while everyone else was clearly happy to eat the cookies
I would’ve ignored the fact of there being cookies, as I wouldn’t want to support the norm of bringing cookies (I don’t care about there being cookies, and it would be annoying to be expected to bring generalized cookies), but I would’ve also intentionally avoided eating them (not participating in a norm goes both ways). So the claim that everyone ate the cookies seems surprising. There should be an option to register disapproval of a norm that wouldn’t be seen as nonspecific rudeness.
This sounds like a strategic misstep, and I’m guessing it was caused either by a hyperalert status manager in your brain or a bad experience at the hands of a bully (intentional or otherwise) in the past.
I estimate that (prepare for uncharitable phrasing) asking anyone with your mindset to try to self-modify to be okay with other people taking steps to make everyone happier in this way is a smaller cost than a norm of “don’t bring [cookies], rationalists will turn around and blame everyone who didn’t bring them if you dare”.
But yeah I think spending points to teach people not to defect against a bring-cookies-if-you-wanna norm (aka thank them, aka don’t look askance at the but-I-don’t-wanna) is waaay better than spending points to disallow a bring-cookies-if-you-wanna norm.
I’m okay with other people supporting norms that I don’t support, and with following a norm that I don’t support, if it happens to be accepted in a group. But there should be freedom to register disapproval of a norm, even when it ends up accepted (let alone in this case, where it apparently wasn’t accepted). There is no call to self-modify anyone.
What felt annoying to me and triggered this subthread was that in Said’s story there were only people who supported the norm he appeared to be promoting, and people who preyed on the commons. Disapproval of the norm was not a possibility, on pain of being bundled together with the defectors. This issue seems to me more important than the question of which norm is the right one for that setting (that is, which norm should have been supported).
That’s fair. There are definitely norms I think help overall (or situationally help) that I wish didn’t help overall because I don’t like them. For example tolerance of late arrivals. I hate it, and also if we didn’t tolerate it my most valuable group would never have existed.
That’s strategic voting as opposed to voting-as-survey. What if nobody wants cookies, but most people vote for them in expectation that others would appreciate them? Voting-as-survey should be able to sort this out, but strategic voting suffers from confirmation bias. Everyone is bringing cookies, so apparently people like them. But with strategic voting this is begging the question, there might have been no attempt to falsify the assumption.
Thus I don’t even see how it can be clear whether the cookies norm is better for the group that the no-cookies norm, and so whether the strategic vote should support the cookies. (In the case of cookies specifically, getting eaten is some sort of survey, but in general strategic voting breeds confusion.)
The norm that everyone should occasionally sell some food for status. (I understand that many groups like the activity, in which case it’s a good norm. Personally I don’t like eating at social gatherings, or food-derived status, or being confused for a defector, so I don’t like there being a norm like that.)
There’s a clever trick to this effect. You can say thank you for others’ sake without eating! Wouldn’t that just throw a spanner into their Machiavellian calculations on who owes whom.
You can hardly simultaneously describe the relevant dynamic as “selling food for status” and admit that many people/groups enjoy sharing food at social gatherings; these are mutually inconsistent characterizations.
ETA: It goes almost without saying that “sell some food for status” is an unnecessarily tendentious description, all by itself…
Huh? Where is the contradiction? Giving status for things you appreciate is enjoyable, as well as receiving status for a good deed. Not to mention all the delicious food generated by presence of the norm. It’s clearly selling because not paying for the food (with a generalized “thank you” and possibly reciprocal participation in the norm) is defection. But there is nothing wrong with a good market!
“Everyone should occasionally sell some food for status” is not what’s being discussed. Your phrasing sounds as though Said said everyone was supposed to bring cookies or something, which is obviously not what he said.
What’s being discussed is more like “people should be rewarded for making small but costly contributions to the group”. Cookies in-and-of-themselves aren’t contributing directly to the group members becoming stronger rationalists, but (as well as just being a kind gift) it’s a signal that someone is saying “I like this group, and I’m willing to invest basic resources into improving it”.
