female web developer who obviously cares a lot about LW and can implement solutions would be a good choice?
Female doesn’t matter, web development is good for being able to actually write what needs to be written. Caring is really good. The most important factor though is willingness to be audacious, grab power, and make things happen for the better.
Whether or not we need someone with CEO-power is uninteresting. I think such a person having more power is good.
If you’re talking about yourself, go for it. Get a foot in the code, make the front page better, be audacious. Make this place awesome.
I’ve said before in the generic, but in this case we can be specific: If you declare yourself king, I’ll kneel.
I’m opposed to appointing her as any sort of actual-power-having-person.
The personal antipathy there has been distinctly evident to any onlookers who are mildly curious about how status and power tends to influence human behavior and thought.
I think anyone with any noticeable antipathy between them and any regular user should not have unilateral policymaking power, except Eliezer if applicable because he was here first. (This rules me out too. I have mod power, but not mod initiative—I cannot make policy.)
I think anyone with any noticeable antipathy between them and any regular user should not have unilateral policymaking power, except Eliezer if applicable because he was here first. (This rules me out too. I have mod power, but not mod initiative—I cannot make policy.)
I agree and note that it is even more important that people with personal conflicts don’t have the power (or, preferably, voluntarily waive the power) to actively take specific actions against their personal enemies.
(Mind you, the parent also seems somewhat out of place in the context and very nearly comical given the actual history of power abuses on this site.)
Female doesn’t matter, web development is good for being able to actually write what needs to be written. Caring is really good. The most important factor though is willingness to be audacious, grab power, and make things happen for the better.
Well I do have the audacity.
If you’re talking about yourself, go for it. Get a foot in the code, make the front page better, be audacious. Make this place awesome.
I would love to do that, but I’ve just gotten a volunteer offer for a much larger project I had an idea for. I had been hoping to do a few smaller projects on LW in the meantime, while I was putting some things together to launch my larger projects, and the timing seems to have worked out such that I will be doing the small projects while doing the big projects. In other words, my free time is projected to become super scarce.
However, if a job offer were presented to me from LessWrong / CFAR I would seriously consider it.
If you declare yourself king, I’ll kneel.
I don’t believe in this. I am with Eliezer on sentiments like the following:
In Two More Things to Unlearn from School he warns his readers that “It may be dangerous to present people with a giant mass of authoritative knowledge, especially if it is actually true. It may damage their skepticism.”
In Cached Thoughts he tells you to question what HE says. “Now that you’ve read this blog post, the next time you hear someone unhesitatingly repeating a meme you think is silly or false, you’ll think, “Cached thoughts.” My belief is now there in your mind, waiting to complete the pattern. But is it true? Don’t let your mind complete the pattern! Think!”
I would love to do that, but I’ve just gotten a volunteer offer for a much larger project I had an idea for. I had been hoping to do a few smaller projects on LW in the meantime, while I was putting some things together to launch my larger projects, and the timing seems to have worked out such that I will be doing the small projects while doing the big projects. In other words, my free time is projected to become super scarce.
grumble grumble. Like I said, everyone who could is doing something else. Me too.
However, if a job offer were presented to me from LessWrong / CFAR I would seriously consider it.
I don’t think they’ll take the initiative on this. Maybe you approach them?
I don’t believe in this. I am with Eliezer on sentiments like the following:
I don’t see how those relate.
But thank you.
Thank you for giving a shit about LW, and trying to do something good. I see that you’re actively engaging in the discussions in this thread and that’s good. So thanks.
grumble grumble. Like I said, everyone who could is doing something else. Me too.
Yeah. Well maybe a few of us will throw a few things at it and that’ll keep it going...
I don’t think they’ll take the initiative on this. Maybe you approach them?
I mentioned a couple times that I’m dying to have online rationality training materials and that I want them badly enough I am half ready to run off and make them myself. I said something like “I’d consider doing this for free or giving you a good deal on freelance depending on project size”. Nobody responded.
I don’t see how those relate.
Simply put: I’m not the type that wants obedience. I’m the type that wants people to think for themselves.
Thank you for giving a shit about LW, and trying to do something good. I see that you’re actively engaging in the discussions in this thread and that’s good. So thanks.
Aww. I think that’s the first time I’ve felt appreciated for addressing endless September. (: feels warm and fuzzy
Simply put: I’m not the type that wants obedience. I’m the type that wants people to think for themselves.
