Best of Rationality Quotes, 2013 Edition
post by DanielVarga · 2014-01-31T21:35:37.593Z · LW · GW · Legacy · 45 commentsContents
45 comments
Here is the 2013 edition of the Best of Rationality Quotes collection. (Here is last year's.)
Best of Rationality Quotes 2013 (400kB page, 350 quotes)
and Best of Rationality Quotes 2009-2013 (1600kB page, 1490 quotes)
The page was built by a short script (source code here) from all the LW Rationality Quotes threads so far. (We had such a thread each month since April 2009.) The script collects all comments with karma score 10 or more, and sorts them by score. Replies are not collected, only top-level comments.
As is now usual, I provide various statistics and top-lists based on the data. (Source code for these is also at the above link, see the README.) I added these as comments to the post:
- Top quote contributors by total karma score collected
- Top quote contributors by karma score collected in 2013
- Top quote contributors of 2013 by statistical significance level (See this comment for a description of this metric.)
- Top original authors by number of quotes
- Top original authors by total karma score collected
- Best short quotes 2009-2013
45 comments
Comments sorted by top scores.
comment by DanielVarga · 2014-01-31T20:44:45.622Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Top short quotes (2009-2013) by karma per character:
- 55 A Bet is a Tax on Bullshit Alex Tabarrok
- 45 Luck is statistics taken personally. Penn Jellete
- 42 I've got to start listening to those quiet, nagging doubts.Calvin
- 33 Comic Quote Minus 37 -- Ryan Armand Also a favourite.
- 34 Nobody is smart enough to be wrong all the time.Ken Wilber
- 32 A problem well stated is a problem half solved.Charles Kettering
- 48 I will not procrastinate regarding any ritual granting immortality. --Evil Overlord List #230
- 29 The greatest weariness comes from work not done.-Eric Hoffer
- 26 "Most haystacks do not even have a needle." -- Lorenzo
- 24 "I accidentally changed my mind." my four-year-old
- 40 Shipping is a feature. A really important feature. Your product must have it.-Joel Spolsky
- 31 Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd. Voltaire
- 39 People say "think outside the box," as if the box wasn't a fucking great idea.Sean Thomason
- 38 The Noah principle: predicting rain doesn’t count, building arks does. -Warren E. Buffett
- 37 It’s easy to lie with statistics, but it’s easier to lie without them. -Fred Mosteller
- 30 If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.-Seneca
- 34 It is the mark of a truly intelligent person to be moved by statistics.George Bernard Shaw
- 15 Focusing is about saying no.-- Steve Jobs
- 34 "Working in mysterious ways" is the greatest euphemism for failure ever devised.TheTweetOfGod
- 18 "A problem well put, is half solved." - John Dewey
- 34 Market exchange is a pathetically inadequate substitute for love, but it scales better.S. T. Rev
- 12 Death is the gods' crime.Unsounded
- 24 The most practical thing in the world is a good theory. Helmholtz
- 29 When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir? John Maynard Keynes
- 30 “Erudition can produce foliage without bearing fruit.” - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
- 28 Writing program code is a good way of debugging your thinking. -- Bill Venables
- 28 It is easy to be certain....One has only to be sufficiently vague.Charles S. Peirce
- 30 Truth is much too complicated to allow anything but approximations. — John Von Neumann
- 31 There is one rule that's very simple, but not easy: observe reality and adjust. Ran Prieur
- 31 It's a horrible feeling when you don't understand why you did something.-- Dennis Monokroussos
- 26 Shouldn't "it works like a charm" be said about things that don't work?Jason Roy
- 21 Things are only impossible until they're not. -- Jean-Luc Picard
- 30 Now, now, perfectly symmetrical violence never solved anything.--Professor Farnsworth, Futurama.
- 24 Part of the potential of things is how they break. Vi Hart, How To Snakes
- 26 The dream is damned and dreamer too if dreaming's all that dreamers do.--Rory Miller
- 25 A scholar is just a library’s way of making another library. Daniel Dennett
- 29 We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it. Mark Twain
- 29 The Company that needs a new machine tool is already paying for it. -old Warner Swasey ad
- 25 "Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from SCIENCE!" ~Girl Genius
- 26 Complex problems have simple, easy to understand wrong answers. — Grossman's Law
- 22 Most people would rather die than think; many do. – Bertrand Russell
- 18 A sharp knife is nothing without a sharp eye.Klingon proverb.
