(Both agreeing with and refining your position, and directed less to you than the audience):
Personally, I’m at level 21, and I’m trying to raise the rest of you to my level.
Now, before you take that as a serious statement, ask yourself how you feel about that proposition, and how inclined you would be to take anything I said seriously if I actually believed that. Think about to what extent I behave like I -do- believe that, and how that changes the way what I say is perceived.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/m70/visions_and_mirages_the_sunk_cost_dilemma/ ← This post, and pretty much all of my comments, had reasonably high upvotes before I revealed what I was up to. Now, I’m not going to say it didn’t deserve to get downvoted—I learned a lot from that post that I should have known going into it—but I’d like to point out the fundamental similarities, but scaled up a level, between what I do there, and typical rationalist “education”. “Here’s a thing. It was a trick! Look at how easily I tricked you! You should now listen to what I say about how to avoid getting tricked in the future.” Worse, cognitive dissonance will make it harder to fix that weakness in the future. As I said, I learned a -lot- in that post; I tried to shove at least four levels of plots and education into it, and instead, turned people off with the first or second one. I hope I taught people something, but in retrospect, and far removed from it, I think it was probably a complete and total failure which mostly served to alienate people from the lessons I was attempted to impart.
The first step to making stupid people slightly less stupid is to make them realize the way in which they’re stupid in the first place, so that they become willing to fix it. But you can’t do that, because, obviously, people really dislike being told they’re stupid. Because there are some issues inherent in approaching other people with the assumption that they’re less than you, and that they should accept your help in raising them up. You’re asserting a higher status than them. They’re going to resent that, and cognitive dissonance is going to make them decide that the thing you’re better at, either you aren’t, or that it isn’t that important. So if you think that you can make “stupid people slightly less stupid”, you’re completely incompetent at the task.
But… show them that -you- are stupid, and show them you becoming less stupid, and cognitive dissonance will tell them that they were smarter than you, and that they already knew what you were trying to teach them. That’s a huge part of what made the Sequences so successful—riddled throughout it were admissions of Eliezer’s own weakness. “This is a mistake I made. This is what I realized. This is how I started to get past that mistake.” What made them failures, however, is the way they made those who read them feel Enlightened, like they had just Leveled Up twenty times and were now far above ordinary plebeians. The critical failure of the Sequences is that they didn’t teach humility; the lesson you -should- come away from them with is the idea that, however much Less Wrong you’ve become, you’re still deeply, deeply wrong. And that’s okay.
Which provokes a dilemma. Everybody who wants to teach rationality to others, because it leveled them up twenty times and look at those stupid people falling prey to the non-central fallacy on a constant basis, are completely unsuitable to do so.
This is a pretty confusing point. I have plenty of articles where I admit my failures and discuss how I learned to succeed.
Secondly, I have only started publishing on Lifehacker—published 3 so far—and my articles way outperform the average of being shared under 1K. This is the average for experienced and non-experienced writers alike. My articles have all been shared over 1K times, and some twice as much if not more. The fact that they are shared so widely is demonstrable evidence that I understand my audience and engage it well.
BTW, curious if any of these discussions have caused you to update on any of your claims to any extent?
I now assign negligible odds to the possibility that you’re a sociopath (used as a shorthand for any of a number of hostile personality disorders) masquerading as a normal person masquerading as a sociopath, and somewhat lower odds on you being a sociopath outright, with the majority of assigned probability concentrating on “normal person masquerading as sociopath” now. (Whether that’s how you would describe what you do or not, that’s how I would describe it, because the way you write lights up my “Predator” alarm board like a nearby nuke lights up a “Check Engine” light.)
The fact that they are shared so widely is demonstrable evidence that I understand my audience and engage it well.
Demonstrable evidence that you do so better than average isn’t the same as demonstrable evidence that you do so well.
Thanks for sharing about your updating! I am indeed a normal person, and have to put a lot of effort into this style of writing for the sake of what I perceive as a beneficial outcome.
I personally have updated away from you trolling me and see you as more engaged in a genuine debate and discussion. I see we have vastly different views on the methods of getting there, but we do seem to have broadly shared goals.
Fair enough on different interpretations of the word “well.” As I said, my articles have done twice as well as the average for Lifehack articles, so we can both agree that it is demonstrable evidence of a significant and above-average level of competency on an area where I am just starting − 3 articles so far—although the term “well” is more fuzzy.
The critical failure of the Sequences is that they didn’t teach humility; the lesson you -should- come away from them with is the idea that, however much Less Wrong you’ve become, you’re still deeply, deeply wrong.
Mmm. I typically dislike framings where A teaches B, instead of framings where B learns from A.
