I have a close-to-deontological belief in the need to obey the rules of a community that’s trying to create things together (even when the rules seem wrong) and I think I tend to interpret things in that frame (for or against) even if that isn’t the intention.
Yeah, I acknowledge that I’m a bit of a jerk in that I disregard rules more easily than most people find comfortable. I take more of a Chesterton’s fence approach within an overall consequentialist framework. Following the rules is a great default choice. If I don’t want to put the energy into analyzing the reasons behind the rules, or can’t understand the situation well enough to know WHY I think the universe is improved by my rules violation, I should just obey.
But if I do have a belief that the outcome is better by some other action, I take that action.
The written, legible rules are, I believe, a map of the ideas (maps) of the authors of the rules. The actual rules are what happens—the results of my actions, whether that’s better identification of great posts, or more interesting discussions, or confusion and discomfort in readers, or my ejection from the community. The written rules are both a prediction and a coarse-grained statement of intent about those results, but they almost always diverge from reality.
Note that I do not generalize to “everyone should take this action”. I’m denying the completeness of rules, not creating new ones (though I do sometimes propose new rules or different Schelling points, that’s just another level consequentialism). I’m also something of a jerk in my level of elitism that lets me do things I think are good, EVEN IF those choices wouldn’t scale, and would cease to be good if many others did them (I’d STOP the rogue actions if that occurred, but I wouldn’t avoid them just because of the counterfactual universality).
For voting, I haven’t analyzed whether I should change my strategy based on some, many, or most other LW voters are voting their conscience or voting for results. I think my preference (vote for results) scales, but I’m not certain.
Yeah, I acknowledge that I’m a bit of a jerk in that I disregard rules more easily than most people find comfortable. I take more of a Chesterton’s fence approach within an overall consequentialist framework. Following the rules is a great default choice. If I don’t want to put the energy into analyzing the reasons behind the rules, or can’t understand the situation well enough to know WHY I think the universe is improved by my rules violation, I should just obey.
But if I do have a belief that the outcome is better by some other action, I take that action.
The written, legible rules are, I believe, a map of the ideas (maps) of the authors of the rules. The actual rules are what happens—the results of my actions, whether that’s better identification of great posts, or more interesting discussions, or confusion and discomfort in readers, or my ejection from the community. The written rules are both a prediction and a coarse-grained statement of intent about those results, but they almost always diverge from reality.
Note that I do not generalize to “everyone should take this action”. I’m denying the completeness of rules, not creating new ones (though I do sometimes propose new rules or different Schelling points, that’s just another level consequentialism). I’m also something of a jerk in my level of elitism that lets me do things I think are good, EVEN IF those choices wouldn’t scale, and would cease to be good if many others did them (I’d STOP the rogue actions if that occurred, but I wouldn’t avoid them just because of the counterfactual universality).
For voting, I haven’t analyzed whether I should change my strategy based on some, many, or most other LW voters are voting their conscience or voting for results. I think my preference (vote for results) scales, but I’m not certain.