- 22 The only road to doing good shows, is doing bad shows.Louis C.K., on Reddit
- 28 My brain technically-not-a-lies to me far more than it actually lies to me.-- Aristosophy (again)
- 23 The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off. Gloria Steinem
- 27 Nature draws no line between living and nonliving. -- K. Eric Drexler, Engines of Creation
- 26 “Anything left on your bucket list?”“Not dying...”-Bill Gates in his AMA on reddit.
- 22 It is better to destroy one's own errors than those of others. Democritus
- 12 Reality is not optional. Thomas Sowell
- 27 If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance we can solve them.-- Isaac Asimov
- 17 Statistics is applied philosophy of science. A. P. Dawid
- 26 A man who says he is willing to meet you halfway is usually a poor judge of distance.Unknown
- 22 Forget Jesus. The stars died so that you could be here today. Lawrence Krauss
- 26 Truth would quickly cease to be stranger than fiction, once we got as used to it.H.L. Mencken
- 27 The first rule of human club is you don't explicitly discuss the rules of human club.Silas Dogood
- 23 Go down deep enough into anything and you will find mathematics. Dean Schlicter
- 18 Good things come to those who steal them.-- Magnificent Sasquatch
- 24 We are built to be effective animals, not happy ones. -Robert Wright, The Moral Animal
- 19 Being right too soon is socially unacceptable. Robert A. Heinlein
- 14 "Anything you can do, I can do meta" -Rudolf Carnap
- 17 Mind is a machine for jumping to conclusions - Daniel Kahneman
- 26 If Tetris has taught me anything it's that errors pile up and accomplishments disappear.-Unknown
- 26 A faith which cannot survive collision with the truth is not worth many regrets.Arthur C. Clarke
- 26 Nobody panics when things go "according to plan"… even if the plan is horrifying. The Joker
- 23 "Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies." --Friedrich Nietzsche
- 14 I intend to live forever or die trying-- Groucho Marx
- 26 We shall not grow wiser before we learn that much that we have done was very foolish.-- F. A. Hayek
- 20 I honestly don't know. Let's see what happens. -- Hans. The Troll Hunter
- 16 Luck is opportunity plus preparation plus luck.--Jane Espenson
- 20 The singularity is my retirement plan. -- tocomment, in a Hacker News post
- 19 Better our hypotheses die for our errors than ourselves. -- Karl Popper
- 11 Whenever you can, count.--Sir Francis Galton
- 22 Errors using inadequate data are much less than those using no data at all.-Charles Babbage
- 19 In general, we are least aware of what our minds do best. — Marvin Minsky
- 20 It is easier to love humanity than to love one's neighbor.--Eric Hoffer, on Near/Far
- 15 Keep your solutions close, and your problems closer.afoolswisdom
- 18 "If God gives you lemons, you find a new God."-- Powerthirst 2: Re-Domination
- 17 Truth comes out of error more easily than out of confusion.-Francis Bacon
- 23 Opening your eyes doesn't make a bad picture worse. http://onefte.com/2011/07/17/bully-for-you/
- 19 Know the hair you have to get the hair you want. -Pantene Pro-V hair care bottle
- 16 The best way to escape from a problem is to solve it. -Alan Saporta
- 16 Not to know is bad; not to wish to know is worse. — Wolof proverb
- 20 Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. -- Voltaire
- 18 Use only that which works, and take it from any place you can find it.--Bruce Lee
- 9 AI makes philosophy honest -- Dan Dennet
- 18 God created the Earth, but the Dutch created the Netherlands. -- Dutch proverb
- 20 "Just because you no longer believe a lie, does not mean you now know the truth."Mark Atwood
- 14 History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme. -Mark Twain
- 17 The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled. -- Plutarch
- 18 The person you are most afraid to contradict is yourself. -Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- 16 Like all dreamers, I confused disenchantment with truth. (Jean-Paul Sartre)
- 20 Man, I'm amazing! I'm a machine that turns FOOD into IDEAS! -- T-Rex, Dinosaur Comics #539
- 17 What good fortune for those in power that people do not think. Adolph Hitler
- 14 We see things not as they are but as we are, ...- G. T. W. Patrick
- 19 You don't have to believe everything you think. Seen on bumper sticker, via ^zhurnaly.
