Some people have been suggesting that the Petrov Day button excercise should be an opt-in (rather than opt-out as it is now) event. I disagree with this: to get value from Petrov Day, we must entrust as many people as possible, and still succeed in not pressing the button; opting-in pushes against both of these constraints by providing a much smaller pool of candidates to choose from, resulting in a smaller (therefore much less impressive) group of trustees, that is simultaneously more likely to fail the exercise (due to fewer high-quality candidates being available).
Beyond that, I guess being inducted into Petrov Day should be considered an occupational hazard of being active in the LW community. Chris Leong, who pressed the button last year (in 2020), was not new to LW and the rationality community, having been here for 12 years, and LW had held at least one on-website Petrov Day previously, in 2019 (which suceeded, albeit with fewer codes than in 2020). The problem was not that Petrov Day was completely alien to Chris, but rather Chris (among evidently many others) having gotten the impression that the exercise was lighthearted, not something to be taken seriously.
I think lessons were learned from last year’s Petrov Day. I still respect Chris, and the community should still respect Chris- this particular form of the Petrov Day excercise is still new, and his mistake was an honest one. But the kind of people who are entrusted with launch codes will have learned a lesson from the 2020 excercise, and will have a harder time using ignorance of the particular norms the LW team intends for the excercise as an excuse for slipping in the future.
To illustrate what kinds of people are entrusted with codes on Petrov Day, consider that I (who had not received a code, either this year or in previous years) have nearly 1,000 karma on this site, have met members of the LW team in person, and hold a position of trust on another prominent website in the broader rationality community, and yet the LW team had no trouble finding 100 people they could trust even more than me. They don’t just grab random people off the street and give them launch codes. Petrov Day is a trust excercise conducted among people who have been here for a long time, have made significant contributions to the community, and are familiar with the norms of this community.
Chris made an honest mistake last year, and that shouldn’t be held against him, but that kind of mistake won’t be made again by the people who have earned their launch codes.
Some people have been suggesting that the Petrov Day button excercise should be an opt-in (rather than opt-out as it is now) event. I disagree with this: to get value from Petrov Day, we must entrust as many people as possible, and still succeed in not pressing the button; opting-in pushes against both of these constraints by providing a much smaller pool of candidates to choose from, resulting in a smaller (therefore much less impressive) group of trustees, that is simultaneously more likely to fail the exercise (due to fewer high-quality candidates being available).
Beyond that, I guess being inducted into Petrov Day should be considered an occupational hazard of being active in the LW community. Chris Leong, who pressed the button last year (in 2020), was not new to LW and the rationality community, having been here for 12 years, and LW had held at least one on-website Petrov Day previously, in 2019 (which suceeded, albeit with fewer codes than in 2020). The problem was not that Petrov Day was completely alien to Chris, but rather Chris (among evidently many others) having gotten the impression that the exercise was lighthearted, not something to be taken seriously.
I think lessons were learned from last year’s Petrov Day. I still respect Chris, and the community should still respect Chris- this particular form of the Petrov Day excercise is still new, and his mistake was an honest one. But the kind of people who are entrusted with launch codes will have learned a lesson from the 2020 excercise, and will have a harder time using ignorance of the particular norms the LW team intends for the excercise as an excuse for slipping in the future.
To illustrate what kinds of people are entrusted with codes on Petrov Day, consider that I (who had not received a code, either this year or in previous years) have nearly 1,000 karma on this site, have met members of the LW team in person, and hold a position of trust on another prominent website in the broader rationality community, and yet the LW team had no trouble finding 100 people they could trust even more than me. They don’t just grab random people off the street and give them launch codes. Petrov Day is a trust excercise conducted among people who have been here for a long time, have made significant contributions to the community, and are familiar with the norms of this community.
Chris made an honest mistake last year, and that shouldn’t be held against him, but that kind of mistake won’t be made again by the people who have earned their launch codes.