I know what it feels like to be arrogant. I was arrogant in the past. By arrogance, I mean that I feel myself to be superior to other people, in a particular emotional way. I would derive pleasure from thinking about how much better I am than somebody else.
I would talk with friends about other people in a subtly derogative way. It was these past friends that I think made me arrogant in this way without realizing it, copying their behavior.
All of this seems very bad to me. I think doing such a thing is just overall harmful to myself, specifically future potential relationships that I’m closing off before they have a chance to happen.
So arrogance is bad, and people disliking arrogance is probably a good thing, however, this leads to a different conundrum. Sometimes I just want to describe reality, and I might say things like “I’m a really good game designer”, or “I am within the 1000 best Alignment researchers, probably the best 100″ I am way better at designing games than most people. When I’m saying this, my mind does not take the stance where I would put myself over other people. And it doesn’t make me feel really good when I say it.
Now, maybe sometimes there are still hints of arrogance in my mind when making statements like that. But I genuinely think it’s mostly not there. But people still interpret this in exactly the same way. They perceive this as arrogance, even though the actual internal mechanisms in my brain that make me say these things, I think, are entirely different. One is some adaptation in order to exploit social dynamics to increase your own standing, while the other is simply stating my current best guess of what reality is actually like.
Once a person told me that they think Eliezer is really arrogant. Maybe he is running into the same problem.
Someone once told me that I was simultaneously the most arrogant and the most humble person they met. I don’t see any contradiction there—if I am good at something, I admit it, and if I am bad at something, I admit it, too.
Seems like most people avoid both, and prefer to appear mediocre. Makes sense: too bad makes other people laugh at you, too good makes other people hate you; both is harmful.
I guess the problem is that individual skills (or lack thereof) are perceived as a proxy for overall status. Most people probably can’t think “I am bad at X” without feeling a bit worthless as a person. Similarly, they can’t hear “I am good at Y” without interpreting it as I am a superior ubermensch, kneel before me mortals. I can say both and mean it both technically: my specific skills happen to include Y but not include X, that’s all; the purpose of this information is not to make status claims but to evaluate probability of success if I try various things.
I think the usual strategy is to provide credentials. Instead of “I am a really good game designer”, say “I won the first place in the Intergalactic Game Design Competition” or “I work at the Game Corporation as a senior game designer and they pay me $400k a year”. Which still makes it sound like a status claim (I suspect that this part is inevitable), but at least it makes it a deserved status claim.
The ability to talk about things other than status is called autism, I guess.
Arrogance VS Accurate Description
I know what it feels like to be arrogant. I was arrogant in the past. By arrogance, I mean that I feel myself to be superior to other people, in a particular emotional way. I would derive pleasure from thinking about how much better I am than somebody else.
I would talk with friends about other people in a subtly derogative way. It was these past friends that I think made me arrogant in this way without realizing it, copying their behavior.
All of this seems very bad to me. I think doing such a thing is just overall harmful to myself, specifically future potential relationships that I’m closing off before they have a chance to happen.
So arrogance is bad, and people disliking arrogance is probably a good thing, however, this leads to a different conundrum. Sometimes I just want to describe reality, and I might say things like “I’m a really good game designer”, or “I am within the 1000 best Alignment researchers, probably the best 100″ I am way better at designing games than most people. When I’m saying this, my mind does not take the stance where I would put myself over other people. And it doesn’t make me feel really good when I say it.
Now, maybe sometimes there are still hints of arrogance in my mind when making statements like that. But I genuinely think it’s mostly not there. But people still interpret this in exactly the same way. They perceive this as arrogance, even though the actual internal mechanisms in my brain that make me say these things, I think, are entirely different. One is some adaptation in order to exploit social dynamics to increase your own standing, while the other is simply stating my current best guess of what reality is actually like.
Once a person told me that they think Eliezer is really arrogant. Maybe he is running into the same problem.
Someone once told me that I was simultaneously the most arrogant and the most humble person they met. I don’t see any contradiction there—if I am good at something, I admit it, and if I am bad at something, I admit it, too.
Seems like most people avoid both, and prefer to appear mediocre. Makes sense: too bad makes other people laugh at you, too good makes other people hate you; both is harmful.
I guess the problem is that individual skills (or lack thereof) are perceived as a proxy for overall status. Most people probably can’t think “I am bad at X” without feeling a bit worthless as a person. Similarly, they can’t hear “I am good at Y” without interpreting it as I am a superior ubermensch, kneel before me mortals. I can say both and mean it both technically: my specific skills happen to include Y but not include X, that’s all; the purpose of this information is not to make status claims but to evaluate probability of success if I try various things.
I think the usual strategy is to provide credentials. Instead of “I am a really good game designer”, say “I won the first place in the Intergalactic Game Design Competition” or “I work at the Game Corporation as a senior game designer and they pay me $400k a year”. Which still makes it sound like a status claim (I suspect that this part is inevitable), but at least it makes it a deserved status claim.
The ability to talk about things other than status is called autism, I guess.