- 19 The truth is out there, but so are the lies.-Dana Scully, The X-Files, Season 1, Episode 17
- 13 Would anybody tell me if I was getting stupider? Mike Patton
- 13 We're even wrong about which mistakes we're making.-Carl Winfeld
- 13 If I close my mind in fear, please pry it open. -- Metallica
↑ comment by christopherj · 2014-02-01T04:20:30.710Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
This post made me consider using spaced repetition software.
Replies from: fortyeridania↑ comment by fortyeridania · 2014-02-01T07:03:31.214Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Note: Penn's last name is "Jillette" (not "Jellete").
↑ comment by fortyeridania · 2014-02-01T07:13:43.388Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
The one from Carnap ("Anything you can do, I can do meta") might not really be from Carnap. Can anyone find a source besides this one, which only gets it back to 1991?
Replies from: velisar, TruePathcomment by lukeprog · 2014-01-31T21:30:34.436Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Nice work!
It occurs to me that there shouldn't be any copyright issues with CFAR releasing a nicely-formatted version of the 2009-2013 page as an ebook, with the nice Varga-collected stats as appendices.
Replies from: David_Gerard↑ comment by David_Gerard · 2014-01-31T22:44:56.603Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Are there any song quotes in there? Better leave those out.
comment by Huluk · 2014-02-07T22:16:41.563Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
If you want your terminal to greet you with rationality quotes, I created a new fortunes file: https://github.com/Huluk/rationality-fortunes Use with "unix fortune" for your operating system.
Replies from: henryajcomment by DanielVarga · 2014-01-31T20:38:00.524Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Top original authors by number of quotes. (Note that authors and mentions are not disambiguated.)
- Graham 43
- Russell 41
- Feynman 39
- Pratchett 30
- Chesterton 29
- Einstein 27
- Nietzsche 25
- Heinlein 23
- Dennett 22
- Johnson 20
- Bacon 20
- Wilson 19
- Newton 18
- Franklin 18
- Aaronson 18
- Shaw 17
- Darwin 17
- Taleb 16
- Dawkins 16
- Voltaire 14
- Kahneman 14
- Wittgenstein 13
- Sowell 13
- Munroe 13
- Aristotle 13
- Silver 12
- Meier 12
- Maynard 12
- Hume 12
- Asimov 12
- Stephenson 11
- Sagan 11
- Plato 11
- Orwell 11
- Moldbug 11
- Mencken 11
- Locke 11
- Huxley 11
- Hoffer 11
- Egan 11
- SMBC 10
- Pinker 10
- Peirce 10
- Neumann 10
- Keynes 10
- Harris 10
- Gould 10
- Friedman 10
- Clark 10
- Bakker 10
- Minsky 9
- Marx 9
- Leibniz 9
- Holmes 9
- Hofstadter 9
- Descartes 9
- Buffett 9
- Thoreau 8
- Jefferson 8
- Jaynes 8
- Godin 8
- Dijkstra 8
- Deutsch 8
- Crowley 8
- Aurelius 8
- Yudkowsky 7
- Wong 7
- Wilde 7
- Turing 7
- Schopenhauer 7
- Rochefoucauld 7
- Munger 7
- Mitchell 7
- Medawar 7
- Lichtenberg 7
- Hanson 7
- Goethe 7
- Diogenes 7
- Churchill 7
- Carlyle 7
- Babbage 7
↑ comment by DanielVarga · 2014-01-31T20:41:36.909Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Top original authors by karma collected:
- 800 Graham
- 564 Russell
- 434 Chesterton
- 428 Pratchett
- 395 Feynman
- 268 Franklin
- 265 Dennett
- 255 Friedman
- 238 Newton
- 238 Aaronson
- 236 Munroe
- 234 Nietzsche
- 231 Egan
- 229 Shaw
- 210 Heinlein
- 209 Aristotle
- 201 Bacon
- 193 Einstein
- 183 Wilson
- 183 Sagan
- 175 Plato
- 172 Voltaire
- 172 Stephenson
- 170 Pinker
- 169 Darwin
- 163 SMBC
- 163 Kahneman
- 160 Silver
- 151 Hofstadter
- 150 Asimov
- 149 Mencken
- 149 Dawkins
- 144 Moldbug
- 144 Godin
- 142 Johnson
- 136 Wong
- 133 Buffett
- 125 Descartes
- 122 Orwell
- 121 Taleb
- 119 Bakker
- 118 Maynard
- 114 Minsky
- 114 Hanson
- 109 Hume
- 106 Sowell
- 102 Keynes
- 98 Deutsch
- 97 Churchill
- 94 Lichtenberg
- 91 Dijkstra
- 90 Jaynes
- 90 Hoffer
- 89 Marx
- 89 Holmes
- 88 Wittgenstein
- 87 Neumann
- 87 Harris
- 85 Jefferson
- 79 Huxley
- 76 Leibniz
- 73 Wilde
- 72 Locke
- 70 Mitchell
- 65 Meier
- 62 Peirce
- 61 Munger
- 58 Clark
- 57 Gould
- 54 Aurelius
- 48 Babbage
- 47 Medawar
- 46 Crowley
- 44 Diogenes
- 41 Carlyle
- 40 Yudkowsky
- 35 Turing
