I think your buttons and maps is a useful first approximation of the difference between “nerds” and “normals” (I don’t like those names, but I mostly get the distinciton you’re making). I like the mental image of one pushing a button and a printer shooting out a slip of paper.
(meta comment) I’m glad you wrote this, cause even though one could say it’s “just a rehashing of things that have been said” it seems like you found a way of frameing it that made it click for you, and it might click for others.
I think one think to explore/expand is how “nomals” view their own thought process. I’m guessing that the number of people who operate using beliefs(2) and have an understanding of what they are doing, is very limited. It seems like most people would consider their beliefs to be some attempt at some thing they consider truth. What happens if you pump themp for predictions, are they willing to extrapolate other things from their slips of paper?
I think you’re right that it’s really rare. I mean, we’re sort of looking for beliefs(1) about how beliefs(2) feel from the inside. They’d have to turn to the nerd side, at least, they’d have to for this one area.
My first thought is that trying to get them to dig deeper by asking them about their responses is likely to lead mostly to:
Free-associating off of your words (rather than your concepts) which will randomly push their buttons, ejecting the slips of paper stored therein.
Blurring the lines between what you really asked and the nearest equivalent that they already have a good answer for, and answering that instead.
Shutting down the conversation once you persist long enough that it’s difficult to avoid having to resort to on-the-fly production of sayings on the spot.
Or, if they’re really smart, they might welcome the challenge and just amuse themselves trying to come up with cool new sayings, using your words (rather than your concepts) as inspiration, sort of like the conversational equivalent of a fun impromptu jam session
Asking them to think and talk like nerds (“Come on, just for a second, please? Have you tried just not thinking like a political animal?”)...is a tricky thing.
I think a better avenue might be to narrow the group down to those people who are nerdy in at least one area of thought, namely, the area of thought dedicated to analyzing how nerds and normal people think. Then, those people can think nerdy about:
The other areas of their life, which they don’t think nerdy about. Like politics or religion (the tricky part here is that they’re likely to lose their detached, nerdy analysis as soon as the topic switches to something like that...)
The way they used to be. That’s what I’m doing, trying to remember how I used to think and distilling out the key changes which have occurred. It’s tricky because my thinking has changed so much that it’s hard to imagine thinking how I used to. For example, I do have an embarrassing draft of a post from when I first found LW and tried to write a justification for believing in God that avoided any errors the LW audience would pick at. I’ve noticed that it’s very dense, unclear, yet concept-sparse. It takes forever to explain a few simple concepts, because I’m using all the rest of the space to signal my intelligence and sophistication, probably in a subconscious attempt to argue along the lines of “smart people believe in God, too, so it should be considered a respectable option among the rationalist crowd.”
I pretty much only give answers based on beliefs(2), but I’m not sure I’m the kind of person you’re looking for feedback from. Mostly it comes down to: Mapping is costly and usually not personally beneficial, and if you wanted a real judgment based on a real map, a judgment I could base predictions on...you’d have to wait a couple of weeks while I figured out how to get sources on the subject to even begin to do research on it to form a useful position, (which assumes I care so much about this topic that I’m willing to do days or weeks of research on it) and then when you challenged me on it I’d assume you had more background and more information, would ask you to explain your position, would find it convincing in the moment, and would only really know hours or days later, after thinking about what you said some more, whether I—actually—found it convincing enough to update my map.
That’s...very difficult and time-invested, especially if I’m not going to interact with that conversation partner a lot. Signaling allegiance with the shibboleth of the hour is by contrast low-cost, easy to fake, and good enough for most interactions.
Do I have beliefs(1)? Sure, on some things, but I bet I’ll have to look something up to remember why.
I have no idea how well anything like that generalizes to other people who give mostly/exclusively beliefs(2) based answers (I feel like most people are actually using such answers for coalition building or self-defense; the self-defense in the sense of keeping one’s job or not being cussed at or punched makes sense to me; the objectives of the coalitions are generally opaque to me); I hope it’s useful to someone, but take with several grains of salt.
Addendum: Even among groups that call themselves nerds, a pause long enough to usefully trace the origin of an idea tends to bring the conversation to a screeching trainwreck halt, or politely ignore your silence while everyone else moves the conversation on past whatever you were thinking about, but that might be a sample-specific thing.
I’ve definitely seen exactly this in large group dynamics. In 1-on-1 conversations, or maybe even with 3 or 4 people, I’ve seen chill conversations where people regularly pause for maybe up to 10 seconds before being interrupted.