The Sequences certainly tried to teach humility, and some of us learned humility from The Sequences. I mean, it’s right there in the name that one is trying to asymptotically remove wrongness.
The main failing, if you want to put it that way, is that this is an online text and discussion forum, rather than a dojo. Eliezer doesn’t give people gold stars that say “yep, you got the humility part down,” and unsurprisingly people are not as good at determining that themselves as they’d like to be.
Mmm. I typically dislike framings where A teaches B, instead of framings where B learns from A.
Then perhaps you’ve framed the problem you’re trying to solve in this thread wrong. [ETA: Whoops. Thought I was talking to Villiam. This makes less-than-sense directed to you.]
The Sequences certainly tried to teach humility, and some of us learned humility from The Sequences. I mean, it’s right there in the name that one is trying to asymptotically remove wrongness.
I don’t think that humility can be taught in this sense, only earned through making crucial mistakes, over and over again. Eliezer learned humility through making mistakes, mistakes he learned from; the practice of teaching rationality is the practice of having students skip those mistakes.
The main failing, if you want to put it that way, is that this is an online text and discussion forum, rather than a dojo. Eliezer doesn’t give people gold stars that say “yep, you got the humility part down,” and unsurprisingly people are not as good at determining that themselves as they’d like to be.
Then perhaps you’ve framed the problem you’re trying to solve in this thread wrong.
Oh, I definitely agree with you that trying to teach rationality to others to fix them, instead of providing a resource for interested people to learn rationality, is deeply mistaken. Where I disagree with you is the (implicit?) claim that the Sequences were written to teach instead of being a resource for learning.
I don’t think that humility can be taught in this sense, only earned through making crucial mistakes, over and over again.
Mmm. I favor Bismarck on this front. It certainly helps if the mistakes are yours, but they don’t have to be. I also think it helps to emphasize the possibility of learning sooner rather than later; to abort mistakes as soon as they’re noticed, rather than when it’s no longer possible to maintain them.
Ah! My apologies. Thought I was talking to Villiam. My responses may have made less than perfect sense.
I favor Bismarck on this front. It certainly helps if the mistakes are yours, but they don’t have to be.
You can learn from mistakes, but you don’t learn what it feels like to make mistakes (which is to say, exactly the same as making the right decision).
I also think it helps to emphasize the possibility of learning sooner rather than later; to abort mistakes as soon as they’re noticed, rather than when it’s no longer possible to maintain them.
That’s where humility is important, and where the experience of having made mistakes helps. Making mistakes doesn’t feel any different from not making mistakes. There’s a sense that I wouldn’t make that mistake, once warned about it—and thinking you won’t make a mistake is itself a mistake, quite obviously. Less obviously, thinking you will make mistakes, but that you’ll necessarily notice them, is also a mistake.
(Both agreeing with and refining your position, and directed less to you than the audience):
Personally, I’m at level 21, and I’m trying to raise the rest of you to my level.
Now, before you take that as a serious statement, ask yourself how you feel about that proposition, and how inclined you would be to take anything I said seriously if I actually believed that. Think about to what extent I behave like I -do- believe that, and how that changes the way what I say is perceived.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/m70/visions_and_mirages_the_sunk_cost_dilemma/ ← This post, and pretty much all of my comments, had reasonably high upvotes before I revealed what I was up to. Now, I’m not going to say it didn’t deserve to get downvoted—I learned a lot from that post that I should have known going into it—but I’d like to point out the fundamental similarities, but scaled up a level, between what I do there, and typical rationalist “education”. “Here’s a thing. It was a trick! Look at how easily I tricked you! You should now listen to what I say about how to avoid getting tricked in the future.” Worse, cognitive dissonance will make it harder to fix that weakness in the future. As I said, I learned a -lot- in that post; I tried to shove at least four levels of plots and education into it, and instead, turned people off with the first or second one. I hope I taught people something, but in retrospect, and far removed from it, I think it was probably a complete and total failure which mostly served to alienate people from the lessons I was attempted to impart.
The first step to making stupid people slightly less stupid is to make them realize the way in which they’re stupid in the first place, so that they become willing to fix it. But you can’t do that, because, obviously, people really dislike being told they’re stupid. Because there are some issues inherent in approaching other people with the assumption that they’re less than you, and that they should accept your help in raising them up. You’re asserting a higher status than them. They’re going to resent that, and cognitive dissonance is going to make them decide that the thing you’re better at, either you aren’t, or that it isn’t that important. So if you think that you can make “stupid people slightly less stupid”, you’re completely incompetent at the task.
