He treated it like a game, even though he was given the ability to destroy a non-trivial communal resource.
I want to resist this a bit. I actually got more value out of the “blown up” frontpage then I would have from a normal frontpage that day. A bit of “cool to see what the LW devs prepared for this case”, a bit of “cool, something changed!” and some excitement about learning something.
Yeah, I’m not sure if the net effect of the blown-up frontpage is positive or negative for me, but it’s definitely dominated by enjoyability/learning from posts about it, rather than the inability to see the frontpage for a day. (Very similar to how the value of a game is dominated by the value of the time spent thinking about it, while playing.) I didn’t even try to access the frontpage on the relevant day, but I don’t think it would have been much of an inconvenience, anyway; I could have just gone to the EA forum or my RSS feed for similar content (or to greaterwrong for the same content, if that was still up).
This doesn’t mean that it’s a good idea to blow up the frontpage because it’s more fun, or whatever. I think it’s probably better to not blow up the frontpage, but the case for this is based on meta-level things like ~trust and ~culture, and I think you do need to go to that level to make a convincing consequentialist case for not blowing up the frontpage. The stakes just aren’t high enough that the direct consequences dominate. (And it’s hard to raise the stakes until that’s false, because that would mean we’re risking more than we stand to gain.)
Unfortunately, this makes the situation pretty disanalagous to Petrov. Petrov defied the local culture (following orders) because he thought that reporting the alarm would have bad consequences. But in the lesswrong tradition, the direct consequences matter less than the effects on the local culture; and the reputational consequences point in the opposite direction, encouraging people to not press the button.
(Though from skimming the wikipedia article, it’s unclear exactly how much Petrov’s reputation suffered. It seems like he was initially praised, then reprimanded for not filing the correct paperwork. He’s been quoted both as saying that he wasn’t punished, and that he was made a scapegoat.)
I want to resist this a bit. I actually got more value out of the “blown up” frontpage then I would have from a normal frontpage that day. A bit of “cool to see what the LW devs prepared for this case”, a bit of “cool, something changed!” and some excitement about learning something.
Yeah, I’m not sure if the net effect of the blown-up frontpage is positive or negative for me, but it’s definitely dominated by enjoyability/learning from posts about it, rather than the inability to see the frontpage for a day. (Very similar to how the value of a game is dominated by the value of the time spent thinking about it, while playing.) I didn’t even try to access the frontpage on the relevant day, but I don’t think it would have been much of an inconvenience, anyway; I could have just gone to the EA forum or my RSS feed for similar content (or to greaterwrong for the same content, if that was still up).
This doesn’t mean that it’s a good idea to blow up the frontpage because it’s more fun, or whatever. I think it’s probably better to not blow up the frontpage, but the case for this is based on meta-level things like ~trust and ~culture, and I think you do need to go to that level to make a convincing consequentialist case for not blowing up the frontpage. The stakes just aren’t high enough that the direct consequences dominate. (And it’s hard to raise the stakes until that’s false, because that would mean we’re risking more than we stand to gain.)
Unfortunately, this makes the situation pretty disanalagous to Petrov. Petrov defied the local culture (following orders) because he thought that reporting the alarm would have bad consequences. But in the lesswrong tradition, the direct consequences matter less than the effects on the local culture; and the reputational consequences point in the opposite direction, encouraging people to not press the button.
(Though from skimming the wikipedia article, it’s unclear exactly how much Petrov’s reputation suffered. It seems like he was initially praised, then reprimanded for not filing the correct paperwork. He’s been quoted both as saying that he wasn’t punished, and that he was made a scapegoat.)