Please allow me to change your mind. I am not the type who likes obedience either. I agree that thinking for selves is good, and that we should encourage as much of it as possible. However, this does not negate the usefulness of authority:
Argument 1:
Life is big. Bigger than the human mind can reasonable handle. I only have so much attention to distribute around. Say I’m a meetup participant. I could devote some attention to monitoring LW, the mailing list, etc until a meetup was posted, then overcome the activation energy to actually go. Or, the meetup organizer could mail me and say “Hi Nyan, come to Xday’s meetup”, then I just have to go. I don’t have to spend as much attention on the second case, so I have more to spend on thinking-for-myself that matters, like figuring out whether the mainstream assumptions about glass are correct.
So in that way, having someone to tell me what to think and do reduces the effort I have to spend on those things, and makes me more effective at the stuff I really care about. So I actually prefer it.
Argument 2:
Even if I had infinite capacity for thinking for myself and going my own way, sometimes it just isn’t the right tool for the job. Thinking for myself doesn’t let me coordinate with other people, or fit into larger projects, or affect how LW works, or many other things. If I instead listen to some central coordinator, those things become easy.
So even if I’m a big fan of self-sufficiency and skepticism, I appreciate authority where available. Does this make sense?
Replies to downvoted comments blah blah blah
Perhaps we should continue this conversation somewhere more private… /sleaze
Please allow me to change your mind. I am not the type who likes obedience either.
Well that is interesting and unexpected.
Argument 1:
This seems to be more of a matter of notification strategies—one where you have to check a “calendar” and one where the “calendar” comes to you. I am pattern-matching the concept “reminder” here. It seems to me that reminders, although important and possibly completely necessary for running a functional group, would be more along the lines of a behavioral detail as opposed to a fundamental leadership quality. I don’t know why you’re likening this to obedience.
Even if I had infinite capacity for thinking for myself
We do not have infinite capacity for critical thinking. True. I don’t call trusting other people’s opinions obedience. I call it trust. That is rare for me. Very rare for anything important. Next door to trust is what I do when I’m short on time or don’t have the energy: I half-ass it. I grab someone’s opinion, go “Meh, 70% chance they’re right?” and slap it in.
I don’t call that obedience, either.
I call it being overwhelmingly busy.
Thinking for myself doesn’t let me coordinate with other people, or fit into larger projects, or affect how LW works, or many other things. If I instead listen to some central coordinator, those things become easy.
Organizing trivial details is something I call organizing. I don’t call it obedience.
When I think of obedience I think of that damned nuisance demand that punishes me for being right. This is not because I am constantly right—I’m wrong often enough. I have observed, though, that some people are more interested in power than in wielding it meaningfully. They don’t listen and use power as a way to avoid updating (leading them to be wrong frequently). They demand this thing “obedience” and that seems to be a warning that they are about act as if might makes right.
My idea of leadership looks like this:
If you want something new to happen, do it first. When everyone else sees that you haven’t been reduced to a pile of human rubble by the new experience, they’ll decide the “guinea pig” has tested it well enough that they’re willing to try it, too.
If you really want something to get done, do it your damn self. Don’t wait around for someone else to do it, nag others, etc.
If you want others to behave, behave well first. After you have shown a good intent toward them, invite them to behave well, too. Respect them and they will usually respect you.
If there’s a difficulty, figure out how to solve it.
Give people something they want repeatedly and they come back for it.
If people are grateful for your work, they reciprocate by volunteering to help or donating to keep it going.
To me, that’s the correct way of going about it. Using force (which I associate with obedience) or expecting people not to have thoughts of their own is not only completely unnecessary but pales in comparison effectiveness-wise.
Maybe my ideas about obedience are completely orthogonal to yours. If you still think obedience has some value I am unaware of, I’m curious about it.
if you want to continue...
Thank you for your interest. It feels good.
I have a romantic interest right now who, although we have not officially deemed our status a “relationship” are considering one another as potential seriously partners.
This came to both of us as a surprise. I had burned out on dating and deleted my dating profile. I was like:
insane amount of dating alienation * ice cube’s chance of finding compatible partner > benefits of romance
(Narratives by LW Women thread if you want more)
And so now we’re like … wow this amount of compatibility is special. We should not waste the momentum by getting distracted by other people. So we decided that in order to let the opportunity unfold naturally, we would avoid pursuing other serious romantic interests for now.
So although I am technically available, my expected behavior, considering how busy I am, would probably be best classified as “dance card full”.
We seem to have different connotations on “obedience”, and might be talking about slightly different concepts. You’re observations about how most people use power, and the bad kind of obedience, are spot-on.