If such small signals are ignored, it is reasonable to update that people aren’t tracking contributions very much, and decide that it’s not worth putting in more of your time and effort.
I agree with the more general point about importance of tracking and rewarding contributions, but in this subthread I was specifically discussing cookies and difficulties with graciously expressing my lack of appreciation for them.
rewarded for making small but costly contributions
There is nothing good about contributions being costly. With signaling, the cost should pay for communication of important things that can’t otherwise be communicated, because incentives don’t allow trust; here that piece of critical intelligence would be posession of cooking skill and caring about the group. The cost is probably less than the cost of time spent in the meeting, so the additional signal is weak. If you like cooking, the cost might actually be negative. If you are not poor, the signal from store-bought food is approximately zero. (As signaling is about a situation without trust, it’s not the thought that counts. I’m not saying that signaling is appropriate here, I’m considering the hypothetical where we are engaged in signaling for whatever reason.)
And it should actually matter whether the contributions are appreciated. So I guess it’s possible that there is a difference in how people respond to costly signals, compared to useful contributions of indeterminate cost.
The cost is probably less than the cost of time spent in the meeting, so the additional signal is weak. If you like cooking, the cost might actually be negative.
Once upon a time, I liked programming. Time spent not programming was uncomfortable, and any opportunity to involve programming with other activities was welcome. If I could program some cookies for a meetup, I would describe the cost of that as negative. Thus by analogy I’m guessing that a person who similarly likes cooking would perceive the cost of cooking (not counting the price of ingredients) as negative. Maybe I liked programming to a ridiculous degree?
(Not sure where this fits in the thread or if it does, so—sorry for offtop. At least one of ours has contracted the virus, AFAIK. He told me after we have talked for a bit about another business, I asked him to comment on something and he said sure, he’d have done it sooner but for covid… I have offered our local LW people to help pay for testing if anybody needs it, without any additional questions or conclusions. So far nobody has asked for it and I do hope this means something good, like “we’re mostly healthy and have money” and not something bad, like “we would have asked for help but it’s not done”. Even to be able to offer anything meaningfully, I need people “to bring cookies”.)
I would’ve hoped that the use of ‘everyone’ in this context would be clearly enough slightly-hyperbolic to avoid this sort of misunderstanding…
This happened years ago, and I don’t have perfect recall of past events. Even at the time, I could not assert with confidence that literally every single person present at each of these events ate the cookies. (Indeed, a priori such a claim seems unlikely; surely at least one person was on a diet? Diabetic? Vegan? Lactose-intolerant? Not a fan of oatmeal / chocolate chip / whatever? A claim that literally everyone ate the cookies should be surprising for reasons entirely unrelated to any social norms!)
The cookies were eaten—that’s the point. Not long into each gathering, all the cookies (or other sweets; I think I may’ve brought brownies once) were gone. The majority of the other attendees seemed happy to eat them. These things, I can say with as great a confidence as I have in recollection of any other years-past event.
As for your main point…
I sympathize with being placed in the unpleasant situation of disapproving of a social norm that others are promulgating with good intentions. (Clearly, I disagree with you on the subject of this particular norm; what’s more, it seems to me that you are rather misinterpreting what the intended/desired norm is, in this case. I don’t know if you’d still disapprove of the actual norm I have in mind, properly understood… if so, our disagreement deepens, as I think that rejection of the norm in question, and those like it, is corrosive to any would-be community. But all of this is beside the point.)
But there are ways of handling such situations that contribute to social cohesion, and ways that detract from it.
In my experience, in most more or less casual social circles (whether they be centered around a workplace, group activity, or anything else), most people have little or no skill at cooking/baking. If one person does have such skill, and (for whatever occasion may warrant it—be that “it’s my birthday” or “it’s Friday”) brings homemade food or snacks, typically the other members of the group are somewhat surprised (it’s an unusual skill, after all), and express gratitude. If the food is skillfully made, there are comments noting this—praising the person who made and brought the food, and making note of their skill.
