I am not everyone else, but the reason I downvoted on the second axis is because:
I still don’t really understand the avoidant/non-avoidant taxonomy. I am confused when avoidant is both “introverted… and prefer to be alone” while “avoidants… being disturbing to others” when Scott never intended to disturb Metz’s life? And Scott doesn’t owe anyone anything—avoidant or not. And the claim about Scott being low conscientious? Gwern being low conscientious? If it “varying from person to person” so much, is it even descriptive?
Making a claim of Gwern being avoidant, and Gwern said that Gwern is not. It might be the case that Gwern is lying. But that seems far stretched and not yet substantiated. But it seemed confusing enough that Gwern also couldn’t tell how wide the concept applies.
I still don’t really understand the avoidant/non-avoidant taxonomy. I am confused when avoidant is both “introverted… and prefer to be alone” while “avoidants… being disturbing to others” when Scott never intended to disturb Metz’s life?
The part about being disturbing wasn’t supposed to refer to Scott’s treatment of Cade Metz, it was supposed to refer to rationalist’s interests in taboo and disagreeable topics. And as for trying to be disturbing, I said that I think the non-avoidant people were being unfair in their characterization of them, as it’s not that simple and often it’s correction to genuine deception by non-avoidants.
And the claim about Scott being low conscientious? Gwern being low conscientious? If it “varying from person to person” so much, is it even descriptive?
My model is an affine transformation applied to Big Five scores, constrained to make the relationship from transformed scores to items linear rather than affine, and optimized to make people’s scores sparse.
This is rather technical, but the consequence is that my model is mathematically equivalent to a subspace of the Big Five, and the Big Five has similar issues where it can tend to lump different stuff together. Like one could just as well turn it around and say that the Big Five lumps my anxious and avoidant profiles together under the label of “introverted”. (Well, the Big Five has two more dimensions than my model does, so it lumps fewer things together, but other models have more dimensions than Big Five, so Big Five lumps things together relative to those model.)
My model is new, so I’m still experimenting with it to see how much utility I find in it. Maybe I’ll abandon it as I get bored and it stops giving results.
Making a claim of Gwern being avoidant, and Gwern said that Gwern is not. It might be the case that Gwern is lying. But that seems far stretched and not yet substantiated. But it seemed confusing enough that Gwern also couldn’t tell how wide the concept applies.
Gwern said that he’s not avoidant of journalists, but he’s low extraversion, low agreeableness, low neuroticism, high openness, mid conscientiousness, so that definitionally makes him avoidant under my personality model (which as mentioned is just an affine transformation of the Big Five). He also alludes to having schizoid personality disorder, which I think is relevant to being avoidant. As I said, this is a model of general personality profiles, not of interactions with journalists specifically.
I guess for reference, here’s a slightly more complete version of the personality taxonomy:
Normative: Happy, social, emotionally expressive. Respects authority and expects others to do so too.
Anxious: Afraid of speaking up, of breaking the rules, and of getting noticed. Tries to be alone as a result. Doesn’t trust that others mean well.
Wild: Parties, swears, and is emotionally unstable. Breaks rules and supports others (… in doing the same?)
Avoidant: Contrarian, intellectual, and secretive. Likes to be alone and doesn’t respect rules or cleanliness.
In practice people would be combinations of these archetypes, rather than purely being one of them. In some versions, the Normative type split into three:
Jockish: Parties and avoids intellectual topics.
Steadfast: Conservative yet patient and supportive.
Perfectionistic: Gets upset over other people’s mistakes and tries to take control as a result.
This would make it as fully expressive as the Big Five.
… but there was some mathematical trouble in getting it to be replicable and “nice” if I included 6 profiles, so I’m expecting to be stuck at 4 types unless I discover some new mathematical tricks.
Speaking for myself: I don’t prefer to be alone or tend to hide information about myself. Quite the opposite; I like to have company but rare is the company that likes to have me, and I like sharing, though it’s rare that someone cares to hear it. It’s true that I “try to be independent” and “form my own opinions”, but I think that part of your paragraph is easy to overlook because it doesn’t sound like what the word “avoidant” ought to mean. (And my philosophy is that people with good epistemics tend to reach similar conclusions, so our independence doesn’t necessarily imply a tendency to end up alone in our own school of thought, let alone prefer it that way.)
Now if I were in Scott’s position? I find social media enemies terrifying and would want to hide as much as possible from them. And Scott’s desire for his name not to be broadcast? He’s explained it as related to his profession, and I don’t see why I should disbelieve that. Yet Scott also schedules regular meetups where strangers can come, which doesn’t sound “avoidant”. More broadly, labeling famous-ish people who talk frequently online as “avoidant” doesn’t sound right.
Also, “schizoid” as in schizophrenia? By reputation, rationalists are more likely to be autistic, which tends not to co-occur with schizophrenia, and the ACX survey is correlated with this reputation. (Could say more but I think this suffices.)
Speaking for myself: I don’t prefer to be alone or tend to hide information about myself. Quite the opposite; I like to have company but rare is the company that likes to have me, and I like sharing, though it’s rare that someone cares to hear it.
Sounds like you aren’t avoidant, since introversion-related items tend to be the ones most highly endorsed by the avoidant profile.
Now if I were in Scott’s position? I find social media enemies terrifying and would want to hide as much as possible from them. And Scott’s desire for his name not to be broadcast? He’s explained it as related to his profession, and I don’t see why I should disbelieve that. Yet Scott also schedules regular meetups where strangers can come, which doesn’t sound “avoidant”. More broadly, labeling famous-ish people who talk frequently online as “avoidant” doesn’t sound right.
