Writing Style and the Typical Mind Fallacy

There is one person whose writings seem of better quality to me than either yours or Eliezer's, and that's Yvain. What do you think his writing style is?

(To be clear, I enjoy what you and EY write, despite the style differences, especially when you are at your best.)

Another hypothesis that occurs to me is that people with short attention spans could prefer my more skimmable style. But I haven't tested this.

Speaking as someone with fairly serious attention deficit disorder, I find Eliezer's style (and Yvain's as well) is particularly good at holding my attention for long periods of time. Where a more bare-bones article would require me to use willpower to finish reading, I will tend to become hyperfocused (a less commonly recognized aspect of ADD) on one written in a style I find entertaining.

epiphany addiction

hm, that sounds bad.

just want to learn everything efficiently

hm, that sounds good.

To me, Paul Graham is approximately the apex of good writing for the internet. I'd always assumed the sequences had succeeded despite, not because of, EY's writing style. (I've wondered how many people were dissuaded from LW because they pick up things quickly, value their time, and were getting a frustratingly low insight/minute ratio from the Sequences.) It's interesting to hear that others disagree.

I'm somewhat worried that this problem might be even more widespread. For example, "show, don't tell" is the standard advice in writing guides, so I was intrigued to see my friend write:

There is another thing about "showing" that bugs me, and it's that very often, when I read guides and such about how to "show" rather than "tell", the only thing I see in those guides is that "showing" conveys different information than "telling". They create different scenes. And of course I have more problems with the scenes that "show".

When the scene is "shown", I have a hard time staying with the text and understanding what's going on. If I'm not told what a particular thing means, it starts just seeming nonsensical to me. The author (and many readers) might understand the tone of voice of a character whose line is written in a certain way, but I'm likely to miss it. And so I'll end up clueless as to the character's state of mind. Now, if I was TOLD exactly what the character's state of mind is, no problem. I might be bad at imagining certain emotions, but it's definitely easier to read exactly what it's supposed to be than to try to find and guess what parts show it.

Maybe it's just me, though. That doesn't make me less frustrated with writing that routinely frustrates me with what I often perceive as non sequiturs. Therefore, I hope that more writings BOTH "showed" AND "told"! At least I'm trying to aim for both showing and telling in my writings from now on.

I read somewhere that the taste of an experienced film critic is typically very different from the taste of somebody who only watches movies every now and then, and it seems like there should be a similar effect with writing - the kind of people who end up becoming authors or creating writing guides are likely to be atypical, and to have a atypical tastes. Since most writing guides seem to be based on the author's personal taste as opposed to anything resembling an objective survey, I'm uncertain of how well their advice actually generalizes. (This being Less Wrong, I cannot avoid the obvious hypothesis that the "show, don't tell" rule is partially an attempt to signal sophistication.)

So, I'll say this. Eliezer's posts put the nail in the coffin of my Theism in the matter of a couple months. My mind had to wait to be told the story of how I could sit, ponder, and wonder for night after night and allow my entire mind to get on board with a major worldview shift. Each individual post assailed the narratives I was telling myself; without the conclusions given to me up front, I was able to travel the journey to the conclusion on my own, which ended up far more compelling than previously read arguments with a more explicit agenda.

That said, now that I find myself much closer to both of your worldviews, I find your posts much more efficient, and I more often recommend yours to others over Eliezer's. I do this because I expect more impatience on the part of others than I do in myself.

This is a problem I feel with Less Wrong in general, although I know little of what could be done. I often recommend posts to outsiders, only to receive little else than skepticism and comments at the styles or apparent agendas of the authors. "But the logic and evidence awareness make them unassailable!" does little to established narratives. Narratives which suggest that coffee-table books by authors on the New York Times bestsellers list who give TED talks are the quickest route to insight. This was never a narrative I had, and was already looking for insight in new places, and so the initial thrust of taking the time to read the Sequences was all I really needed to be carried along by them more or less to their finish line.

Your point about different audiences is at point here. For most of the world, the Sequences and the scattershot back-referenced posts here are completely irrelevant to established patterns of trawling trusted mediums for dinner-party political wisdom. But giving in to that attitude would heavily decrease the value of this site to most of its current participants. Especially me, so don't do it, yo.

Fortunately, you don't need a detailed model of which people prefer which writing style to encourage people to write posts on LW in a variety of styles!

