Most of the rationality minded people I know, especially including myself, have a strong tendency to dispute the status quo, and disagree with authority just for the fun of it. So I imagine that if I came across LW in that setting, I would have criticized it in my blog comment just because it was non-conformist and required more original thinking. So the ones saying the most positive things about it are either the smartest ones, who realize how great we are, or the conformist ones, who just want the professor to like them.
Most of the rationality minded people I know, especially including myself, have a strong tendency to dispute the status quo, and disagree with authority just for the fun of it. So I imagine that if I came across LW in that setting, I would have criticized it in my blog comment just because it was non-conformist and required more original thinking.
I feel the same way. I think that intelligent people tend to do that because intelligent-sounding disagreement is more difficult than intelligent-sounding agreement, and thus a better way of signaling their intelligence to other smart people.
I would say it was the other way around. It’s easy to be against something, and it sets you above whatever you’re criticising. It’s much more difficult to sound smart while agreeing with something.
I discount the smart-soundingness of whatever I read accordingly.
ETA: Maybe that’s one reason for this phenomenon: people trying to sound smart instead of trying to be smart.
disagreeing is a stronger signal of intelligence than agreeing
If you agree, you signal that you are on the same level as the one you review. When people agree with authorities, it raises their status.
If you disagree, you signal that you are on higher level than the one you review. When you disagree with someone in your circle, you challenge them to status fight. But when you disagree with an outsider, you are only collecting free karma.
Agreeing is easier, you simply write: “After reading the article, I have realized that (summary of the article) is true, and it impressed me deeply.” (A few responses on the professor’s blog are exactly like this.) If you disagree, you must have some contrary opinion: “I disagree with X, because the truth is Y.” In some situations, you can use some cached wisdom for Y, so it may be easy… unless then someone challenges you to fight by disagreeing with Y.
My guess is that the professor liked LW. Therefore students understand that agreeing with LW means agreeing with the professor. For most people, safety comes first, so I would expect most people to agree with LW, and only one or two to signal intelligence by disagreeing. (If the professor would be critical of LW, I would expect most students to disagree, and perhaps one to agree. My expectations are a bit assymetrical, because disagreeing with criticism is weaker signal than disagreeing with praise.)
Tabooing the word “status”, I simply mean that it is SAFE to guess your teacher’s password, but it is COOL to criticize. I expect most people to prefer SAFE to COOL. These are my expectations:
If group of people who know each other reads a new website… most people will not care (but may wait for group consensus, to be safe), some people will criticize it to be COOL.
If group of people who know each other reads a new website, because their professor told them so, and it seems like the professor likes the website… most people will write savourless praise, because it’s SAFE, one or two will criticize, because it’s COOL. -- This is what I believe has happened.
If group of people who know each other reads a new website, because their professor told them so, and it seems like the professor dislikes the website… most people will write hasty criticism, because it is both SAFE and COOL. Only an exceptional meta-contrarian will write careful praise, because he has a different definition of COOL. -- This is irrelevant to article, I just followed my thoughts further.
Now I am not sure if I did the tabooing thing correctly; seems like I just replaced “status” with “cool”. Well, at least it was a move in good direction, because “status” is a hypothesis, while “cool” is something we emotionally perceive.
If group of people who know each other reads a new website, because their professor told them so, and it seems like the professor dislikes the website… most people will write hasty criticism, because it is both SAFE and COOL. Only an exceptional meta-contrarian will write careful praise, because he has a different definition of COOL.
I’m not so sure about the label “exceptional meta-contrarian”. I mean, I do this, but generally just because I disrespect my professors and enjoy getting in arguments with them if I think I can win. Does that count?
I am not qualified to answer this, because I do have no idea how dangerous your professors are or what are the possible consequences of disrespecting them. Or how socially dangerous is in your group to praise things that others criticize.
This is a general problem when speaking about real-life things—many words (e.g. “dangerous” and “cool” in my comment) do have meaning, but at the same time they cover such a large spectrum of intensity that what you can say about one end of spectrum is often not true about the other end of spectrum. Disagreeing with some professors is dangerous (can significantly lower your chance of successfully finishing the school), disagreeing with others is harmless, and there are many shades of gray between (e.g. they can make your next hours somehow unpleasant, but no long-term consequences).
On a second thought, I should not have used the word “meta-contrarian”. It just seemed cool and related. What I really meant was this—if professor likes the page, it is usually COOL to criticize it. But if the professor dislikes the page, then it is both COOL to criticize it (you oppose the page) and to praise it (you oppose professor), so in that situation the cool-maximizing crowd will be divided, resulting with less people who oppose the professor.
Agree about ‘spectrum of intensity’ - my first reaction to “I have no idea how dangerous your professors are” was “Well it’s not like they carry shivs or anything.”
what are the possible consequences of disrespecting them
I meant as a judgement, not an action. I actually find myself more conscientious about displaying signals of respect (addressing them as “Dr. Such-and-such”, quietly paying attention, etc) to a professor I think is stupid. To use the language of “status” just-so stories, if I believe myself demonstrably more intelligent than someone, I only benefit by making them out to be high status—because that must mean I’m even higher status.
Agree. Intelligent sounding agreement that doesn’t sound awkward is hard. I find it stretches the creativity far more and all else being equal leaves you sounding less impressive than the original speaker.
ETA: Maybe that’s one reason for this phenomenon: people trying to sound smart instead of trying to be smart.