On other occasions, in such groups, other members of the group, who lack such cooking/baking skills, nevertheless see fit to bring food for sharing. This may be store-bought, prepared by a caterer, etc. The rest of the group expresses gratitude again, though not, of course, the other sentiments of praise and admiration.
Still others in such groups may rarely or never contribute food (homemade or otherwise) to group gatherings (but do typically, if they wish to be perceived as cooperative members, contribute in other informal ways).
This is a pattern I’ve seen play out many times, in many groups—academic, professional, hobby-oriented, generic social gatherings, etc. I have observed it on the East Coast, and on the West Coast, and in the Midwest; among “millennials” and “boomers”; among people and groups from a variety of cultural backgrounds.
In each case, the voluntary contribution of food to the group, for sharing by its members, with no direct compensation expected, is seen, correctly, as an act of deliberate cooperation. The contributor is rewarded with some social status, as well as the positive feelings that come from being directly thanked by a fellow group member. If the food was also made by the contributor (and is good)—i.e., if the contribution required skill and effort, i.e. is a costly signal of cooperation—a larger amount of status is bestowed (via expressions of admiration, etc.).
These responses cost the other group members little else but words. They need not create expectations or reciprocal obligations, please note! If I bring cookies, and everyone else says “oh, thanks for bringing cookies, Said!” and (assuming they are delicious) “ooh, these are great, Said, you made these? cool!”—this already discharges any obligations of reciprocity. Certainly there could be a norm that everyone contributes something (either every time, or in some sort of formal or informal rotation). But such a norm would be a separate and additional thing.
Now, suppose that you still strenuously object even to the implied suggestion that there might be any expectation of contributing food for sharing. Suppose you bristle at the notion that a group member may expect, and receive, any social status for such contributions. Nevertheless, unless you consider the contribution to be a hostile act, it is clearly counterproductive to punish it, yes? The signal you send, if you do so, is “this group neither appreciates nor rewards cooperation”. (Cooperation in general, note! If I bring cookies and get not a peep of acknowledgment or thanks, the message I get isn’t “we don’t do food sharing here”—it’s the aforesaid general rebuke. If you want to send the specific message and not the general one, you have to use actual words. But in such a case, you would have to ensure that the contributor is still rewarded for the impulse to cooperation…)
And, needless to say, taking advantage of the cooperative act, while neither rewarding it with even so much as acknowledgment, not to say thanks (and still less praise)… well, that is defection, pure and simple.
A norm you might’ve intended is not part of the decision problem, if what people observe is only the cookies not accompanied by an essay detailing the intended norm. I’m still not sure what response you endorse for those who disapprove of what the norm appears to be (other than explicitly engaging in a discussion).
I wasn’t literal with “everyone” either. The point is that in your recollection you’ve rounded down to zero the number of people who might’ve tried to respectfully decline (in the most straightforward way) the norm you appeared to be pushing.
Respectfully, I think you are missing my point in a quite comprehensive way.
Perhaps others might weigh in on whether what I have said is clear (and, of course, whether they agree, etc.) I will refrain from further attempts at explanation until then.
Clearly I wasn’t engaging your point, I was clarifying my own point instead. So I don’t see how it would be evident whether I was missing your point or not.
There are these defectors, and for any reasonable person whose reaction to a cookie is to explicitly conceptualize the social consequences of possible responses to being presented with it, it should be clear that silently eating the cookie and not otherwise responding in any way is defection. There are groups where a different response is prevalent, though probably for reasons other than higher propensity for consideration of social consequences of their actions or different results of that consideration. Because of these hypotheses where apparent cooperation follows for obscure reasons, and apparent defection follows from seeing a cookie as just food, I don’t see how lack of apparent cooperation leads to any clear conclusions. (As an example of a point I chose not to engage.)
