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by mananaysiempre 357 days ago
> I always interpreted "Less Wrong" as word-play on how "being right" is an absolute binary

Specifically (AFAIK) a reference to Asimov’s description[1] of the idea:

> [W]hen people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.

[1] https://skepticalinquirer.org/1989/10/the-relativity-of-wron...

1 comments

Cool, I didn't know the quote, nor that it was inspiration for the name. Thank you.
It's not even about the quote, or Asimov.

"Less wrong" is a concept that has a lot of connotations that just automatically appear in your mind and help you. What you wrote "It's very telling that some of them went full "false modesty" by naming sites like "LessWrong", when you just know they actually mean "MoreRight"." isn't bad because of Asimov said so, or because you were unaware of a reference, but because it's just bad.

The person you are replying to didn't write what you claim they did. I wrote it.

What is it about this thread that makes people confused about who wrote what? It's already happened to two different commenters.