Some of your remarks like this look almost like you are engaging in intellectual exhibitionism. This one fits into that and is a potential source of irritation.
Good!
people should pay attention to my idea and thoughts exactly how much they are credible or not.
People can’t do this.
people make their most informed decisions
People can’t do this. (That is, not in the sense you seem to be implying.)
(And with the people that can do this, it doesn’t even matter what you try to do with your credibility. They’ll find you.)
No. Not good. It damages the signal to noise ratio. LW normally has a very good ratio. Having every single stray thought show up like this is not increasing that ratio. While you do sometimes have interesting ideas, you are not bright enough, informed enough, or a careful enough thinker that we gain much from a not highly censored stream of your thoughts.
For the rest of your reply, the fact that people can’t do something perfectly doesn’t mean they can’t do a useful approximation, and it doesn’t mean I should interfere with attempts to get the best estimates they can. If my ideas are generally good, then they will pay attention and that’s a good thing. If my ideas are not worthwhile then people will stop paying attention and that’s a good thing then also.
Not that I should ignore the part about not being nearly careful enough in your eyes, of course
You could actually take that as a third validation. After all I am declaring that you are successfully achieving what you set out to achieve as an instrumental goal—portray a lack of credibility. It would be totally implausible for me to maintain (or for you to cause me to maintain) a significantly lowered estimation of your credibility while simultaneously believing that you excelled in the ‘careful thinking’ department as well as the previously mentioned categories.
I disagree entirely, and think there is some sort of “lets pretend we are talking about what we say we are talking about” bias at work here.
Will SAYS he is talking about reducing his credibility. He then does not use a host of tools which would do that very effectively ( I think there are many choices, but making errors of fact and logic would be a good start). Speaking cryptically is NOT a very good way to reduce your credibility, except possibly among some subset of people.
What Will is more successfully doing is
1) intriguing a subset of people
2) tweaking the crap out of a large subset of people (in a way that seems orthogonal to credibility seems to me)
Just because he SAYS he is trying to reduce his credibility does not mean that is what he is actually trying to do. I am not sure what he IS trying to do.
Yeah, but come on, losing credibility in the eyes of the masses is like the easiest thing in the world. Find a taboo, then break it. Losing credibility in the eyes of the wise, though, is impossible. Some people will know I’m a good rationalist no matter how many shenanigans I pull—I’d have to start breaking laws or something to make them think I’d finally gone full schizo. I guess I could just claim to be God, but it’s so hard not to be meta, the relevant people would see through my act quickly. The only choice is to avoid them, and move into the forest for good.
Losing credibility in the eyes of the wise, though, is impossible.
Not so. Be wrong on stuff that matters when you clearly had enough evidence available to reach the correct decision (and they previously would have expected you to be correct). If that doesn’t cause you to lose credibility in their eyes then I reject either your definition of “credibility” or “wise”.
I guess I could just claim to be God
It would be sufficient to claim that there is a god (and it is this particular God) despite the information you had available. See above.
That’s the Cooperate-Cooperate equilibrium. In the broader intellectual world one can make an argument against unilateral disarmament in self-promotion (particularly if others engage in it for quite different reasons). OTOH, the C-C equilibrium is better, and LW is closer to it, thanks in significant part to LWers’ negative reaction to self-promotion.
No. Not good. It damages the signal to noise ratio.
Good!
While you do sometimes have interesting ideas, you are not bright enough, informed enough, or a careful enough thinker that we gain much from a not highly censored stream of your thoughts.
Yes I am. I’m fucking Will_Newsome, brah.
For the rest of your reply, the fact that people can’t do something perfectly doesn’t mean they can’t do a useful approximation
It’s not that simple. There’s a threshold. They don’t meet the threshold.
it doesn’t mean I should interfere with attempts to get the best estimates they can
It means you should ignore them, and optimize for the people that matter. For the people that matter: increase, or decrease credibility? Note that for the people that matter, what you do mostly doesn’t matter. You have to focus on edge cases.
If my ideas are generally good, then they will pay attention and that’s a good thing.
I disagree.
If my ideas are not worthwhile then people will stop paying attention and that’s a good thing then also.
Good!
People can’t do this.
People can’t do this. (That is, not in the sense you seem to be implying.)
(And with the people that can do this, it doesn’t even matter what you try to do with your credibility. They’ll find you.)
No. Not good. It damages the signal to noise ratio. LW normally has a very good ratio. Having every single stray thought show up like this is not increasing that ratio. While you do sometimes have interesting ideas, you are not bright enough, informed enough, or a careful enough thinker that we gain much from a not highly censored stream of your thoughts.
For the rest of your reply, the fact that people can’t do something perfectly doesn’t mean they can’t do a useful approximation, and it doesn’t mean I should interfere with attempts to get the best estimates they can. If my ideas are generally good, then they will pay attention and that’s a good thing. If my ideas are not worthwhile then people will stop paying attention and that’s a good thing then also.
He is bright enough and informed enough.
Presumably, “good enough” depends on at least all three factors, and strength in one can offset deficits in others.
Thanks, wedrifid, that means a lot to me. :) (Not that I should ignore the part about not being nearly careful enough in your eyes, of course.)
You could actually take that as a third validation. After all I am declaring that you are successfully achieving what you set out to achieve as an instrumental goal—portray a lack of credibility. It would be totally implausible for me to maintain (or for you to cause me to maintain) a significantly lowered estimation of your credibility while simultaneously believing that you excelled in the ‘careful thinking’ department as well as the previously mentioned categories.
I disagree entirely, and think there is some sort of “lets pretend we are talking about what we say we are talking about” bias at work here.
Will SAYS he is talking about reducing his credibility. He then does not use a host of tools which would do that very effectively ( I think there are many choices, but making errors of fact and logic would be a good start). Speaking cryptically is NOT a very good way to reduce your credibility, except possibly among some subset of people.
What Will is more successfully doing is 1) intriguing a subset of people 2) tweaking the crap out of a large subset of people (in a way that seems orthogonal to credibility seems to me)
Just because he SAYS he is trying to reduce his credibility does not mean that is what he is actually trying to do. I am not sure what he IS trying to do.
Yeah, but come on, losing credibility in the eyes of the masses is like the easiest thing in the world. Find a taboo, then break it. Losing credibility in the eyes of the wise, though, is impossible. Some people will know I’m a good rationalist no matter how many shenanigans I pull—I’d have to start breaking laws or something to make them think I’d finally gone full schizo. I guess I could just claim to be God, but it’s so hard not to be meta, the relevant people would see through my act quickly. The only choice is to avoid them, and move into the forest for good.
Not so. Be wrong on stuff that matters when you clearly had enough evidence available to reach the correct decision (and they previously would have expected you to be correct). If that doesn’t cause you to lose credibility in their eyes then I reject either your definition of “credibility” or “wise”.
It would be sufficient to claim that there is a god (and it is this particular God) despite the information you had available. See above.
You’d be surprised. Many people I know think this fact is true, some think it should be obvious. And these are wise people.
That’s the Cooperate-Cooperate equilibrium. In the broader intellectual world one can make an argument against unilateral disarmament in self-promotion (particularly if others engage in it for quite different reasons). OTOH, the C-C equilibrium is better, and LW is closer to it, thanks in significant part to LWers’ negative reaction to self-promotion.
Good!
Yes I am. I’m fucking Will_Newsome, brah.
It’s not that simple. There’s a threshold. They don’t meet the threshold.
It means you should ignore them, and optimize for the people that matter. For the people that matter: increase, or decrease credibility? Note that for the people that matter, what you do mostly doesn’t matter. You have to focus on edge cases.
I disagree.
I agree.