I read this post for the first time in 2022, and I came back to it at least twice.
What I found helpful
The proposed solution: I actually do come back to the “honor” frame sometimes. I have little Rob Bensinger and Anna Salamon shoulder models that remind me to act with integrity and honor. And these shoulder models are especially helpful when I’m noticing (unhelpful) concerns about social status.
A crisp and community-endorsed statement of the problem: It was nice to be like “oh yeah, this thing I’m experiencing is that thing that Anna Salamon calls PR.” And to be honest, it was probably helpful tobe like “oh yeah this thing I’m experiencing is that thing that Anna Salamon, the legendary wise rationalist calls PR.” Sort of ironic, I suppose. But I wouldn’t be surprised if young/new rationalists benefit a lot from seeing some high-status or high-wisdom rationalist write a post that describes a problem they experience.
Note that I think this also applies to many posts in Replacing Guilt & The Sequences. To have Eliezer Yudkowsky describe a problem you face not only helps you see it; it also helps you be like ah yes, that’s a real/important problem that smart/legitimate people face.
The post “aged well.” It seems extremely relevant right now (Jan 2023), both for collectives and for individuals. The EA community is dealing with a lot of debate around PR right now. Also, more anecdotally, the Bay Area AI safety scene has quite a strange Status Hierarchy Thing going on, and I think this is a significant barrier to progress. (One might even say that “feeling afraid to speak openly due to vague social pressures” is a relatively central problem crippling the world at scale, as well as our community.)
The post is so short!
What could have been improved
The PR frame. “PR” seems like a term that applies to organizations but not individuals. I think Anna could have pretty easily thrown in some more synonyms/near-synonyms that help people relate more to the post. (I think “status” and “social standing” are terms that I hear the younguns using these days.)
Implementation details. Anna could have provided more suggestions for how to actually cultivate the “honor mindset” or otherwise deal with (unproductive) PR concerns. Sadly, humans are not automatically strategic, so I expect many people will not find the most strategic/effective ways to implement the advice in this post.
Stories. I think it would’ve been useful for Anna to provide examples of scenarios where she used the “honor” mindset in her own life or navigated the “PR” mindset in her own life.
But Akash, criticizing posts is easy. Why don’t you try to write your own post that attempts to address some of the limitations you pointed out?
I read this post for the first time in 2022, and I came back to it at least twice.
What I found helpful
The proposed solution: I actually do come back to the “honor” frame sometimes. I have little Rob Bensinger and Anna Salamon shoulder models that remind me to act with integrity and honor. And these shoulder models are especially helpful when I’m noticing (unhelpful) concerns about social status.
A crisp and community-endorsed statement of the problem: It was nice to be like “oh yeah, this thing I’m experiencing is that thing that Anna Salamon calls PR.” And to be honest, it was probably helpful tobe like “oh yeah this thing I’m experiencing is that thing that Anna Salamon, the legendary wise rationalist calls PR.” Sort of ironic, I suppose. But I wouldn’t be surprised if young/new rationalists benefit a lot from seeing some high-status or high-wisdom rationalist write a post that describes a problem they experience.
Note that I think this also applies to many posts in Replacing Guilt & The Sequences. To have Eliezer Yudkowsky describe a problem you face not only helps you see it; it also helps you be like ah yes, that’s a real/important problem that smart/legitimate people face.
The post “aged well.” It seems extremely relevant right now (Jan 2023), both for collectives and for individuals. The EA community is dealing with a lot of debate around PR right now. Also, more anecdotally, the Bay Area AI safety scene has quite a strange Status Hierarchy Thing going on, and I think this is a significant barrier to progress. (One might even say that “feeling afraid to speak openly due to vague social pressures” is a relatively central problem crippling the world at scale, as well as our community.)
The post is so short!
What could have been improved
The PR frame. “PR” seems like a term that applies to organizations but not individuals. I think Anna could have pretty easily thrown in some more synonyms/near-synonyms that help people relate more to the post. (I think “status” and “social standing” are terms that I hear the younguns using these days.)
Implementation details. Anna could have provided more suggestions for how to actually cultivate the “honor mindset” or otherwise deal with (unproductive) PR concerns. Sadly, humans are not automatically strategic, so I expect many people will not find the most strategic/effective ways to implement the advice in this post.
Stories. I think it would’ve been useful for Anna to provide examples of scenarios where she used the “honor” mindset in her own life or navigated the “PR” mindset in her own life.
But Akash, criticizing posts is easy. Why don’t you try to write your own post that attempts to address some of the limitations you pointed out?
I did!