Scott Alexander’s MBTI type is INTJ. The INT part is all aligned with avoidant, so I still say he’s avoidant. Do you think all the meetups and such mean that he’s really ENTJ?
As for wanting to hide from social media enemies, I’d speculate that this causally contributes to avoidant personality.
Also, “schizoid” as in schizophrenia? By reputation, rationalists are more likely to be autistic, which tends not to co-occur with schizophrenia, and the ACX survey is correlated with this reputation. (Could say more but I think this suffices.)
Why the downvotes? Because it’s an irrelevant/tangential ramble? Or some more specific reason?
I am not everyone else, but the reason I downvoted on the second axis is because:
I still don’t really understand the avoidant/non-avoidant taxonomy. I am confused when avoidant is both “introverted… and prefer to be alone” while “avoidants… being disturbing to others” when Scott never intended to disturb Metz’s life? And Scott doesn’t owe anyone anything—avoidant or not. And the claim about Scott being low conscientious? Gwern being low conscientious? If it “varying from person to person” so much, is it even descriptive?
Making a claim of Gwern being avoidant, and Gwern said that Gwern is not. It might be the case that Gwern is lying. But that seems far stretched and not yet substantiated. But it seemed confusing enough that Gwern also couldn’t tell how wide the concept applies.
The part about being disturbing wasn’t supposed to refer to Scott’s treatment of Cade Metz, it was supposed to refer to rationalist’s interests in taboo and disagreeable topics. And as for trying to be disturbing, I said that I think the non-avoidant people were being unfair in their characterization of them, as it’s not that simple and often it’s correction to genuine deception by non-avoidants.
My model is an affine transformation applied to Big Five scores, constrained to make the relationship from transformed scores to items linear rather than affine, and optimized to make people’s scores sparse.
This is rather technical, but the consequence is that my model is mathematically equivalent to a subspace of the Big Five, and the Big Five has similar issues where it can tend to lump different stuff together. Like one could just as well turn it around and say that the Big Five lumps my anxious and avoidant profiles together under the label of “introverted”. (Well, the Big Five has two more dimensions than my model does, so it lumps fewer things together, but other models have more dimensions than Big Five, so Big Five lumps things together relative to those model.)
My model is new, so I’m still experimenting with it to see how much utility I find in it. Maybe I’ll abandon it as I get bored and it stops giving results.
Gwern said that he’s not avoidant of journalists, but he’s low extraversion, low agreeableness, low neuroticism, high openness, mid conscientiousness, so that definitionally makes him avoidant under my personality model (which as mentioned is just an affine transformation of the Big Five). He also alludes to having schizoid personality disorder, which I think is relevant to being avoidant. As I said, this is a model of general personality profiles, not of interactions with journalists specifically.
I guess for reference, here’s a slightly more complete version of the personality taxonomy:
Normative: Happy, social, emotionally expressive. Respects authority and expects others to do so too.
Anxious: Afraid of speaking up, of breaking the rules, and of getting noticed. Tries to be alone as a result. Doesn’t trust that others mean well.
Wild: Parties, swears, and is emotionally unstable. Breaks rules and supports others (… in doing the same?)
Avoidant: Contrarian, intellectual, and secretive. Likes to be alone and doesn’t respect rules or cleanliness.
In practice people would be combinations of these archetypes, rather than purely being one of them. In some versions, the Normative type split into three:
Jockish: Parties and avoids intellectual topics.
Steadfast: Conservative yet patient and supportive.
Perfectionistic: Gets upset over other people’s mistakes and tries to take control as a result.
This would make it as fully expressive as the Big Five.
… but there was some mathematical trouble in getting it to be replicable and “nice” if I included 6 profiles, so I’m expecting to be stuck at 4 types unless I discover some new mathematical tricks.
Speaking for myself: I don’t prefer to be alone or tend to hide information about myself. Quite the opposite; I like to have company but rare is the company that likes to have me, and I like sharing, though it’s rare that someone cares to hear it. It’s true that I “try to be independent” and “form my own opinions”, but I think that part of your paragraph is easy to overlook because it doesn’t sound like what the word “avoidant” ought to mean. (And my philosophy is that people with good epistemics tend to reach similar conclusions, so our independence doesn’t necessarily imply a tendency to end up alone in our own school of thought, let alone prefer it that way.)
Now if I were in Scott’s position? I find social media enemies terrifying and would want to hide as much as possible from them. And Scott’s desire for his name not to be broadcast? He’s explained it as related to his profession, and I don’t see why I should disbelieve that. Yet Scott also schedules regular meetups where strangers can come, which doesn’t sound “avoidant”. More broadly, labeling famous-ish people who talk frequently online as “avoidant” doesn’t sound right.
Also, “schizoid” as in schizophrenia? By reputation, rationalists are more likely to be autistic, which tends not to co-occur with schizophrenia, and the ACX survey is correlated with this reputation. (Could say more but I think this suffices.)
Sounds like you aren’t avoidant, since introversion-related items tend to be the ones most highly endorsed by the avoidant profile.
Scott Alexander’s MBTI type is INTJ. The INT part is all aligned with avoidant, so I still say he’s avoidant. Do you think all the meetups and such mean that he’s really ENTJ?
As for wanting to hide from social media enemies, I’d speculate that this causally contributes to avoidant personality.
Schizoid as in schizoid.