Agree technically. Yes, that is one reason that our kind can’t cooperate. Of course I would reverse the connotation that our kind makes that particular mistake more than others.
My impression is that we—geekish people in general—do this a lot more than others. Uttering any generalisation seems to trigger people to respond with an exception, no matter how nugatory or irrelevant.
Most of the rationality minded people I know, especially including myself, have a strong tendency to dispute the status quo, and disagree with authority just for the fun of it. So I imagine that if I came across LW in that setting, I would have criticized it in my blog comment just because it was non-conformist and required more original thinking. So the ones saying the most positive things about it are either the smartest ones, who realize how great we are, or the conformist ones, who just want the professor to like them.
I feel the same way. I think that intelligent people tend to do that because intelligent-sounding disagreement is more difficult than intelligent-sounding agreement, and thus a better way of signaling their intelligence to other smart people.
I would say it was the other way around. It’s easy to be against something, and it sets you above whatever you’re criticising. It’s much more difficult to sound smart while agreeing with something.
I discount the smart-soundingness of whatever I read accordingly.
ETA: Maybe that’s one reason for this phenomenon: people trying to sound smart instead of trying to be smart.
IMHO there are two things to consider:
agreeing is easier than disagreeing
disagreeing is a stronger signal of intelligence than agreeing
If you agree, you signal that you are on the same level as the one you review. When people agree with authorities, it raises their status.
If you disagree, you signal that you are on higher level than the one you review. When you disagree with someone in your circle, you challenge them to status fight. But when you disagree with an outsider, you are only collecting free karma.
Agreeing is easier, you simply write: “After reading the article, I have realized that (summary of the article) is true, and it impressed me deeply.” (A few responses on the professor’s blog are exactly like this.) If you disagree, you must have some contrary opinion: “I disagree with X, because the truth is Y.” In some situations, you can use some cached wisdom for Y, so it may be easy… unless then someone challenges you to fight by disagreeing with Y.
My guess is that the professor liked LW. Therefore students understand that agreeing with LW means agreeing with the professor. For most people, safety comes first, so I would expect most people to agree with LW, and only one or two to signal intelligence by disagreeing. (If the professor would be critical of LW, I would expect most students to disagree, and perhaps one to agree. My expectations are a bit assymetrical, because disagreeing with criticism is weaker signal than disagreeing with praise.)
Truly, “status” is as productive of just-so stories as evolutionary psychology.
Tabooing the word “status”, I simply mean that it is SAFE to guess your teacher’s password, but it is COOL to criticize. I expect most people to prefer SAFE to COOL. These are my expectations:
If group of people who know each other reads a new website… most people will not care (but may wait for group consensus, to be safe), some people will criticize it to be COOL.
If group of people who know each other reads a new website, because their professor told them so, and it seems like the professor likes the website… most people will write savourless praise, because it’s SAFE, one or two will criticize, because it’s COOL. -- This is what I believe has happened.
If group of people who know each other reads a new website, because their professor told them so, and it seems like the professor dislikes the website… most people will write hasty criticism, because it is both SAFE and COOL. Only an exceptional meta-contrarian will write careful praise, because he has a different definition of COOL. -- This is irrelevant to article, I just followed my thoughts further.
Now I am not sure if I did the tabooing thing correctly; seems like I just replaced “status” with “cool”. Well, at least it was a move in good direction, because “status” is a hypothesis, while “cool” is something we emotionally perceive.
I’m not so sure about the label “exceptional meta-contrarian”. I mean, I do this, but generally just because I disrespect my professors and enjoy getting in arguments with them if I think I can win. Does that count?
I am not qualified to answer this, because I do have no idea how dangerous your professors are or what are the possible consequences of disrespecting them. Or how socially dangerous is in your group to praise things that others criticize.
This is a general problem when speaking about real-life things—many words (e.g. “dangerous” and “cool” in my comment) do have meaning, but at the same time they cover such a large spectrum of intensity that what you can say about one end of spectrum is often not true about the other end of spectrum. Disagreeing with some professors is dangerous (can significantly lower your chance of successfully finishing the school), disagreeing with others is harmless, and there are many shades of gray between (e.g. they can make your next hours somehow unpleasant, but no long-term consequences).
On a second thought, I should not have used the word “meta-contrarian”. It just seemed cool and related. What I really meant was this—if professor likes the page, it is usually COOL to criticize it. But if the professor dislikes the page, then it is both COOL to criticize it (you oppose the page) and to praise it (you oppose professor), so in that situation the cool-maximizing crowd will be divided, resulting with less people who oppose the professor.
Agree about ‘spectrum of intensity’ - my first reaction to “I have no idea how dangerous your professors are” was “Well it’s not like they carry shivs or anything.”
I meant as a judgement, not an action. I actually find myself more conscientious about displaying signals of respect (addressing them as “Dr. Such-and-such”, quietly paying attention, etc) to a professor I think is stupid. To use the language of “status” just-so stories, if I believe myself demonstrably more intelligent than someone, I only benefit by making them out to be high status—because that must mean I’m even higher status.
Agree. Intelligent sounding agreement that doesn’t sound awkward is hard. I find it stretches the creativity far more and all else being equal leaves you sounding less impressive than the original speaker.
Agree technically. Yes, that is one reason that our kind can’t cooperate. Of course I would reverse the connotation that our kind makes that particular mistake more than others.
My impression is that we—geekish people in general—do this a lot more than others. Uttering any generalisation seems to trigger people to respond with an exception, no matter how nugatory or irrelevant.
ETA: See also Well, actually.