But… show them that -you- are stupid, and show them you becoming less stupid, and cognitive dissonance will tell them that they were smarter than you, and that they already knew what you were trying to teach them. That’s a huge part of what made the Sequences so successful—riddled throughout it were admissions of Eliezer’s own weakness. “This is a mistake I made. This is what I realized. This is how I started to get past that mistake.” What made them failures, however, is the way they made those who read them feel Enlightened, like they had just Leveled Up twenty times and were now far above ordinary plebeians. The critical failure of the Sequences is that they didn’t teach humility; the lesson you -should- come away from them with is the idea that, however much Less Wrong you’ve become, you’re still deeply, deeply wrong. And that’s okay.
Which provokes a dilemma. Everybody who wants to teach rationality to others, because it leveled them up twenty times and look at those stupid people falling prey to the non-central fallacy on a constant basis, are completely unsuitable to do so.
So did I succeed? Or did I fail? And why?
This is a pretty confusing point. I have plenty of articles where I admit my failures and discuss how I learned to succeed.
Secondly, I have only started publishing on Lifehacker—published 3 so far—and my articles way outperform the average of being shared under 1K. This is the average for experienced and non-experienced writers alike. My articles have all been shared over 1K times, and some twice as much if not more. The fact that they are shared so widely is demonstrable evidence that I understand my audience and engage it well.
BTW, curious if any of these discussions have caused you to update on any of your claims to any extent?
I now assign negligible odds to the possibility that you’re a sociopath (used as a shorthand for any of a number of hostile personality disorders) masquerading as a normal person masquerading as a sociopath, and somewhat lower odds on you being a sociopath outright, with the majority of assigned probability concentrating on “normal person masquerading as sociopath” now. (Whether that’s how you would describe what you do or not, that’s how I would describe it, because the way you write lights up my “Predator” alarm board like a nearby nuke lights up a “Check Engine” light.)
Demonstrable evidence that you do so better than average isn’t the same as demonstrable evidence that you do so well.
Thanks for sharing about your updating! I am indeed a normal person, and have to put a lot of effort into this style of writing for the sake of what I perceive as a beneficial outcome.
I personally have updated away from you trolling me and see you as more engaged in a genuine debate and discussion. I see we have vastly different views on the methods of getting there, but we do seem to have broadly shared goals.
Fair enough on different interpretations of the word “well.” As I said, my articles have done twice as well as the average for Lifehack articles, so we can both agree that it is demonstrable evidence of a significant and above-average level of competency on an area where I am just starting − 3 articles so far—although the term “well” is more fuzzy.
Mmm. I typically dislike framings where A teaches B, instead of framings where B learns from A.
The Sequences certainly tried to teach humility, and some of us learned humility from The Sequences. I mean, it’s right there in the name that one is trying to asymptotically remove wrongness.
The main failing, if you want to put it that way, is that this is an online text and discussion forum, rather than a dojo. Eliezer doesn’t give people gold stars that say “yep, you got the humility part down,” and unsurprisingly people are not as good at determining that themselves as they’d like to be.
Then perhaps you’ve framed the problem you’re trying to solve in this thread wrong. [ETA: Whoops. Thought I was talking to Villiam. This makes less-than-sense directed to you.]
I don’t think that humility can be taught in this sense, only earned through making crucial mistakes, over and over again. Eliezer learned humility through making mistakes, mistakes he learned from; the practice of teaching rationality is the practice of having students skip those mistakes.
He shouldn’t, even if he could.
Oh, I definitely agree with you that trying to teach rationality to others to fix them, instead of providing a resource for interested people to learn rationality, is deeply mistaken. Where I disagree with you is the (implicit?) claim that the Sequences were written to teach instead of being a resource for learning.
Mmm. I favor Bismarck on this front. It certainly helps if the mistakes are yours, but they don’t have to be. I also think it helps to emphasize the possibility of learning sooner rather than later; to abort mistakes as soon as they’re noticed, rather than when it’s no longer possible to maintain them.
Ah! My apologies. Thought I was talking to Villiam. My responses may have made less than perfect sense.
You can learn from mistakes, but you don’t learn what it feels like to make mistakes (which is to say, exactly the same as making the right decision).
That’s where humility is important, and where the experience of having made mistakes helps. Making mistakes doesn’t feel any different from not making mistakes. There’s a sense that I wouldn’t make that mistake, once warned about it—and thinking you won’t make a mistake is itself a mistake, quite obviously. Less obviously, thinking you will make mistakes, but that you’ll necessarily notice them, is also a mistake.
The solution to the meta-level confusion (it’s turtles all the way down, anyway) is to spend a few years building up an immunity to iocane powder.