I would’ve ignored the fact of there being cookies, as I wouldn’t want to support the norm of bringing cookies (I don’t care about there being cookies, and it would be annoying to be expected to bring generalized cookies), but I would’ve also intentionally avoided eating them (not participating in a norm goes both ways). So the claim that everyone ate the cookies seems surprising. There should be an option to register disapproval of a norm that wouldn’t be seen as nonspecific rudeness.
This sounds like a strategic misstep, and I’m guessing it was caused either by a hyperalert status manager in your brain or a bad experience at the hands of a bully (intentional or otherwise) in the past.
I estimate that (prepare for uncharitable phrasing) asking anyone with your mindset to try to self-modify to be okay with other people taking steps to make everyone happier in this way is a smaller cost than a norm of “don’t bring [cookies], rationalists will turn around and blame everyone who didn’t bring them if you dare”.
But yeah I think spending points to teach people not to defect against a bring-cookies-if-you-wanna norm (aka thank them, aka don’t look askance at the but-I-don’t-wanna) is waaay better than spending points to disallow a bring-cookies-if-you-wanna norm.
I’m okay with other people supporting norms that I don’t support, and with following a norm that I don’t support, if it happens to be accepted in a group. But there should be freedom to register disapproval of a norm, even when it ends up accepted (let alone in this case, where it apparently wasn’t accepted). There is no call to self-modify anyone.
What felt annoying to me and triggered this subthread was that in Said’s story there were only people who supported the norm he appeared to be promoting, and people who preyed on the commons. Disapproval of the norm was not a possibility, on pain of being bundled together with the defectors. This issue seems to me more important than the question of which norm is the right one for that setting (that is, which norm should have been supported).
That’s fair. There are definitely norms I think help overall (or situationally help) that I wish didn’t help overall because I don’t like them. For example tolerance of late arrivals. I hate it, and also if we didn’t tolerate it my most valuable group would never have existed.
That’s strategic voting as opposed to voting-as-survey. What if nobody wants cookies, but most people vote for them in expectation that others would appreciate them? Voting-as-survey should be able to sort this out, but strategic voting suffers from confirmation bias. Everyone is bringing cookies, so apparently people like them. But with strategic voting this is begging the question, there might have been no attempt to falsify the assumption.
Thus I don’t even see how it can be clear whether the cookies norm is better for the group that the no-cookies norm, and so whether the strategic vote should support the cookies. (In the case of cookies specifically, getting eaten is some sort of survey, but in general strategic voting breeds confusion.)
What norm do you think I was (or appeared to be) promoting?
The norm that everyone should occasionally sell some food for status. (I understand that many groups like the activity, in which case it’s a good norm. Personally I don’t like eating at social gatherings, or food-derived status, or being confused for a defector, so I don’t like there being a norm like that.)
There’s a clever trick to this effect. You can say thank you for others’ sake without eating! Wouldn’t that just throw a spanner into their Machiavellian calculations on who owes whom.
You can hardly simultaneously describe the relevant dynamic as “selling food for status” and admit that many people/groups enjoy sharing food at social gatherings; these are mutually inconsistent characterizations.
ETA: It goes almost without saying that “sell some food for status” is an unnecessarily tendentious description, all by itself…
Huh? Where is the contradiction? Giving status for things you appreciate is enjoyable, as well as receiving status for a good deed. Not to mention all the delicious food generated by presence of the norm. It’s clearly selling because not paying for the food (with a generalized “thank you” and possibly reciprocal participation in the norm) is defection. But there is nothing wrong with a good market!
“Everyone should occasionally sell some food for status” is not what’s being discussed. Your phrasing sounds as though Said said everyone was supposed to bring cookies or something, which is obviously not what he said.
What’s being discussed is more like “people should be rewarded for making small but costly contributions to the group”. Cookies in-and-of-themselves aren’t contributing directly to the group members becoming stronger rationalists, but (as well as just being a kind gift) it’s a signal that someone is saying “I like this group, and I’m willing to invest basic resources into improving it”.
