Some people are thrown by unusual ways of communicating, some are not.
Murray is drawing pretty consistent ratings/opinions (in terms of the validity
of his content) so I don't think that it is his communications style that is
the problem.
Personally, I judge content value on some vague formula involving
communication size, correct and new content, incorrect content, and how easily
I can tell the latter two apart. Murray's posts have *very* little
intelligence and wisdom particularly when compared the the amount of just plain
incorrect content. Thus, he has negligible content value for me.
On the other hand, since I tend not to "freak" -- he certainly does have
some humor values (and "there but for the grace . . . ")
----- Original Message -----
From: John G. Rose
To: agi@v2.listbox.com
Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2007 10:56 AM
Subject: RE: [agi] Write a doctoral dissertation, trigger a Singularity
Different people have different ways of communicating. Many Murray posts are
sprinkled with annoyances but then they do have some intelligence and wisdom.
They remind me of a W. C. Fields like way of speaking with some Snake Oil
salesmanship. Actual Snake Oil BTW can be good for certain things but fake
Snake Oil is fake, hence the reputation. More generally speaking I have found
from my experience that some of the worst communicators have the most to say
and some of the best communicators, the least. Not to say Murray is a "bad"
communicator, but we have grown accustomed to marginalizing people who break
the mold thus minimizing the variances of personalities. Part of this is due
to a "franchised-like" educational system that has existed for several decades.
Our personality pool is diminishing due to efficiency rewardsmanship. Also
things like dialects, language variations, cultural variations, etc. are
evening out, we are becoming an optimized, homogenized society. Will AGI's
follow the same trend and have minimal personality variations and maximal
text-book style efficiency of communication? Sometimes breaking the mold of
expressing oneself can have maximal effect of conveying an idea or ideas. I'm
reminded of once taking a class where the instructor spoke very fast on purpose
like an auctioneer. Some students immediately "freaked" because it was
abnormal but the theory was explained and it did work as intended where there
was a very high transfer rate of information and rapid two-way communication.
Computers, esp. AGI's could experiment intentionally with different twists on
language perhaps finding new and better ways of communicating.
John
Personally, I find many of his posts highly entertaining...
If your sense of humor differs, you can always use the DEL key ;-)
-- Ben G
On 5/20/07, Eliezer S. Yudkowsky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Why is Murray allowed to remain on this mailing list, anyway? As a
warning to others? The others don't appear to be taking the hint.
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