“But surely it’s better to delete what you do nothing but cringe at, while keeping writing that’s mostly bad but has a couple good points! When you come back...”
“Stop. What you’re defending is what you already do. [wordless] Faced with a choice either to change one’s mind or to prove there’s no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof. Domain experts are telling you you’re wrong. [/wordless] Change your mind.”
“I changed my mind! I’m such a good rationalist! Can I go brag on LW?”
“Knock yourself out. Maybe you can rationalize it by saying you need to show agreement more, and promoting a norm of publicly changing one’s mind in response to evidence, or something.”
I wouldn’t necessarily call “Why?” as presenting a choice, but point taken. I guess my real reason why I began not deleting everything is that I’ve lost a lot of my early writing and regret doing so.
What I wrote above still occasionally applies.
Huh, I might have been unclear. I was explaining why I changed my mind to agree with you, not criticizing you!
I deleted everything because after working on something for long enough, I start hating it and seeing the flaws in it and being ashamed of it and hating my past self for wanting to show it to everyone. I hear this is normal, so when in doubt I wait a few months then reread… and it looks even worse.
“But surely it’s better to delete what you do nothing but cringe at, while keeping writing that’s mostly bad but has a couple good points! When you come back...”
“Stop. What you’re defending is what you already do. [wordless] Faced with a choice either to change one’s mind or to prove there’s no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof. Domain experts are telling you you’re wrong. [/wordless] Change your mind.”
“I changed my mind! I’m such a good rationalist! Can I go brag on LW?”
“Knock yourself out. Maybe you can rationalize it by saying you need to show agreement more, and promoting a norm of publicly changing one’s mind in response to evidence, or something.”
“Yay!”
I wouldn’t necessarily call “Why?” as presenting a choice, but point taken. I guess my real reason why I began not deleting everything is that I’ve lost a lot of my early writing and regret doing so. What I wrote above still occasionally applies.
Why do you delete everything?
Huh, I might have been unclear. I was explaining why I changed my mind to agree with you, not criticizing you!
I deleted everything because after working on something for long enough, I start hating it and seeing the flaws in it and being ashamed of it and hating my past self for wanting to show it to everyone. I hear this is normal, so when in doubt I wait a few months then reread… and it looks even worse.