Here’s a short summary of each situation and the strategies Sarah advocates if you find yourself in it. (I have tweaked some wordings when I wasn’t quite sure I endorsed the way Sarah phrased things)
Raising The Global Median – if Alice is above average across all humans and you wanted to raise V across all humans, generally reward Alice for her actions
Raising the Median Among the Virtuous – If Alice is average among the top 1% but you want the top 1% to be better...
Do criticize Alice privately if you have a personal relationship with her.
Do (sometimes) publicly point how some people in your community are falling short of the ideal (probably without naming names, unless Alice is a public figure)
Do allow Alice to suffer the usual negative consequences for her shortcomings. i.e. if Alice’s job requires high V, and she gets fired for not performing V well, that’s fine. If people try to argue she should not have gotten fired, argue publicly against those people.
Don’t express outrage at Alice’s behavior. The norms don’t say that she’s failing the current standards, you’re trying to raise the current standards. Be nice until you can coordinate meanness.
Do communicate with a tone of educating or sharing information, if failures to perform V are common in your community and you want the community to do better.
Enforcing Community Norms – If Alice is below average at V compared to a community’s norms, enforce the norms. It’s what they’re there for. Make it common knowledge that you enforce such norms. You can be judgmental.
You can say something like “Alice did X. As you know, X is unacceptable/forbidden/substandard in our community. Therefore, we will be penalizing her in such-and-such a way, according to our well-known, established traditions/code/policy.”
Splintering into a More Dedicated Community – If you’re not happy with the standard V-virtue in the 99th V percentile population, and want to establish a higher standard...
Do spend a lot of time talking about how most people in the 99th percentile fall short of the ideal.
Do reach out to people who you believe are above the 99th percentile (say, 99.9th), but don’t realize how much that matters. Explain to them why it matters. Empower and encourage them to notice that they aren’t Alice’s peers any more.
Do still keep an “educational” tone, since even the 99.9th percentile may not be aware yet that there’s anything wrong with Alice’s behavior.
But, also start establishing that Alice-like behavior is failing to meet an important standard. As you cultivate the new group, be judgmental about behaviors that don’t meet the new standard.
Expanding Community Membership – If you need a broader coalition (among say the 90th percentile), instead do more-or-less what you’d do if you were raising the global median. Alice falls short of the ideal but is loads better than most of the people in the broader base you’re trying to establish.
If Alice wants to expand membership and you want more dedication...
Do acknowledge that you and Alice are optimizing for different things, and your goals are zero sum. This requires a different approach.
Do see if you can dialog with Alice and come to agreement on the optimal target audience (or potentially form different groups with different goals and standards, rather than fighting over the same group)
But, if you can’t come to agreement, be willing to take actions that treat Alice as an opponent (criticizing her behavior and goals, advocating for norms that forbid or disincentivize her behavior, and more generally optimizing against her gaining power generally)
Here’s a short summary of each situation and the strategies Sarah advocates if you find yourself in it. (I have tweaked some wordings when I wasn’t quite sure I endorsed the way Sarah phrased things)
Raising The Global Median – if Alice is above average across all humans and you wanted to raise V across all humans, generally reward Alice for her actions
Raising the Median Among the Virtuous – If Alice is average among the top 1% but you want the top 1% to be better...
Do criticize Alice privately if you have a personal relationship with her.
Do (sometimes) publicly point how some people in your community are falling short of the ideal (probably without naming names, unless Alice is a public figure)
Do allow Alice to suffer the usual negative consequences for her shortcomings. i.e. if Alice’s job requires high V, and she gets fired for not performing V well, that’s fine. If people try to argue she should not have gotten fired, argue publicly against those people.
Don’t express outrage at Alice’s behavior. The norms don’t say that she’s failing the current standards, you’re trying to raise the current standards. Be nice until you can coordinate meanness.
Do communicate with a tone of educating or sharing information, if failures to perform V are common in your community and you want the community to do better.
Enforcing Community Norms – If Alice is below average at V compared to a community’s norms, enforce the norms. It’s what they’re there for. Make it common knowledge that you enforce such norms. You can be judgmental.
You can say something like “Alice did X. As you know, X is unacceptable/forbidden/substandard in our community. Therefore, we will be penalizing her in such-and-such a way, according to our well-known, established traditions/code/policy.”
Splintering into a More Dedicated Community – If you’re not happy with the standard V-virtue in the 99th V percentile population, and want to establish a higher standard...
Do spend a lot of time talking about how most people in the 99th percentile fall short of the ideal.
Do reach out to people who you believe are above the 99th percentile (say, 99.9th), but don’t realize how much that matters. Explain to them why it matters. Empower and encourage them to notice that they aren’t Alice’s peers any more.
Do still keep an “educational” tone, since even the 99.9th percentile may not be aware yet that there’s anything wrong with Alice’s behavior.
But, also start establishing that Alice-like behavior is failing to meet an important standard. As you cultivate the new group, be judgmental about behaviors that don’t meet the new standard.
Expanding Community Membership – If you need a broader coalition (among say the 90th percentile), instead do more-or-less what you’d do if you were raising the global median. Alice falls short of the ideal but is loads better than most of the people in the broader base you’re trying to establish.
If Alice wants to expand membership and you want more dedication...
Do acknowledge that you and Alice are optimizing for different things, and your goals are zero sum. This requires a different approach.
Do see if you can dialog with Alice and come to agreement on the optimal target audience (or potentially form different groups with different goals and standards, rather than fighting over the same group)
But, if you can’t come to agreement, be willing to take actions that treat Alice as an opponent (criticizing her behavior and goals, advocating for norms that forbid or disincentivize her behavior, and more generally optimizing against her gaining power generally)