If such small signals are ignored, it is reasonable to update that people aren’t tracking contributions very much, and decide that it’s not worth putting in more of your time and effort.
I agree with the more general point about importance of tracking and rewarding contributions, but in this subthread I was specifically discussing cookies and difficulties with graciously expressing my lack of appreciation for them.
There is nothing good about contributions being costly. With signaling, the cost should pay for communication of important things that can’t otherwise be communicated, because incentives don’t allow trust; here that piece of critical intelligence would be posession of cooking skill and caring about the group. The cost is probably less than the cost of time spent in the meeting, so the additional signal is weak. If you like cooking, the cost might actually be negative. If you are not poor, the signal from store-bought food is approximately zero. (As signaling is about a situation without trust, it’s not the thought that counts. I’m not saying that signaling is appropriate here, I’m considering the hypothetical where we are engaged in signaling for whatever reason.)
And it should actually matter whether the contributions are appreciated. So I guess it’s possible that there is a difference in how people respond to costly signals, compared to useful contributions of indeterminate cost.
I’m sorry, but this is a ridiculous claim.
Once upon a time, I liked programming. Time spent not programming was uncomfortable, and any opportunity to involve programming with other activities was welcome. If I could program some cookies for a meetup, I would describe the cost of that as negative. Thus by analogy I’m guessing that a person who similarly likes cooking would perceive the cost of cooking (not counting the price of ingredients) as negative. Maybe I liked programming to a ridiculous degree?
In folksier terms, what’s being discussed is rationalists’ often-strange relationship to common courtesy (i.e. Lindy social dynamics).
Just so.
(Not sure where this fits in the thread or if it does, so—sorry for offtop. At least one of ours has contracted the virus, AFAIK. He told me after we have talked for a bit about another business, I asked him to comment on something and he said sure, he’d have done it sooner but for covid… I have offered our local LW people to help pay for testing if anybody needs it, without any additional questions or conclusions. So far nobody has asked for it and I do hope this means something good, like “we’re mostly healthy and have money” and not something bad, like “we would have asked for help but it’s not done”. Even to be able to offer anything meaningfully, I need people “to bring cookies”.)
I would’ve hoped that the use of ‘everyone’ in this context would be clearly enough slightly-hyperbolic to avoid this sort of misunderstanding…
This happened years ago, and I don’t have perfect recall of past events. Even at the time, I could not assert with confidence that literally every single person present at each of these events ate the cookies. (Indeed, a priori such a claim seems unlikely; surely at least one person was on a diet? Diabetic? Vegan? Lactose-intolerant? Not a fan of oatmeal / chocolate chip / whatever? A claim that literally everyone ate the cookies should be surprising for reasons entirely unrelated to any social norms!)
The cookies were eaten—that’s the point. Not long into each gathering, all the cookies (or other sweets; I think I may’ve brought brownies once) were gone. The majority of the other attendees seemed happy to eat them. These things, I can say with as great a confidence as I have in recollection of any other years-past event.
As for your main point…
I sympathize with being placed in the unpleasant situation of disapproving of a social norm that others are promulgating with good intentions. (Clearly, I disagree with you on the subject of this particular norm; what’s more, it seems to me that you are rather misinterpreting what the intended/desired norm is, in this case. I don’t know if you’d still disapprove of the actual norm I have in mind, properly understood… if so, our disagreement deepens, as I think that rejection of the norm in question, and those like it, is corrosive to any would-be community. But all of this is beside the point.)
But there are ways of handling such situations that contribute to social cohesion, and ways that detract from it.
In my experience, in most more or less casual social circles (whether they be centered around a workplace, group activity, or anything else), most people have little or no skill at cooking/baking. If one person does have such skill, and (for whatever occasion may warrant it—be that “it’s my birthday” or “it’s Friday”) brings homemade food or snacks, typically the other members of the group are somewhat surprised (it’s an unusual skill, after all), and express gratitude. If the food is skillfully made, there are comments noting this—praising the person who made and brought the food, and making note of their skill.