Rather than "abstract stuff first, examples later" or "examples first, abstract stuff later" I prefer a hybrid approach: give as much of the abstract stuff as is necessary to motivate why you're looking at the examples (which may be no abstract stuff at all), then give the examples, then give the rest of the abstract stuff. The main application I have in mind is mathematical writing, where sometimes a definition is very hard to motivate without examples, but sometimes the examples are very hard to motivate without looking at a previously well-understood abstraction first. The problem I have with always giving examples first is that I often don't know what to do with the examples if they haven't been properly introduced: where, in the filesystem of my brain, should I be filing these things?

The difference between the two styles has to do with whether you are trying to get someone to change their beliefs and/or behavior. I suggest that if you run an experiment, you'll find that even people who prefer to read in a factual style will be more likely to actually change their beliefs or behaviors when information is presented in story format.

(Heck, you might not have to run that experiment; ISTR that there's already a study showing people shift attitudes as a result of identifying with story characters.)

Eliezer is right: stories are better writing... IF your intention is to influence your reader.

So, if you don't care what your reader does with the information you give them, and you don't care if people who aren't already motivated to obtain that information get bored and tune you out, then feel free to simply provide facts. If you want people to care about the thing you're writing about, stories are a requirement.

tl;dr: facts are far, stories are near.

(ETA: the book Wired For Story has some background information on the science of brains and stories.)

The stuff written by Eliezer that really stuck with me is the Sequences. The stuff written by you that really stuck with me are some of your instrumental rationality posts, like "How to Be Happy".

It's pretty clear to me that Eliezer's dramatic, storytelling style is better suited for a series of essays designed to radically alter the way the reader thinks about truth, beauty, right and wrong, etc. And it's pretty clear to me that your straightforward, just-the-facts style is better suited for posts along the lines of "here is what science suggests you can do to become happier/more productive".

Consider maybe the idea that different styles are good for different things, and perhaps you and Eliezer should choose things to write about based on your respective comparative advantages.

Personally, I prefer Eliezer's posts because I actually read Eliezer's posts. (Also: Yvain's posts.)

Of course the reverse is true as well (read because prefer). But the point is: if I don't read something (because I don't enjoy reading it), what good is it to me?

Hmm, I prefer to read Luke's writing, but I find it best as a way of grasping information, not necessarily as a way of motivating me to action. Case in point: I read all of Luke's posts on science of winning at life, and thought it interesting. However it wasn't until reading the motivation hacker that I was motivated to move from knowing it to using it.

Do you prefer...

[pollid:538]

Do you read a lot of fiction?

[pollid:539]

Your background?

[pollid:540]

Do you consider yourself to have an epiphany addiction?

[pollid:541]

Bonus question

[pollid:542]

$ grep Leonhart poll.csv
"Leonhart","538","0","2013-07-14T21:05:29.027196"
"Leonhart","539","0","2013-07-14T21:05:29.118328"
"Leonhart","540","1","2013-07-14T21:05:29.292160"
"Leonhart","541","1","2013-07-14T21:05:29.244125"
"Leonhart","542","3","2013-07-14T21:05:29.178701"
$ grep \"11\" poll.csv
"11","538","0","2013-07-14T21:05:25.150240"
"11","539","2","2013-07-14T21:05:25.302881"
"11","540","0","2013-07-14T21:05:25.533486"
"11","541","1","2013-07-14T21:05:25.458408"
"11","542","2","2013-07-14T21:05:25.398273"

I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that it wasn't until sometime last month that I realized that, obviously, different people prefer each style, and Eliezer and I were both falling prey to the typical mind fallacy.

Maybe say a little more about the evidence for this? Have you had conversations with people that confirmed this, or is it just coming from a strong prior?

It occurs to me that any poll we run might be biased due to hypotheses being told to people before they answer the poll. Like, if I'm not sure if I think I have an epiphany addiction, and then I read that such are hypothetically associated with author X, then... well, I'm not sure how it changes my answer, but I know it makes it hard for me to feel like I'm answering fairly.

I prefer your style (rather, I really dislike Eliezer's style). Possible data points: I read a lot of math: math blogs, math texts, math papers, and I have poor reading comprehension and reading speed. I don't have a particularly short or long attention span, and I don't really read much science or philosophy. I didn't get a whole lot of epiphanies from the sequences, though it did have a strong influence on how I think (ie. my updates weren't felt as epiphanies).

