Some of these examples have alternative explanations.
other people may know something that I don’t know, so if they all do X, maybe I should, too
if I use the same device as my friends, it will be easier to get tech support
neighborhoods become desirable because the “right people” moved there
Even if you imagine a hypothetical person 100% resistant to copying desire, the value of a neighborhood does depend on the kind of people who live there.
They do, but the explanation proposed here matches everything I know most exactly and simply.
E.g. it became immediately clear that the sequences wouldn’t work nearly as well for me if I didn’t like Eliezer.
Or the way fashion models are of coursenot selected for attractiveness but for more mimetic-copying-inducing highstatus traits like height/confidence/presence/authenticity
and others
And yeah not all of the Claude examples are good, I hadn’t cherrypicked
it became immediately clear that the sequences wouldn’t work nearly as well for me if I didn’t like Eliezer
You mean, like him as a blogger? Or as a person in real life?
If the former, isn’t causality the other way round? I mean, I like Eliezer as a blogger because he wrote the Sequences. So it would sound weird to me to say: “I admire Eliezer as a blogger a lot because he wrote some amazing articles on rationality… and Girard’s theory predicts that therefore I will like his articles… which is true!”
(We could nitpick that some things that I like about Eliezer’s style are orthogonal to whether his points about rationality are true, but that already has a name: halo effect.)
I am not trying to contradict your experience, but it seems to me that my experience (with the Sequences) does not match this model at all. Or other things that I think about.
My friends used to play Magic the Gathering cards, this has never appealed to me. I liked sci-fi, but I was reading sci-fi books long before I have met another person who did. I learned Esperanto from a textbook long before I met another Esperanto speaker. My wife loves skiing and opera, that has no effect on me. Seems like I am quite resistant to copying others. (Is that a part of being on the autistic spectrum? Maybe I should file Girard’s theory under “this is what normies do”; no offense meant.)
You mean, like him as a blogger? Or as a person in real life?
The latter? Like, I subconsciously parse his blogging voice not unlike as if it were a person in my tribal surroundings, and I like/admire/relate to that virtual person, and I think this is what causes some aspect of persuasion
I mean yes it’s embarrassing, but it’s what I see in myself and what seems to be most consistent with what everyone else is doing, certainly more consistent than what they claim they’re doing.
E.g. it seems rare for someone who actively dis-appreciates the sequences to not also dislike Eliezer for what seems like vibes-based reasons more than content-based reasons
If I peer into my own past, where arguably I was more autistic than today, I can see that my standards for admiration seem to have been much stricter. I basically wouldn’t ever copy role models because there were no role models to copy. This may be the shape of an important caveat
Some of these examples have alternative explanations.
other people may know something that I don’t know, so if they all do X, maybe I should, too
if I use the same device as my friends, it will be easier to get tech support
Even if you imagine a hypothetical person 100% resistant to copying desire, the value of a neighborhood does depend on the kind of people who live there.
They do, but the explanation proposed here matches everything I know most exactly and simply.
E.g. it became immediately clear that the sequences wouldn’t work nearly as well for me if I didn’t like Eliezer.
Or the way fashion models are of course not selected for attractiveness but for more mimetic-copying-inducing highstatus traits like height/confidence/presence/authenticity
and others
And yeah not all of the Claude examples are good, I hadn’t cherrypicked
You mean, like him as a blogger? Or as a person in real life?
If the former, isn’t causality the other way round? I mean, I like Eliezer as a blogger because he wrote the Sequences. So it would sound weird to me to say: “I admire Eliezer as a blogger a lot because he wrote some amazing articles on rationality… and Girard’s theory predicts that therefore I will like his articles… which is true!”
(We could nitpick that some things that I like about Eliezer’s style are orthogonal to whether his points about rationality are true, but that already has a name: halo effect.)
I am not trying to contradict your experience, but it seems to me that my experience (with the Sequences) does not match this model at all. Or other things that I think about.
My friends used to play Magic the Gathering cards, this has never appealed to me. I liked sci-fi, but I was reading sci-fi books long before I have met another person who did. I learned Esperanto from a textbook long before I met another Esperanto speaker. My wife loves skiing and opera, that has no effect on me. Seems like I am quite resistant to copying others. (Is that a part of being on the autistic spectrum? Maybe I should file Girard’s theory under “this is what normies do”; no offense meant.)
Aspies certainly seem to do this less!
The latter? Like, I subconsciously parse his blogging voice not unlike as if it were a person in my tribal surroundings, and I like/admire/relate to that virtual person, and I think this is what causes some aspect of persuasion
I mean yes it’s embarrassing, but it’s what I see in myself and what seems to be most consistent with what everyone else is doing, certainly more consistent than what they claim they’re doing.
E.g. it seems rare for someone who actively dis-appreciates the sequences to not also dislike Eliezer for what seems like vibes-based reasons more than content-based reasons
But then again, all models are false!
If I peer into my own past, where arguably I was more autistic than today, I can see that my standards for admiration seem to have been much stricter. I basically wouldn’t ever copy role models because there were no role models to copy. This may be the shape of an important caveat