The topic came up because of the “I’d kneel to anyone who declared themselves king” thing. I don’t think such a behaviour pattern has to go to bad power abusing obedience and submission. I think it’s just a really strategically useful thing to support someone who is going to act as the group-agency. You seem to agree on the important stuff and we’re just using different words. case closed?
romantic.
lol what? Either you or me has utterly misunderstood something because I’m utterly confused. I made a mock-sleazy joke about the goddam troll toll, and suggested that we wouldn’t have to pay it but we could still discuss if we PMed instead. And then suddenly this romantic thing. OhgodwhathaveIdone.
You seem to agree on the important stuff and we’re just using different words. case closed?
Yeah I think the main difference may be that I am very wary of power abuse, so I avoid using terms like “obedience” and “kneeling” and “king” and choose other terms that imply a situation where power is balanced.
lol what? Either you or me has utterly misunderstood something
Sorry, I think I must have misread that. I’ve been having problems sleeping lately. If you want to talk in PM to avoid the troll toll go ahead.
Female doesn’t matter, web development is good for being able to actually write what needs to be written. Caring is really good. The most important factor though is willingness to be audacious, grab power, and make things happen for the better.
Whether or not we need someone with CEO-power is uninteresting. I think such a person having more power is good.
If you’re talking about yourself, go for it. Get a foot in the code, make the front page better, be audacious. Make this place awesome.
I’ve said before in the generic, but in this case we can be specific: If you declare yourself king, I’ll kneel.
(good luck)
I’m opposed to appointing her as any sort of actual-power-having-person. Epiphany is a relative newcomer who makes a lot of missteps.
I agree that appointing her would be a bad idea.
I see no problem with encouraging people (in this case, her) to become the kind of person we should appoint.
The personal antipathy there has been distinctly evident to any onlookers who are mildly curious about how status and power tends to influence human behavior and thought.
I think anyone with any noticeable antipathy between them and any regular user should not have unilateral policymaking power, except Eliezer if applicable because he was here first. (This rules me out too. I have mod power, but not mod initiative—I cannot make policy.)
I agree and note that it is even more important that people with personal conflicts don’t have the power (or, preferably, voluntarily waive the power) to actively take specific actions against their personal enemies.
(Mind you, the parent also seems somewhat out of place in the context and very nearly comical given the actual history of power abuses on this site.)
Well I do have the audacity.
I would love to do that, but I’ve just gotten a volunteer offer for a much larger project I had an idea for. I had been hoping to do a few smaller projects on LW in the meantime, while I was putting some things together to launch my larger projects, and the timing seems to have worked out such that I will be doing the small projects while doing the big projects. In other words, my free time is projected to become super scarce.
However, if a job offer were presented to me from LessWrong / CFAR I would seriously consider it.
I don’t believe in this. I am with Eliezer on sentiments like the following:
In Two More Things to Unlearn from School he warns his readers that “It may be dangerous to present people with a giant mass of authoritative knowledge, especially if it is actually true. It may damage their skepticism.”
In Cached Thoughts he tells you to question what HE says. “Now that you’ve read this blog post, the next time you hear someone unhesitatingly repeating a meme you think is silly or false, you’ll think, “Cached thoughts.” My belief is now there in your mind, waiting to complete the pattern. But is it true? Don’t let your mind complete the pattern! Think!”
But thank you. (:
grumble grumble. Like I said, everyone who could is doing something else. Me too.
I don’t think they’ll take the initiative on this. Maybe you approach them?
I don’t see how those relate.
Thank you for giving a shit about LW, and trying to do something good. I see that you’re actively engaging in the discussions in this thread and that’s good. So thanks.
Yeah. Well maybe a few of us will throw a few things at it and that’ll keep it going...
I mentioned a couple times that I’m dying to have online rationality training materials and that I want them badly enough I am half ready to run off and make them myself. I said something like “I’d consider doing this for free or giving you a good deal on freelance depending on project size”. Nobody responded.
Simply put: I’m not the type that wants obedience. I’m the type that wants people to think for themselves.
Aww. I think that’s the first time I’ve felt appreciated for addressing endless September. (: feels warm and fuzzy
Please allow me to change your mind. I am not the type who likes obedience either. I agree that thinking for selves is good, and that we should encourage as much of it as possible. However, this does not negate the usefulness of authority:
Argument 1:
Life is big. Bigger than the human mind can reasonable handle. I only have so much attention to distribute around. Say I’m a meetup participant. I could devote some attention to monitoring LW, the mailing list, etc until a meetup was posted, then overcome the activation energy to actually go. Or, the meetup organizer could mail me and say “Hi Nyan, come to Xday’s meetup”, then I just have to go. I don’t have to spend as much attention on the second case, so I have more to spend on thinking-for-myself that matters, like figuring out whether the mainstream assumptions about glass are correct.
