Sure, that all makes sense, but at least on LW it seems like we ought to insist on saying “rewarding results” when we mean rewarding results, and “deceiving ourselves into thinking we’re rewarding results” when we mean deceiving ourselves into thinking we’re rewarding results.
That makes sense, although I’m not actually sure either “rewarding results” or “deceiving ourselves into thinking we’re rewarding results” quite capture what’s going on here.
Like, I do think it’s possible to reward individual good things (whether blogposts or scientific papers) when you find them. The question is how this shapes the overall system. When you expect “good/real results” to be few and far between, the process of “only reward things that are obvious good and/or great” might technically be rewarding results, while still outputting fewer results on average than if you had rewarded people for following overall strategies like “pursue things you’re earnestly curious about”, and giving people positive rewards for incremental steps along the way.
(Seems good to be precise about language here but I’m not in fact sure how to word this optimally. Meanwhile, earlier parts of the conversation were more explicitly about how ‘reward final results, and only final results’ just isn’t the strategy used in most of the business world)
Sure, that all makes sense, but at least on LW it seems like we ought to insist on saying “rewarding results” when we mean rewarding results, and “deceiving ourselves into thinking we’re rewarding results” when we mean deceiving ourselves into thinking we’re rewarding results.
That makes sense, although I’m not actually sure either “rewarding results” or “deceiving ourselves into thinking we’re rewarding results” quite capture what’s going on here.
Like, I do think it’s possible to reward individual good things (whether blogposts or scientific papers) when you find them. The question is how this shapes the overall system. When you expect “good/real results” to be few and far between, the process of “only reward things that are obvious good and/or great” might technically be rewarding results, while still outputting fewer results on average than if you had rewarded people for following overall strategies like “pursue things you’re earnestly curious about”, and giving people positive rewards for incremental steps along the way.
(Seems good to be precise about language here but I’m not in fact sure how to word this optimally. Meanwhile, earlier parts of the conversation were more explicitly about how ‘reward final results, and only final results’ just isn’t the strategy used in most of the business world)