I like the structure of your writing. I like to build my mental categories from the top down, and structured writing helps me put things in mental buckets. For quite a while after reading the sequences, the whole idea of rationality was a big muddle of concepts and I had a hard time thinking about it as a whole. I had to think it over and do all the categorization by myself, which was a lot of work, and I don't think I benefited enough from having to do that to justify the exercise.

I haven't been conscious of your writing style, which probably means that it's agreeable to me. Unless I were actively interested in it, the only time anyone's writing style would come to my attention would be when it gets in the way or is somehow out of place.

If anything, your style of writing conforms closely to the SQ3R method of reading comprehension, which is obviously a point in your favor.

I generally prefer the more direct {lesson, evidence}. I have on several occasions thought that Luke has implemented this well.

But - I think we have evidence that EY is a particularly good writer of narrative. While also getting the content across. The epiphany hit is pretty sweet too.

Embedding lessons in stories (like the Blue and Green) makes the mind labile to their content and makes it easier to hang on to the memory and to retell to others. I imagine it comes at the cost to extra thinking and writing time to package lessons so.

Is that cost worth the marginal effort? I'm pretty sure the answer is 'sometimes'.

obviously, different people prefer each style, and Eliezer and I were both falling prey to the typical mind fallacy.

Unstated in this post or the 'typical mind fallacy' link is the hypothesis that objectively not-better writing exists. To test this hypothesis, here is a sample of not-better writing that I have a high confidence will not be persuasive or interesting:

s lfas l sdkf jlds dj;lkg j;lasl dkjg lsakdjg ;lsasldkgj l;askd

If I have established that objectively not-better writing exists, that is a foundation to move away from. It is possible that in moving away from objectively not-better writing, we might move toward better writing. Further, we might move toward better writing that meets more than one preferred style of reading.

Writing is both art and craft. Unless you are a natural at writing, there are standard technical writing techniques you can follow (and must follow if you want to get published). I mentioned some of them a couple of years back. Keeping in mind a simple "state-explain-summarize" approach helps to make technical posts reach a certain minimum readability level.

I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that it wasn't until sometime last month that I realized that, obviously, different people prefer each style,

And the same person might enjoy one style more in some contexts, and the other style more in other contexts.

I prefer an organized, expository style in an article. Right up front, where are we going, and what will be the payoff when we get there. Don't leave me wondering what the point is, and give me some structure to hang the ideas onto.

Well, you're no mysterious ancient wizard. ;-)

Another hypothesis was that people who had acquired an epiphany addiction would prefer Eliezer's style, whereas those who just want to learn everything efficiently would prefer my style. But I didn't test this.

Applies to me at least. The "Does it bring out the snacks"-test encapsulates some of that elusive difference: the snacks come out when EY posts a longer post, they don't in your case.

When Eliezer has edited my writing, he's had a pretty good (gimlet!) eye for knocking out unnecessary adjectives, clauses, pushing for more specific examples, etc. So I find those sessions pretty helpful. Luke, have you had Eliezer edit your stuff to pin down what changes (and vice versa)?

Personally I usually prefer your style, mostly, I think, because I am impatient. I want to know what the writer's point is right away and then I like to get right into his supporting arguments so I can determine whether he's made the case well enough to convince me. There are other times, when I'm more more relaxed and have more time when I may enjoy his style but they are the exception.

I think it is largely a question of preference. For LW's purposes, wouldn't the sole purpose of any communication be to provide an accurate map of the territory, regardless of style?

And I think the answer to which authors' writing best accomplishes this would depend on the reader.

Personally, I have enjoyed EY's writing as way to view a concept in different way -- it's a springboard; providing the energy and motivation I need to research the concept, and related considerations, further.

Eliezer has been telling me I should write more like he does

What are his reasons for suggesting this?

I often can't even tell what his posts are saying.

I agree. Personally, I prefer your writing style. Eliezer's writings strike me as being excessively long-winded and imprecise. As other commentators have pointed out, his Sequences generally have a very low information-to-words ratio -- most people, I suspect, would be significantly better off reading the primary sources instead of spending time reading the Sequences.

Do you prefer...

[pollid:537]