It’s not like we asked 270 random people. We asked 270 people, each one of which had already invested many hundreds of hours into participating on LessWrong, many of which I knew personally and considered close friends. Like, I agree, if you message 270 random people you don’t get to expect anything from them, but the whole point of networks of trust is that you get to expect things from each other and ask things from each other.
If any of the people in that list of 270 people had asked me to spend a few minutes doing something that was important to them, I would have gladly obliged.
It doesn’t matter whether you’d have been hypothetically willing to do something for them. As I said on the Facebook thread, you did not consult with them. You merely informed them they were in a game, which, given the social criticism Chris has received, had real world consequences if they misplayed. In other words, you put them in harm’s way without their consent. That is not a good way to build trust.
Just a datapoint on variety of invitees: I was included in the 270, and I’ve invested hundreds of hours into LW. while I don’t know you personally outside the site, I hope you consider me a trusted acquaintance, if not a friend. I had no clue this was anything but a funny little game, and my expectation was that there would be dozens of button presses before I even saw the mail.
I had not read nor paid attention to the petrov day posts (including prior years). I had no prior information about the expectations of behavior, the weight put on the outcome, nor the intended lesson/demonstration of … something that’s being interpreted as “coordination” or “trust”.
I wasn’t using the mental model that indicated I was being trusted not to do something—I took it as a game to see who’d get there first, or how many would press the button, not a hope that everyone would solemnly avoid playing (by passively ignoring the mail). I think without a ritual for joining the group (opt-in), it’s hard to judge anyone or learn much about the community from the actions that occurred.
I had no clue this was anything but a funny little game, and my expectation was that there would be dozens of button presses before I even saw the mail.
And this is pretty surprising to me. Like, we ran this game last year with half of the number of people, without anyone pressing the button. We didn’t really change much about the framing, so where does this expectation come from? My current model is indeed that the shared context between the ~125 people from last year is quite a bit smaller than it was this year with ~250 people.
I don’t think that there was no change in framing. Last year:
Every Petrov Day, we practice not destroying the world. One particular way to do this is to practice the virtue of not taking unilateralist action.
It’s difficult to know who can be trusted, but today I have selected a group of LessWrong users who I think I can rely on in this way. You’ve all been given the opportunity to show yourselves capable and trustworthy.
This Petrov Day, between midnight and midnight PST, if you, ChristianKl, enter the launch codes below on LessWrong, the Frontpage will go down for 24 hours.
Personalised launch code: …
I hope to see you on the other side of this, with our honor intact.
Yours, Ben Pace & the LessWrong 2.0 Team
This year:
On Petrov Day, we celebrate and practice not destroying the world.
It’s difficult to know who can be trusted, but today I have selected a group of 270 LessWrong users who I think I can rely on in this way. You’ve all been given the opportunity to not destroy LessWrong.
This Petrov Day, if you, ChristianKl, enter the launch codes below on LessWrong, the Frontpage will go down for 24 hours, removing a resource thousands of people view every day. Each entrusted user has personalised launch codes, so that it will be clear who nuked the site.
Your personalised codes are: …
I hope to see you in the dawn of tomorrow, with our honor still intact.
–Ben Pace & the LessWrong Team
The last year was more explict about both the goal of the exercise and what it means for an individual to not use the code.
Using the phrase destroy LessWrong this year was a tell that this isn’t a serious exercise because people ususally don’t exaggerate when they are serious. Especially rationalists can usually be trusted to use clear words when they are serious.
Reading the message this time, I had the impression that it would be more likely for the website to go down then last year.
I hadn’t paid attention to the topic, and did not know it had run last year with that result (or at least hadn’t thought about it enough to update on) so that expectation was my prior.
Now that I’ve caught up on things, I realize I am confused. I suspect it was a fluke or some unanalyzed difference in setup that caused the success last year, but that explanation seems a bit facile, so I’m not sure how to actually update. I’d predict that running it again would result in the button being pressed, but I wouldn’t wager very much (in either direction).
It’s not like we asked 270 random people. We asked 270 people, each one of which had already invested many hundreds of hours into participating on LessWrong, many of which I knew personally and considered close friends. Like, I agree, if you message 270 random people you don’t get to expect anything from them, but the whole point of networks of trust is that you get to expect things from each other and ask things from each other.
If any of the people in that list of 270 people had asked me to spend a few minutes doing something that was important to them, I would have gladly obliged.
It doesn’t matter whether you’d have been hypothetically willing to do something for them. As I said on the Facebook thread, you did not consult with them. You merely informed them they were in a game, which, given the social criticism Chris has received, had real world consequences if they misplayed. In other words, you put them in harm’s way without their consent. That is not a good way to build trust.
Just a datapoint on variety of invitees: I was included in the 270, and I’ve invested hundreds of hours into LW. while I don’t know you personally outside the site, I hope you consider me a trusted acquaintance, if not a friend. I had no clue this was anything but a funny little game, and my expectation was that there would be dozens of button presses before I even saw the mail.
I had not read nor paid attention to the petrov day posts (including prior years). I had no prior information about the expectations of behavior, the weight put on the outcome, nor the intended lesson/demonstration of … something that’s being interpreted as “coordination” or “trust”.
I wasn’t using the mental model that indicated I was being trusted not to do something—I took it as a game to see who’d get there first, or how many would press the button, not a hope that everyone would solemnly avoid playing (by passively ignoring the mail). I think without a ritual for joining the group (opt-in), it’s hard to judge anyone or learn much about the community from the actions that occurred.
And this is pretty surprising to me. Like, we ran this game last year with half of the number of people, without anyone pressing the button. We didn’t really change much about the framing, so where does this expectation come from? My current model is indeed that the shared context between the ~125 people from last year is quite a bit smaller than it was this year with ~250 people.
I don’t think that there was no change in framing. Last year:
This year:
The last year was more explict about both the goal of the exercise and what it means for an individual to not use the code.
Using the phrase destroy LessWrong this year was a tell that this isn’t a serious exercise because people ususally don’t exaggerate when they are serious. Especially rationalists can usually be trusted to use clear words when they are serious.
Reading the message this time, I had the impression that it would be more likely for the website to go down then last year.
I hadn’t paid attention to the topic, and did not know it had run last year with that result (or at least hadn’t thought about it enough to update on) so that expectation was my prior.
Now that I’ve caught up on things, I realize I am confused. I suspect it was a fluke or some unanalyzed difference in setup that caused the success last year, but that explanation seems a bit facile, so I’m not sure how to actually update. I’d predict that running it again would result in the button being pressed, but I wouldn’t wager very much (in either direction).