So in that way, having someone to tell me what to think and do reduces the effort I have to spend on those things, and makes me more effective at the stuff I really care about. So I actually prefer it.
Argument 2:
Even if I had infinite capacity for thinking for myself and going my own way, sometimes it just isn’t the right tool for the job. Thinking for myself doesn’t let me coordinate with other people, or fit into larger projects, or affect how LW works, or many other things. If I instead listen to some central coordinator, those things become easy.
So even if I’m a big fan of self-sufficiency and skepticism, I appreciate authority where available. Does this make sense?
Perhaps we should continue this conversation somewhere more private… /sleaze
PM me if you want to continue this thread.
Well that is interesting and unexpected.
This seems to be more of a matter of notification strategies—one where you have to check a “calendar” and one where the “calendar” comes to you. I am pattern-matching the concept “reminder” here. It seems to me that reminders, although important and possibly completely necessary for running a functional group, would be more along the lines of a behavioral detail as opposed to a fundamental leadership quality. I don’t know why you’re likening this to obedience.
We do not have infinite capacity for critical thinking. True. I don’t call trusting other people’s opinions obedience. I call it trust. That is rare for me. Very rare for anything important. Next door to trust is what I do when I’m short on time or don’t have the energy: I half-ass it. I grab someone’s opinion, go “Meh, 70% chance they’re right?” and slap it in.
I don’t call that obedience, either.
I call it being overwhelmingly busy.
Organizing trivial details is something I call organizing. I don’t call it obedience.
When I think of obedience I think of that damned nuisance demand that punishes me for being right. This is not because I am constantly right—I’m wrong often enough. I have observed, though, that some people are more interested in power than in wielding it meaningfully. They don’t listen and use power as a way to avoid updating (leading them to be wrong frequently). They demand this thing “obedience” and that seems to be a warning that they are about act as if might makes right.
My idea of leadership looks like this:
If you want something new to happen, do it first. When everyone else sees that you haven’t been reduced to a pile of human rubble by the new experience, they’ll decide the “guinea pig” has tested it well enough that they’re willing to try it, too.
If you really want something to get done, do it your damn self. Don’t wait around for someone else to do it, nag others, etc.
If you want others to behave, behave well first. After you have shown a good intent toward them, invite them to behave well, too. Respect them and they will usually respect you.
If there’s a difficulty, figure out how to solve it.
Give people something they want repeatedly and they come back for it.
If people are grateful for your work, they reciprocate by volunteering to help or donating to keep it going.
To me, that’s the correct way of going about it. Using force (which I associate with obedience) or expecting people not to have thoughts of their own is not only completely unnecessary but pales in comparison effectiveness-wise.
Maybe my ideas about obedience are completely orthogonal to yours. If you still think obedience has some value I am unaware of, I’m curious about it.
Thank you for your interest. It feels good.
I have a romantic interest right now who, although we have not officially deemed our status a “relationship” are considering one another as potential seriously partners.
This came to both of us as a surprise. I had burned out on dating and deleted my dating profile. I was like:
insane amount of dating alienation * ice cube’s chance of finding compatible partner > benefits of romance
(Narratives by LW Women thread if you want more)
And so now we’re like … wow this amount of compatibility is special. We should not waste the momentum by getting distracted by other people. So we decided that in order to let the opportunity unfold naturally, we would avoid pursuing other serious romantic interests for now.
So although I am technically available, my expected behavior, considering how busy I am, would probably be best classified as “dance card full”.
We seem to have different connotations on “obedience”, and might be talking about slightly different concepts. You’re observations about how most people use power, and the bad kind of obedience, are spot-on.
The topic came up because of the “I’d kneel to anyone who declared themselves king” thing. I don’t think such a behaviour pattern has to go to bad power abusing obedience and submission. I think it’s just a really strategically useful thing to support someone who is going to act as the group-agency. You seem to agree on the important stuff and we’re just using different words. case closed?
lol what? Either you or me has utterly misunderstood something because I’m utterly confused. I made a mock-sleazy joke about the goddam troll toll, and suggested that we wouldn’t have to pay it but we could still discuss if we PMed instead. And then suddenly this romantic thing. OhgodwhathaveIdone.
That’s good. :)
Yeah I think the main difference may be that I am very wary of power abuse, so I avoid using terms like “obedience” and “kneeling” and “king” and choose other terms that imply a situation where power is balanced.
Sorry, I think I must have misread that. I’ve been having problems sleeping lately. If you want to talk in PM to avoid the troll toll go ahead.
Well not anymore. laughs at self