Oddbean new post about | logout
 I'm sure that's true. I just think he maybe should be holding a few more ideas back and workshoping them for a private audience. 

For instance, using the English language as an example for his vision of how a brilliant useful protocol should change, very slowly over time only with careful consideration. Yet English changes in a very anarchic way, sporadically, regionally, in spurts, and sometimes quite drastically. There is no one consensus version of English. And "official" changes within dictionaries and textbooks are recognized only after a certain level of common usage has been adopted in a region, not because anyone has carefully considered each change and come to consensus that it is good for the protocol and protects the rights of all the current English users.