Okay, so, English isn’t my first language, so that turn of phrase
kinda hurt my brain.
So, I googled it, and sure enough, the phrase “wordless glance”
does exist, but I’m still pretty sure nobody serious would mix
it with “at a glance” in that weird way.
Edit: also, how long until EY makes one of his “omg the sneer brigade
have found me again” edits?
You're right, that use of "wordless" does not seem to contribute anything here. Where it's used normally it's qualifying an interpersonal communication, rather than a single person's attention to something. It doesn't mean "fast" or "casual", it just literally means without saying anything verbally.
"I saw at a glance that the jar was broken" and "I told him to be quiet with a wordless glance" both work. "I saw at a wordless glance that the jar was broken" is bizarre. Of course you weren't talking to the jar. You were observing, not communicating. It's a jar.
**Tautology (language)**
In literary criticism and rhetoric, a tautology is a statement which repeats the same idea, using near-synonymous morphemes, words, or phrases, that is, "saying the same thing twice". Tautology and pleonasm are not consistently differentiated in the literature.Like pleonasm, it is often considered a fault of style when unintentional. On the other hand, an intentional repetition may be an effective way to emphasize a thought, or help the listener or reader understand a point.Sometimes logical tautologies like "Boys will be boys" are conflated with language tautologies, but in general, a rhetorical tautology is not inherently true.
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What? The set of compressible strings is measure zero, which is what it means to say "almost all strings are not compressible". So are you saying that the way he's relating the math is inaccurate?
So my main objection here is that "almost all strings aren't compressible" doesn't mean "the only compressible strings are ones that are designed to be compressible." If this were true, compression would be essentially useless, since you could only compress things you had specially constructed to be compressible. But compression regularly works on things that weren't created with the express intent of being compressible. Like, yeah, that's not what he meant, but this is pretty sloppy for someone who presents as a CS expert.
The thing he's saying here is "if you create a system that's not based on an elegant set of principles, you probably won't be able to come up with a set of principles that explain it elegantly." But I'm not convinced compression is a good analogy for this anyway. Someone else [explained this is a reply to the linked comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/HPMOR/comments/a8y7yi/a_somewhat_disappointed_review_of_this_great_book/ecoeg2e), so I'm not alone here.
Ok, my initial comment might've been a little sneer-y, but the fact that the analogy isn't very good and is also _prima facie_ false makes it seem like he just shoehorned it in there because he wanted to say the word "bitstring" and make his readers feel smug about knowing what he meant, rather than trying to convey his meaning clearly. Which is kind of generally my objection to all of ey's writing, honestly.
A good way to spot the difference between a genuine intellectual and
a grifter is that a grifter will use verbosity to try and convince you
that they’re smart, whilst actually smart people understand the
importance of clarity and concision .
You're definitely onto something, but I think there's also space for people arrogant enough to post their rough drafts as finished products. The quoted sentence sounds like how most of my attempts at Reddit posts start out, but I'm usually able to either clean them up or just delete. (Usually.)
That's true for most people, but I think it's fair to judge someone like Yuderowsky for the quality of his reddit posts since he makes a living by writing shit online.
I don't consider myself much of an intellectual, but I do teach scientific writing to the undergrad and masters students I supervise, and you are right in that the first hour is usually dedicated to beating the useless jargon out of their mouths. Making something complicated sound simple is hard, shitting your word diarrhoea on a sheet of paper and calling it a report is easy.
Oh for fuck’s sake.
Big Yud doesn’t see why you should use one word if twelve can fit when you really cram ’em in there and sit on the lid.
Okay, so, English isn’t my first language, so that turn of phrase kinda hurt my brain.
So, I googled it, and sure enough, the phrase “wordless glance” does exist, but I’m still pretty sure nobody serious would mix it with “at a glance” in that weird way.
Edit: also, how long until EY makes one of his “omg the sneer brigade have found me again” edits?
still baffling to me that yudkowsky thinks he’s fluent in anything related to fiction-writing or algorithmic complexity
Indeed so, most indeededly.
tfw you feel compelled to explain everything with computer science analogies, but also you don’t really know how compression works
A good way to spot the difference between a genuine intellectual and a grifter is that a grifter will use verbosity to try and convince you that they’re smart, whilst actually smart people understand the importance of clarity and concision .
Whoa, a bit generous there
“wordless glance”
I want to post this to /r/Iamverysmart so bad but I don’t feel like antagonizing the cultists