Promoted to the frontpage: I really like this post, though I do much prefer the first half over the second half. It participates in currently relevant discourse in important ways (and productively and publicly disagrees with Eliezer, which I expect to be undersupplied).
At the end things feel a bit more train-of-thought-like and a bit more like being in the middle of a bad trip (I’ve never been on a trip, but I watched a bunch of trailers for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which hopefully compensates well-enough). And I guess I would prefer it to sustain its clarity all throughout, but I realize that some models are hard to communicate with stoic clarity.
It does feel too call-to-action-y overall, and as soon as I see more of the negative effects that I expect to come from that style of writing, I will significantly increase my threshold for promoting content with that style, and so in some feature this post might no longer make the cut for me.
What is the issue with having a strong call-to-action? As I’ve been taught, having a clear call-to-action is a pretty integral part of persuasive writing.
I agree looking over it that the first half is stronger. As you suggest, talking about a concrete thing is a lot easier to be clear about than talking about general things, especially hard to reason about general things. In many ways I think, looking back, that I felt the second half was ‘necessary’ to cover various concerns, including making things more explicit in various ways, but perhaps it wasn’t necessary?
On the call to action front, acknowledged and I’m certainly guilty at the end. I do want to use them far more sparingly and will start doing that real soon now.
Promoted to the frontpage: I really like this post, though I do much prefer the first half over the second half. It participates in currently relevant discourse in important ways (and productively and publicly disagrees with Eliezer, which I expect to be undersupplied).
At the end things feel a bit more train-of-thought-like and a bit more like being in the middle of a bad trip (I’ve never been on a trip, but I watched a bunch of trailers for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which hopefully compensates well-enough). And I guess I would prefer it to sustain its clarity all throughout, but I realize that some models are hard to communicate with stoic clarity.
It does feel too call-to-action-y overall, and as soon as I see more of the negative effects that I expect to come from that style of writing, I will significantly increase my threshold for promoting content with that style, and so in some feature this post might no longer make the cut for me.
What is the issue with having a strong call-to-action? As I’ve been taught, having a clear call-to-action is a pretty integral part of persuasive writing.
I agree looking over it that the first half is stronger. As you suggest, talking about a concrete thing is a lot easier to be clear about than talking about general things, especially hard to reason about general things. In many ways I think, looking back, that I felt the second half was ‘necessary’ to cover various concerns, including making things more explicit in various ways, but perhaps it wasn’t necessary?
On the call to action front, acknowledged and I’m certainly guilty at the end. I do want to use them far more sparingly and will start doing that real soon now.