I think your buttons and maps is a useful first approximation of the difference between “nerds” and “normals” (I don’t like those names, but I mostly get the distinciton you’re making). I like the mental image of one pushing a button and a printer shooting out a slip of paper.
(meta comment) I’m glad you wrote this, cause even though one could say it’s “just a rehashing of things that have been said” it seems like you found a way of frameing it that made it click for you, and it might click for others.
Thank you. I do feel it’s a work in progress and am hoping to produce at some point a much more understandable and thorough version
I think one think to explore/expand is how “nomals” view their own thought process. I’m guessing that the number of people who operate using beliefs(2) and have an understanding of what they are doing, is very limited. It seems like most people would consider their beliefs to be some attempt at some thing they consider truth. What happens if you pump themp for predictions, are they willing to extrapolate other things from their slips of paper?
How would you get at this? By asking them to report their beliefs on the matter? There are some problems with any such approach.
I think you’re right that it’s really rare. I mean, we’re sort of looking for beliefs(1) about how beliefs(2) feel from the inside. They’d have to turn to the nerd side, at least, they’d have to for this one area.
My first thought is that trying to get them to dig deeper by asking them about their responses is likely to lead mostly to:
Free-associating off of your words (rather than your concepts) which will randomly push their buttons, ejecting the slips of paper stored therein.
Blurring the lines between what you really asked and the nearest equivalent that they already have a good answer for, and answering that instead.
Shutting down the conversation once you persist long enough that it’s difficult to avoid having to resort to on-the-fly production of sayings on the spot.
Or, if they’re really smart, they might welcome the challenge and just amuse themselves trying to come up with cool new sayings, using your words (rather than your concepts) as inspiration, sort of like the conversational equivalent of a fun impromptu jam session
Asking them to think and talk like nerds (“Come on, just for a second, please? Have you tried just not thinking like a political animal?”)...is a tricky thing.
I think a better avenue might be to narrow the group down to those people who are nerdy in at least one area of thought, namely, the area of thought dedicated to analyzing how nerds and normal people think. Then, those people can think nerdy about:
The other areas of their life, which they don’t think nerdy about. Like politics or religion (the tricky part here is that they’re likely to lose their detached, nerdy analysis as soon as the topic switches to something like that...)
The way they used to be. That’s what I’m doing, trying to remember how I used to think and distilling out the key changes which have occurred. It’s tricky because my thinking has changed so much that it’s hard to imagine thinking how I used to. For example, I do have an embarrassing draft of a post from when I first found LW and tried to write a justification for believing in God that avoided any errors the LW audience would pick at. I’ve noticed that it’s very dense, unclear, yet concept-sparse. It takes forever to explain a few simple concepts, because I’m using all the rest of the space to signal my intelligence and sophistication, probably in a subconscious attempt to argue along the lines of “smart people believe in God, too, so it should be considered a respectable option among the rationalist crowd.”
I pretty much only give answers based on beliefs(2), but I’m not sure I’m the kind of person you’re looking for feedback from. Mostly it comes down to: Mapping is costly and usually not personally beneficial, and if you wanted a real judgment based on a real map, a judgment I could base predictions on...you’d have to wait a couple of weeks while I figured out how to get sources on the subject to even begin to do research on it to form a useful position, (which assumes I care so much about this topic that I’m willing to do days or weeks of research on it) and then when you challenged me on it I’d assume you had more background and more information, would ask you to explain your position, would find it convincing in the moment, and would only really know hours or days later, after thinking about what you said some more, whether I—actually—found it convincing enough to update my map.
That’s...very difficult and time-invested, especially if I’m not going to interact with that conversation partner a lot. Signaling allegiance with the shibboleth of the hour is by contrast low-cost, easy to fake, and good enough for most interactions.
Do I have beliefs(1)? Sure, on some things, but I bet I’ll have to look something up to remember why.
I have no idea how well anything like that generalizes to other people who give mostly/exclusively beliefs(2) based answers (I feel like most people are actually using such answers for coalition building or self-defense; the self-defense in the sense of keeping one’s job or not being cussed at or punched makes sense to me; the objectives of the coalitions are generally opaque to me); I hope it’s useful to someone, but take with several grains of salt.
Addendum: Even among groups that call themselves nerds, a pause long enough to usefully trace the origin of an idea tends to bring the conversation to a screeching trainwreck halt, or politely ignore your silence while everyone else moves the conversation on past whatever you were thinking about, but that might be a sample-specific thing.
I’ve definitely seen exactly this in large group dynamics. In 1-on-1 conversations, or maybe even with 3 or 4 people, I’ve seen chill conversations where people regularly pause for maybe up to 10 seconds before being interrupted.