Awesome link, and a fantastic way of thinking about how human institutions/movements/subcultures work in the abstract.
I’m not sure the quote conveys the full force of the argument out of that context though, so I recommend reading the full thing if the quote doesn’t ring true with you (or even if it does).
True. Maybe we could still make celebrate our minor celebrities more, along with just individual good work, to avoid orbiting too much around any one person. I don’t know what the optimum incentive gradient is between small steps and huge accomplishments. However, I suspect that on the margin more positive reinforcement is better along the entire length, at least for getting more content.
(There are also benefits to adversarial review and what not, but I think we’re already plenty good at nitpicking, so positive reinforcement is what needs the most attention. It could even help generate more long thoughtful counterarguments, and so help with the better adversarial review, improving the dialectic.)
This. Different people need different advice. People prone to worship and groupthink need to be told about the dangers of following the herd. People prone to nitpicking and contrarianism need to be told about how much power they lose by being unable to cooperate.
Unfortunately, in real life most people will choose exactly the opposite message—the groupthinkers will remind themselves of the dangers of disagreement, and the nitpickers will remind themselves of the dangers of agreement.
Awesome link, and a fantastic way of thinking about how human institutions/movements/subcultures work in the abstract.
I’m not sure the quote conveys the full force of the argument out of that context though, so I recommend reading the full thing if the quote doesn’t ring true with you (or even if it does).
Lesswrong doesn’t celebrate heroes much. I think that’s on purpose though…
Yes, but...
I feel like LW.com has the problem but our local LW Berlin community doesn’t.
True. Maybe we could still make celebrate our minor celebrities more, along with just individual good work, to avoid orbiting too much around any one person. I don’t know what the optimum incentive gradient is between small steps and huge accomplishments. However, I suspect that on the margin more positive reinforcement is better along the entire length, at least for getting more content.
(There are also benefits to adversarial review and what not, but I think we’re already plenty good at nitpicking, so positive reinforcement is what needs the most attention. It could even help generate more long thoughtful counterarguments, and so help with the better adversarial review, improving the dialectic.)
This. Different people need different advice. People prone to worship and groupthink need to be told about the dangers of following the herd. People prone to nitpicking and contrarianism need to be told about how much power they lose by being unable to cooperate.
Unfortunately, in real life most people will choose exactly the opposite message—the groupthinkers will remind themselves of the dangers of disagreement, and the nitpickers will remind themselves of the dangers of agreement.