they matter.
quotes
“It seems to me that, in this community, verbosity is a substitute for thoroughness”
“it was the result of me cutting around 70% of the text I initially wrote.”
“Wisdom involves discretion: an intuition for what ideas are and are not worth seriously pursuing”