- 34 Schopenhauer
- 28 Rochefoucauld
- 28 Goethe
- 27 Thoreau
↑ comment by chaosmage · 2014-02-11T16:33:26.917Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I do not recognize any names of women in this.
Replies from: Salemicus, shminux↑ comment by Salemicus · 2014-02-12T16:47:28.493Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Could you please spell out your implication? There are a number of ways to interpret your statement.
Replies from: hyporational, chaosmage↑ comment by hyporational · 2014-02-12T19:42:47.070Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
What are they?
↑ comment by chaosmage · 2014-02-12T17:03:53.031Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
From this list of authors by number of quotes, I can't distinguish this collection from a collection that is exclusive to quotes from men (and unnamed sources).
I ask to be shown a distinction, i.e. a female who was quoted seven times or more.
Or just once, really. I haven't seen even a single quote from a female when skimming the main list.
Replies from: Vaniver, Jiro↑ comment by Vaniver · 2014-02-12T20:15:35.596Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
So, I think my favorite female public rationalist is Byron Katie, who has a number of great rationality quotes, most of which boil down to this one (which is I think her only quote in the LW RQs):
When I argue with reality, I lose -- but only 100 percent of the time.
Close to it is one by Karen Pryor:
Nowadays many educated people treat reinforcement theory as if it were something not terribly important that they have known and understood all along. In fact most people don't understand it, or they would not behave so badly to the people around them.
Above that is Megan McArdle, and the highest quote I saw that was probably by a woman was this one (I didn't look in to whether or not that Ashley is female), and this is the highest one I saw I'm pretty confident was by a woman. (A number of them were attributed to internet callsigns, which are difficult to reliably map to sex.)
If you think that more female authors on the list would be an improvement, then find female rationalists who say things worth quoting, and then quote them.
↑ comment by Jiro · 2014-02-12T17:08:59.232Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
That's not your implication.
Clearly, you said that to make a point. You're not making a random observation; it's not the equivalent of "I only found five people in the list whose names are greater than 14 letters long". So what's your point?
Replies from: hyporational, chaosmage↑ comment by hyporational · 2014-02-12T19:40:29.210Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Of course the observation isn't random. Gender imbalance is obviously more interesting than name length and the difference in curiosity needs no justification.
Let's help chaosmage express himself a bit: "I do not recognize any names of women in this. I wonder why that is."
Discuss.
Replies from: Vaniver↑ comment by Vaniver · 2014-02-12T20:20:56.956Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Gender imbalance is obviously more interesting than name length and the difference in curiosity needs no justification.
Which interest is not obvious. Here's a handful of possible points which could be made by that observation:
- Women generate less and worse rationality quotes then men.
- LW does not post rationality quotes generated by women as frequently.
- LW does not upvote rationality quotes generated by women as frequently.
Someone trying to make the first point, and someone trying to make the third point, have radically different interpretations of the observed data, and the resulting conversation will be very different depending on which point you think they're trying to make.
Replies from: hyporational, chaosmage↑ comment by hyporational · 2014-02-12T20:45:44.841Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
What's the reason we have to browbeat him to constrain the discussion to some specific point? To me it's obvious several points could be made and the observation could be a sufficient discussion starter.
