Here are three different things I took it to mean:
There are two different algorithms you might want to follow. One is “uphold a specific standard that you care about meeting”. The other is “Avoiding making people upset (more generally).” The first algorithm is bounded, the second algorithm is unbounded, and requires you to model other people.
You might call the first algorithm “Uphold honor” and the second algorithm “Manage PR concerns”, and using those names is probably a better intuition-guide.
The “Avoiding making people upset (more generally)” option is a loopier process that makes you more likely to jump at shadows.
I’m not sure I buy #2. I definitely buy #1. #3 seems probably true for many people but I’d present it to people more as a hypothesis to consider about themselves than a general fact.
Reflecting on these, a meta-concept jumps out at me: If you’re trying to do one kind of “PR management”, or “social/political navigation” (or, hell, any old problem you’re trying to solve), it can be helpful to try on a few different frames for what exactly you’re trying to accomplish. At a glance, “honor” and “PR” might seem very similar, but they might have fairly different implementation details with different reasons.
Different people might have different intuitions on what “honor” or “protecting your reputation” means, but it’s probably true-across-people that at least some different near-synonyms in fact have different details and flavors and side effects, and this is worth applying some perceptual dexterity to.
As for as importance: I do think the general topic of “feeling afraid to speak openly due to vague social pressures” is a relatively central problem crippling the modern world at scale. I know lots of people who express fears of speaking their mind for some reason or another, and for a number of them I think they list “this is bad PR” or “bad optics” as an explicit motivation.
I’m not sure how much this post helps, but I think it’s at least useful pointer and maybe helpful for people getting “unstuck”. Curious to hear if anyone has concretely used the post.
I’m not sure how I feel about this post.
Here are three different things I took it to mean:
There are two different algorithms you might want to follow. One is “uphold a specific standard that you care about meeting”. The other is “Avoiding making people upset (more generally).” The first algorithm is bounded, the second algorithm is unbounded, and requires you to model other people.
You might call the first algorithm “Uphold honor” and the second algorithm “Manage PR concerns”, and using those names is probably a better intuition-guide.
The “Avoiding making people upset (more generally)” option is a loopier process that makes you more likely to jump at shadows.
I’m not sure I buy #2. I definitely buy #1. #3 seems probably true for many people but I’d present it to people more as a hypothesis to consider about themselves than a general fact.
Reflecting on these, a meta-concept jumps out at me: If you’re trying to do one kind of “PR management”, or “social/political navigation” (or, hell, any old problem you’re trying to solve), it can be helpful to try on a few different frames for what exactly you’re trying to accomplish. At a glance, “honor” and “PR” might seem very similar, but they might have fairly different implementation details with different reasons.
Different people might have different intuitions on what “honor” or “protecting your reputation” means, but it’s probably true-across-people that at least some different near-synonyms in fact have different details and flavors and side effects, and this is worth applying some perceptual dexterity to.
As for as importance: I do think the general topic of “feeling afraid to speak openly due to vague social pressures” is a relatively central problem crippling the modern world at scale. I know lots of people who express fears of speaking their mind for some reason or another, and for a number of them I think they list “this is bad PR” or “bad optics” as an explicit motivation.
I’m not sure how much this post helps, but I think it’s at least useful pointer and maybe helpful for people getting “unstuck”. Curious to hear if anyone has concretely used the post.