On other occasions, in such groups, other members of the group, who lack such cooking/baking skills, nevertheless see fit to bring food for sharing. This may be store-bought, prepared by a caterer, etc. The rest of the group expresses gratitude again, though not, of course, the other sentiments of praise and admiration.
Still others in such groups may rarely or never contribute food (homemade or otherwise) to group gatherings (but do typically, if they wish to be perceived as cooperative members, contribute in other informal ways).
This is a pattern I’ve seen play out many times, in many groups—academic, professional, hobby-oriented, generic social gatherings, etc. I have observed it on the East Coast, and on the West Coast, and in the Midwest; among “millennials” and “boomers”; among people and groups from a variety of cultural backgrounds.
In each case, the voluntary contribution of food to the group, for sharing by its members, with no direct compensation expected, is seen, correctly, as an act of deliberate cooperation. The contributor is rewarded with some social status, as well as the positive feelings that come from being directly thanked by a fellow group member. If the food was also made by the contributor (and is good)—i.e., if the contribution required skill and effort, i.e. is a costly signal of cooperation—a larger amount of status is bestowed (via expressions of admiration, etc.).
These responses cost the other group members little else but words. They need not create expectations or reciprocal obligations, please note! If I bring cookies, and everyone else says “oh, thanks for bringing cookies, Said!” and (assuming they are delicious) “ooh, these are great, Said, you made these? cool!”—this already discharges any obligations of reciprocity. Certainly there could be a norm that everyone contributes something (either every time, or in some sort of formal or informal rotation). But such a norm would be a separate and additional thing.
Now, suppose that you still strenuously object even to the implied suggestion that there might be any expectation of contributing food for sharing. Suppose you bristle at the notion that a group member may expect, and receive, any social status for such contributions. Nevertheless, unless you consider the contribution to be a hostile act, it is clearly counterproductive to punish it, yes? The signal you send, if you do so, is “this group neither appreciates nor rewards cooperation”. (Cooperation in general, note! If I bring cookies and get not a peep of acknowledgment or thanks, the message I get isn’t “we don’t do food sharing here”—it’s the aforesaid general rebuke. If you want to send the specific message and not the general one, you have to use actual words. But in such a case, you would have to ensure that the contributor is still rewarded for the impulse to cooperation…)
And, needless to say, taking advantage of the cooperative act, while neither rewarding it with even so much as acknowledgment, not to say thanks (and still less praise)… well, that is defection, pure and simple.
A norm you might’ve intended is not part of the decision problem, if what people observe is only the cookies not accompanied by an essay detailing the intended norm. I’m still not sure what response you endorse for those who disapprove of what the norm appears to be (other than explicitly engaging in a discussion).
I wasn’t literal with “everyone” either. The point is that in your recollection you’ve rounded down to zero the number of people who might’ve tried to respectfully decline (in the most straightforward way) the norm you appeared to be pushing.
Respectfully, I think you are missing my point in a quite comprehensive way.
Perhaps others might weigh in on whether what I have said is clear (and, of course, whether they agree, etc.) I will refrain from further attempts at explanation until then.
Clearly I wasn’t engaging your point, I was clarifying my own point instead. So I don’t see how it would be evident whether I was missing your point or not.
There are these defectors, and for any reasonable person whose reaction to a cookie is to explicitly conceptualize the social consequences of possible responses to being presented with it, it should be clear that silently eating the cookie and not otherwise responding in any way is defection. There are groups where a different response is prevalent, though probably for reasons other than higher propensity for consideration of social consequences of their actions or different results of that consideration. Because of these hypotheses where apparent cooperation follows for obscure reasons, and apparent defection follows from seeing a cookie as just food, I don’t see how lack of apparent cooperation leads to any clear conclusions. (As an example of a point I chose not to engage.)