Replies from: Vaniver↑ comment by Vaniver · 2014-02-12T21:38:35.105Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
What's the reason we have to browbeat him to constrain the discussion to some specific point?
Particularly on political issues, a "I observed X. Discuss." has the potential to be a trap. Each of the points I made in the grandparent post can be construed as a political attack- the first on women, the second two on the LW community- and simultaneously attacking everyone because of a lack of clarity is, generally speaking, a conversational and political mistake. It's not obvious which issue to engage with, and engaging with the incorrect issue is dangerous.
Replies from: hyporational, Lumifer↑ comment by hyporational · 2014-02-13T06:34:10.986Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
It's not difficult to deduce what kind of a response to the implication question is a socially acceptable one. I might also have no implication. Even if my implication was benign I wouldn't give you the answer. I don't want to reward coercion or biasing a conversation before it's even started. I don't know why people pretend to expect honest answers to such questioning.
If you expect everyone to be totally biased in the conversation then instead of picking the right soldiers for the battle I would suggest concluding that the topic is simply too political to discuss in a rational manner.
If you browbeat people for making observations on issues that might need fixing you're limiting your options for doing any fixing.
Replies from: Jiro↑ comment by Jiro · 2014-02-13T07:57:53.161Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
It's not difficult to deduce what kind of a response to the implication question is a socially acceptable one.
If you are saying that he can figure out whether lying or telling the truth about his implication is socially acceptable, sure.
The real problem is that he already had an implication, but he's using the fact that it's an implication to maintain plausible deniability by not coming out and saying it. Saying it may be socially unacceptable, but that's because making the implication is also socially unacceptable.
Replies from: hyporational↑ comment by hyporational · 2014-02-13T08:25:06.134Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
It seems to me you've already decided what he was trying to imply. It might not be wise to do that based on such a simple remark.
If he brought it up to point out there should be more women on the list, you've likely just lost an ally. You've pretty much also lost the opportunity to make that point to anyone who noticed your prejudice.
↑ comment by Lumifer · 2014-02-12T21:54:53.153Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
has the potential to be a trap ... engaging with the incorrect issue is dangerous.
What kind of danger are we talking about?
Replies from: Vaniver↑ comment by Vaniver · 2014-02-13T01:27:19.830Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Psychic and social- it'd be difficult for it to be physical! Implying someone is a cryptosexist when they are a feminist, or implying that they are a feminist when they are a cryptosexist, is likely to be a good way to offend them (or make them think poorly of you), and then there are coalition politics to consider.
↑ comment by chaosmage · 2014-02-13T15:31:24.257Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I'm not trying to be political here, and I don't think this is about LW or rationality, at all. If that observation is to have a point, I'd suggest an entirely different one:
- quotation is a very male form of communication - women quote less and get quoted less
It isn't just that scripture, constitutions and classics of literature were mostly written by men. Or that men just write more, in science, in journalism, in genre fiction etc. and almost all quotes are from written, rather than spoken expression... That's all just the "being quoted" side of it. But the quoter participates, and I think quoters are usually male too. Even The Simpsons get quoted mostly by guys rather than than girls, at least around me...
Replies from: Vaniver↑ comment by Vaniver · 2014-02-13T20:11:31.235Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
It's clear to me how quotation as a male form of communication would mean that women quote less, which you could check by comparing the usernames of quoters to the post-weighted sex distriubtion on LW. It's not as clear to me how it would mean women get quoted less- that would have to be either because of my first or second explanations. (I'm counting "men quote men more frequently than they quote women, and men dominate LW" as part of my second point.)
↑ comment by chaosmage · 2014-02-13T15:34:26.056Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I honestly didn't have one. I was just noticing my confusion.
Now that you ask, I've come up with the hypothesis that (verbatim) quotation as a form of communication is very male: men quote men far more than women quote women. I do not have a hypothesis on whether women quote men more than men quote women, or vice versa.
Replies from: Creutzer↑ comment by Creutzer · 2014-02-13T17:18:13.156Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Given that historically, men have simply written more than women and more often acquired positions that made you famous enough to be quoted, I would expect that men just get quoted more often in general. The question whether men also actively quote more than women is another one.
