The first year I spent time reading Less Wrong, I had to deliberately pull back and carefully moderate my time on Less Wrong because I saw the signs that it was affecting my mental stability. A large component of this was the new ideas, but also culture shock and another large component was getting used to the strange social interaction—the drawn-out timescale and the feel of an anonymous, infinite audience is quite different in comment threads than anything I’d been used to.
When I first started writing comments, I wanted to train myself to speak more bravely, but I actually grew more sensitive before growing more brave. Now, probably a good 2-3 years later, my interaction with Less Wrong feels more or less ‘normal’ and the probability of instability is much lower. I got over my culture shock …
A large component of [my early difficulties with LW] was the new ideas, but also culture shock and another large component was getting used to the strange social interaction—the drawn-out timescale and the feel of an anonymous, infinite audience is quite different in comment threads than anything I’d been used to.
This sounds interesting. Would you care to elaborate?
I would say that I am generally confident and extroverted in person, but leaving comments on Less Wrong in contrast often left me feeling very exposed. The comment would just sit there, awaiting judgement and I would find myself worrying about hypothetical reactions and possible interpretations. I realize that in person I feel comfortable relying on body language and other cues to see if my comments are accepted. I was missing these cues on Less Wrong so for a long time I felt that LW was cold, harsh and unwelcoming.
I would compose comments and then hesitate to post them. When you are speaking, a bit of error and nonsense ‘fluff’ is expected, whereas in writing a sloppy thought just keeps on sitting there. While writing it is expected you’ve ‘thought out’ your response but actually in practice I couldn’t spend an unlimited amount of time composing a comment. For over a year, I would limit the amount of time I spent per comment and I shelved 4 out 5. Interestingly, the ones I sent weren’t my ‘best’ ones but the just the ones I wrote when I was feeling especially extroverted and imperturbable. Perhaps dozens of times over a period of a few months, I overestimated how extroverted and imperturbable I felt and would post a comment only to experience immediate, crushing anxiety about my comment. I immediately deleted them, and (I believe correctly) rationalized that if anyone knew how miserable I felt they would forgive the deletion.
Another, simultaneous factor was the exposure to new ideas, some of which seemed to have a potentially dangerous aspect, either socially or technologically. I began to imagine what the world would look like if AI had already been developed, and what might be the role of LW in that case, and a component of my brain (not the whole thing) became paranoid and gave me panic attacks. I handled this by simply never touching certain topics, and I now include this in a broader repertoire of ‘useful boundaries’ that I set so that my experience with LW is for the most part positive and productive.
Other boundaries I have are limiting time on Less Wrong to ‘positive commenting time’ (that is, times not in competition with other things I should be doing and not for too long or too intensely) and I generally don’t post a comment if I expect it’ll make me feel bad for any reason (it’s just not worth it). I’m better now at judging how I’ll feel and shrugging off the negative feelings if I do misjudge. Finally, my overall impression is that LW has become much friendlier, so I think there have been changes all around and I’m not sure how to measure them independently.
My mind fell out years ago. That’s why I’m here.
The first year I spent time reading Less Wrong, I had to deliberately pull back and carefully moderate my time on Less Wrong because I saw the signs that it was affecting my mental stability. A large component of this was the new ideas, but also culture shock and another large component was getting used to the strange social interaction—the drawn-out timescale and the feel of an anonymous, infinite audience is quite different in comment threads than anything I’d been used to.
When I first started writing comments, I wanted to train myself to speak more bravely, but I actually grew more sensitive before growing more brave. Now, probably a good 2-3 years later, my interaction with Less Wrong feels more or less ‘normal’ and the probability of instability is much lower. I got over my culture shock …
This sounds interesting. Would you care to elaborate?
I would say that I am generally confident and extroverted in person, but leaving comments on Less Wrong in contrast often left me feeling very exposed. The comment would just sit there, awaiting judgement and I would find myself worrying about hypothetical reactions and possible interpretations. I realize that in person I feel comfortable relying on body language and other cues to see if my comments are accepted. I was missing these cues on Less Wrong so for a long time I felt that LW was cold, harsh and unwelcoming.
I would compose comments and then hesitate to post them. When you are speaking, a bit of error and nonsense ‘fluff’ is expected, whereas in writing a sloppy thought just keeps on sitting there. While writing it is expected you’ve ‘thought out’ your response but actually in practice I couldn’t spend an unlimited amount of time composing a comment. For over a year, I would limit the amount of time I spent per comment and I shelved 4 out 5. Interestingly, the ones I sent weren’t my ‘best’ ones but the just the ones I wrote when I was feeling especially extroverted and imperturbable. Perhaps dozens of times over a period of a few months, I overestimated how extroverted and imperturbable I felt and would post a comment only to experience immediate, crushing anxiety about my comment. I immediately deleted them, and (I believe correctly) rationalized that if anyone knew how miserable I felt they would forgive the deletion.
Another, simultaneous factor was the exposure to new ideas, some of which seemed to have a potentially dangerous aspect, either socially or technologically. I began to imagine what the world would look like if AI had already been developed, and what might be the role of LW in that case, and a component of my brain (not the whole thing) became paranoid and gave me panic attacks. I handled this by simply never touching certain topics, and I now include this in a broader repertoire of ‘useful boundaries’ that I set so that my experience with LW is for the most part positive and productive.
Other boundaries I have are limiting time on Less Wrong to ‘positive commenting time’ (that is, times not in competition with other things I should be doing and not for too long or too intensely) and I generally don’t post a comment if I expect it’ll make me feel bad for any reason (it’s just not worth it). I’m better now at judging how I’ll feel and shrugging off the negative feelings if I do misjudge. Finally, my overall impression is that LW has become much friendlier, so I think there have been changes all around and I’m not sure how to measure them independently.
This here is the sanest place around, it’s everyone else that’s crazy!
Nice try, memeoid!
I think that’s one of those things you can’t consistently assert.
Well, did I ever say I was consistent? ;)