why I am viscerally bothered by the stag hunt metaphor (tldr; afaict actually deciding what to hunt happens by talking to people, not by making decisions in private)
how I have some pretty strong reaction I’d ideally like to unpack more along the lines of “the thing lw is missing according to me is empathy/paraphrasing”
why I’m usually not really that into written communication (though over the past few years I’ve tweeted a decent amount, so that’s an interesting exception or something)
ETA: oh, and I’m still not over having a whole thing up for me about this: https://twitter.com/diviacaroline/status/1151365255127293952?s=20 (where I have a chip on my shoulder about something in the space of people using language about what they feel vs what they think in a way that doesn’t accord with my own/NVC’s sense of that distinction)
re: the empathy thing, part of my context is that I’ve read a lot of communication books over the years, and it seems fair to me to say that the single most common/most important recommendation for improving discussions that are difficult is to spend more time reflecting what people have already said in various ways. And, afaict, when I’ve done this more, I’ve gotten dramatically better outcomes by my values. Still (despite having been over various versions of this is my head a bajillion times) I notice I’m confused about something in this space. (I also think this point has a lot to do with why I mostly haven’t liked written conversations… not in a very articulate way though.)
Also seems me worth saying that insofar as I think something like this would improve lw conversations, I don’t think there’s anything stopping me from “just” unilaterally doing more of it. Maybe I would do that if I commented on lw? So far I have barely ever commented, so I wouldn’t say I have an excellent predictive model of that. I seem to do it at least some when I write on social media in general.
I have talked to Ray about my objection about the stag hunt framing multiple times, and iirc I haven’t had this conversation with Duncan. Often talking to people about what I think is enough that I mostly let go of it and stop thinking about it, but so far it’s still on my mind.
cached-ish thoughts fleshing out further my allergy to the stag hunt framing
something about how ime irl it’s a yellow flag when I’m confident about wanting a particular social outcome before I have it??? this doesn’t seem quite right, and I think I have a more true longer version but not a more true short version
there’s something about the whole “coordination problem” frame that I react to as though there’s an error already baked in, and I notably don’t have this reaction to people talking about there being a failure of leadership, and moooostly don’t have it when people talk about “cultural problems’
I think my worry with the framing is the unexamined implication that it’s ONLY a coordination problem. In fact, many times it’s an alignment problem—participants expect different payouts/rewards than exactly 1/n of the sum.
Yeah, in some basic sense I totally agree with you, and also I still get the sense that the vectors of coordination and alignment are fundamental missing the point (again, in a way that leadership and culture aren’t really).
Oh, and I think I do have disagreements (or something?) with the longer form stuff people have written about stag hunts/cooperation, but they are some combination of “less of a disagreement” and “harder to pinpoint”, which interests me as a phenomenon in and of itself.
Some things that have been on my mind lately:
why I am viscerally bothered by the stag hunt metaphor (tldr; afaict actually deciding what to hunt happens by talking to people, not by making decisions in private)
how I have some pretty strong reaction I’d ideally like to unpack more along the lines of “the thing lw is missing according to me is empathy/paraphrasing”
why I’m usually not really that into written communication (though over the past few years I’ve tweeted a decent amount, so that’s an interesting exception or something)
ETA: oh, and I’m still not over having a whole thing up for me about this: https://twitter.com/diviacaroline/status/1151365255127293952?s=20 (where I have a chip on my shoulder about something in the space of people using language about what they feel vs what they think in a way that doesn’t accord with my own/NVC’s sense of that distinction)
re: the empathy thing, part of my context is that I’ve read a lot of communication books over the years, and it seems fair to me to say that the single most common/most important recommendation for improving discussions that are difficult is to spend more time reflecting what people have already said in various ways. And, afaict, when I’ve done this more, I’ve gotten dramatically better outcomes by my values. Still (despite having been over various versions of this is my head a bajillion times) I notice I’m confused about something in this space. (I also think this point has a lot to do with why I mostly haven’t liked written conversations… not in a very articulate way though.)
Also seems me worth saying that insofar as I think something like this would improve lw conversations, I don’t think there’s anything stopping me from “just” unilaterally doing more of it. Maybe I would do that if I commented on lw? So far I have barely ever commented, so I wouldn’t say I have an excellent predictive model of that. I seem to do it at least some when I write on social media in general.
I have talked to Ray about my objection about the stag hunt framing multiple times, and iirc I haven’t had this conversation with Duncan. Often talking to people about what I think is enough that I mostly let go of it and stop thinking about it, but so far it’s still on my mind.
cached-ish thoughts fleshing out further my allergy to the stag hunt framing
something about how ime irl it’s a yellow flag when I’m confident about wanting a particular social outcome before I have it??? this doesn’t seem quite right, and I think I have a more true longer version but not a more true short version
there’s something about the whole “coordination problem” frame that I react to as though there’s an error already baked in, and I notably don’t have this reaction to people talking about there being a failure of leadership, and moooostly don’t have it when people talk about “cultural problems’
I think my worry with the framing is the unexamined implication that it’s ONLY a coordination problem. In fact, many times it’s an alignment problem—participants expect different payouts/rewards than exactly 1/n of the sum.
Yeah, in some basic sense I totally agree with you, and also I still get the sense that the vectors of coordination and alignment are fundamental missing the point (again, in a way that leadership and culture aren’t really).
Oh, and I think I do have disagreements (or something?) with the longer form stuff people have written about stag hunts/cooperation, but they are some combination of “less of a disagreement” and “harder to pinpoint”, which interests me as a phenomenon in and of itself.