↑ comment by Shmi (shminux) · 2014-02-12T21:10:24.299Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Looks like you and everyone else who argued for validity of your trivial subjective observation have been punished by the local knee-jerk feminists, troubled by the unstated potential implications.
I suspect that if you phrased it as "I wish there were [more] women on this list", you would get a land-slide upvote from the same crowd, while expressing basically the same point.
Replies from: Vaniver↑ comment by Vaniver · 2014-02-12T21:32:57.701Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Looks like you and everyone else who argued for validity of your trivial subjective observation have been punished by the local knee-jerk feminists, troubled by the unstated potential implications.
Um, at present it looks like the grandparent has a single downvote?
↑ comment by ChristianKl · 2014-02-02T01:02:35.130Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
16 times Taleb and 13 times Nassim. What's happening hear, is there another Nassim?
Replies from: shokwave↑ comment by shokwave · 2014-02-02T13:11:09.472Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
From looking at the scripts, it appears first and last names (actually, all capitalised words I think) were counted separately ("Neal: 11, Stephenson: 11" and "Munroe: 13, Randall: 11", etc) and first names were handedited out (so that's why both Nassim and Taleb are on the list).
The answer is somewhere between "Nassim Taleb was quoted 16 times, and three of those times the attribution was just 'Taleb'" and "Nassim Taleb was quoted 13 times and was mentioned in three other quotes (since he's a controversial figure)".
Replies from: DanielVarga↑ comment by DanielVarga · 2014-02-03T02:20:35.834Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Yes. To be exact, not all capitalized words, but all capitalized words that my English spellchecker does not recognize. With all capitalized words the list would start like this:
- 1523 I
- 1327 The
- 558 It
- 428 If
- 379 But
Of course the spellchecking method is itself a source of errors. Previous years I never felt like manually correcting these, but checking now it seems like these were the main victims:
- Graham 43
- Bacon 20
- Newton 18
- Franklin 18
- Shaw 17
- Silver 12
- Pinker 10
Graham is actually number one. I added them to this list, and also to the "Top original authors by karma collected" list. Not retroactively, though, just for 2013.
Replies from: shokwave↑ comment by shokwave · 2014-02-03T16:18:19.749Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
With all capitalized words the list would start like this:
You know that feeling you get when you're coding, and you write something poorly and briefly expect it to Do What You Mean, before being abruptly corrected by the output? I think I just had that feeling at long distance.
comment by DanielVarga · 2014-01-31T20:36:03.020Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Top quote contributors by total (2009-2013) karma score collected:
- 1283 RichardKennaway
- 895 gwern
- 843 Alejandro1
- 815 GabrielDuquette
- 777 Eliezer_Yudkowsky
- 753 James_Miller
- 751 Eugine_Nier
- 735 Rain
- 715 MichaelGR
- 662 Jayson_Virissimo
- 660 lukeprog
- 619 Stabilizer
- 599 NancyLebovitz
- 585 Konkvistador
- 572 anonym
- 436 CronoDAS
- 415 RobinZ
- 408 Yvain
- 358 Alicorn
- 350 Grognor
- 342 Tesseract
- 316 arundelo
- 309 Kaj_Sotala
- 304 DSimon
- 300 Vaniver
- 285 Oscar_Cunningham
- 283 peter_hurford
- 270 Nominull
- 270 [deleted]
- 258 billswift
- 245 Thomas
- 244 katydee
- 240 shminux
- 240 jsbennett86
- 235 Kutta
- 222 roland
- 215 RolfAndreassen
- 215 MinibearRex
- 199 Will_Newsome
- 185 Qiaochu_Yuan
↑ comment by DanielVarga · 2014-01-31T20:37:27.292Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Top quote contributors of 2013 by statistical significance level:
