Comment by endless_steve on Fictional Evidence vs. Fictional Insight · 2010-01-10T16:39:47.750Z · LW · GW

When interpreting a story (or news, for that matter), I find it helpful to remember that my interpretation lies on a spectrum between pure insight and unhelpful distraction (or worse). Way back when, reading 1984, I felt like I'd gotten an amazingly useful new perspective. In retrospect, it got me overly-paranoid and I had to review what I'd taken away from it.

The nice thing about Eliezer's stories is that they're much harder to accidentally take as fictional evidence. They come off as obviously ridiculous, so there isn't much danger that you'll accidentally interpret those worlds as instructive of our own. Easy to use correctly; hard to use incorrectly.