- 0.00091 (61.00 in 2): gotdistractedbythe
- 0.00235 (34.60 in 5): philh
- 0.00511 (31.80 in 5): Mestroyer
- 0.00695 (21.21 in 19): James_Miller
- 0.00882 (55.00 in 1): westward
- 0.00882 (55.00 in 1): Zando
- 0.01319 (21.00 in 16): Stabilizer
- 0.01365 (30.00 in 4): Kaj_Sotala
- 0.01471 (52.00 in 1): VincentYu
- 0.01558 (36.50 in 2): sediment
- 0.01923 (21.58 in 12): Alejandro1
- 0.02115 (30.33 in 3): Particleman
- 0.02344 (23.12 in 8): Qiaochu_Yuan
- 0.02491 (33.50 in 2): MinibearRex
- 0.04559 (37.00 in 1): nabeelqu
- 0.05000 (36.00 in 1): andreas
- 0.05000 (36.00 in 1): NoisyEmpire
- 0.06794 (23.00 in 4): ShardPhoenix
- 0.08824 (32.00 in 1): David_Gerard
- 0.08824 (32.00 in 1): Dentin
- 0.09853 (31.00 in 1): HungryHippo
- 0.10441 (30.00 in 1): ciphergoth
- 0.11119 (19.50 in 6): dspeyer
- 0.11176 (29.00 in 1): roystgnr
- 0.11176 (29.00 in 1): Turgurth
- 0.11242 (17.91 in 11): GabrielDuquette
- 0.12794 (27.00 in 1): JonMcGuire
- 0.12794 (27.00 in 1): XerxesPraelor
- 0.13156 (17.33 in 12): jsbennett86
- 0.14339 (20.67 in 3): Nomad
- 0.14559 (26.00 in 1): Creutzer
- 0.14559 (26.00 in 1): curiousepic
- 0.14559 (26.00 in 1): etotheipi
- 0.14636 (22.00 in 2): Will_Newsome
- 0.14978 (19.50 in 4): snafoo
- 0.16765 (25.00 in 1): BlueSun
- 0.16765 (25.00 in 1): Carwajalca
- 0.16765 (25.00 in 1): pewpewlasergun
- 0.16765 (25.00 in 1): Rubix
- 0.16765 (25.00 in 1): SatvikBeri
↑ comment by [deleted] · 2014-02-09T05:44:23.416Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I posted 2 rationality quotes that year, but the one from may attracted a surprising number of upvotes. It seems a little unfair that Anna Salamon's checklist of rationality habits, one of the top five best html documents I've found ever, has only a couple points more. Other users had already opined that karma is a bit broken as a measure, but that was when I started to alieve it. It's amused me to see other users want to submit posts and ask for free karma, because LW is already handing out free karma pretty much
↑ comment by gwern · 2014-01-31T23:08:08.164Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I am a little chagrined that though I am #2 by total karma, I have only 2 in the bests list. Seems I need to be a little more selective in the future.
Replies from: DanielVarga↑ comment by DanielVarga · 2014-02-01T00:05:25.025Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
You are #2 by karma collected from 2009 to 2013, not just in 2013. You earned an average of 8.20 karma points from 5 quotes in 2013, and an average of 11.05 karma points from 81 quotes in total, which is near to a P-value of 0.5 in my statistical test.
Replies from: gwern↑ comment by gwern · 2014-02-01T00:20:38.015Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Oh, these are all cumulative lifetime total karma scores...? I thought these numbers were just for 2013.
Replies from: DanielVarga↑ comment by DanielVarga · 2014-02-01T00:32:48.673Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Those numbers are also there, in this child comment. I edited the comment to make it clear.
↑ comment by DanielVarga · 2014-01-31T20:36:45.303Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Top quote contributors by karma score collected in 2013:
- 512 Eugine_Nier
- 403 James_Miller
- 336 Stabilizer
- 259 Alejandro1
- 208 jsbennett86
- 197 GabrielDuquette
- 195 Vaniver
- 185 Qiaochu_Yuan
- 180 shminux
- 175 lukeprog
- 173 philh
- 165 RolfAndreassen
- 159 Mestroyer
- 149 Pablo_Stafforini
- 141 NancyLebovitz
- 140 Eliezer_Yudkowsky
- 133 Zubon
- 133 Jayson_Virissimo
- 122 gotdistractedbythe
- 120 Kaj_Sotala
- 118 JQuinton
- 118 BT_Uytya
- 117 dspeyer
- 114 cody-bryce
- 112 satt
- 92 ShardPhoenix
- 91 Particleman
- 84 katydee
- 82 elharo
- 78 snafoo
- 74 Cthulhoo
- 74 Benito
- 73 sediment
- 72 arundelo
- 71 tingram
- 67 MinibearRex
- 63 pjeby
- 62 Nomad
- 62 CronoDAS
- 60 RichardKennaway