The Elon Musk biography that just came out is quite entertaining, but I didn’t any significant actionable knowledge in it.
There’s an interesting turn at the end. The author thought at the beginning of the project that Musk was particularly terrible with people. At the end, he says he thinks he gets it: Musk has basically just calculated the work of his companies to be more important that the feelings of its employees, and to go against that calculation would be illogical, which for Musk makes it kind of physically painful. So he’d rather put someone down in 5 seconds than waste another minute that he has a better use for on politeness or common decency. And it isn’t that he has no empathy, he just has more empathy for mankind as a whole than for the guy standing in front of him, and he’s drawing logical conclusions from that difference.
Now first of all I admire that. But this reminds me that even if I could be that consequentialist, most people would still find it hard to recognize me as one, and comparatively easy to just put me in the asshole category.
And it isn’t that he has no empathy, he just has more empathy for mankind as a whole than for the guy standing in front of him, and he’s drawing logical conclusions from that difference.
That’s a risky game. It makes the company culture less enjoyable. That makes hiring harder and can motivate people to quit.
Musk can afford this because of the strength of the vision of his company, that makes people to work there but it’s still not clear that it’s optimal.
The problem is that both Musk and Jobs likely act in a way that can’t be summarized in a paragraph.
If someone tries to copy them based on the idea that his time is more important than the feeling of his employees the person is likely to mess things up.
Basically the ends don’t justify the means (Among Humans). We are nowhere near smart enough to think those kinds of decisions (or any decisions really) through past all their consequences (and neither is Elon Musk).
It is possible that Musk is right and (in this specific case) it really is a net benefit to mankind to not take one minute to phrase something in a way that it is less hurtful, but in the history of mankind I would expect that the vast majority of people who believed this were actually just assholes trying to justify their behavior. And besides, how many hurt feelings are 55 seconds of Elon Musks time really worth from a utilitarian standpoint? I don’t know, but I doubt Musk has done any calculations on it.
It is a risky game but there are many factors to consider. I used to work for someone who was quite similar in that they would go completely off the rails if someone underperformed (I never got yelled at, thankfully). I actually never observed resentment or quitting due to this behavior (at least, it was never the quoted reason). However, I did observe that when mistakes happened, people tended to try to hide it much harder. There also grew a culture where people would hide the mistakes of their coworkers even if the mistakes were quite serious. All in all, I don’t think productivity was much higher than other workplaces I’d been in.
My story is anecdotal of course and I’d love to see actual statistics comparing ‘high pressure’ workplaces with those that are more lenient.
The general problem with it is that it can be used too easily as an excuse. Hm, I think we should try to find the meta of this, this looks useful. Basically imagine a graph where various human situations are on the X and the usefulness of a given thing in that situation is the Y. And another graph, where the usefulness of that thing as an excuse is on Y. And if the second tends to be higher, that is not a good thing.
Another meta: there is a difference between thinking I figure X is good and thinking I am entitled to decide whether X is good.
For example the good old trolley problem. Pushing the fat man is the almost obviously right choice looking at that situation only (“shut up and multiply”, feelings like OMG I am a murderer now do not matter as much as lives), but it is highly dangerous if people feel like they are entitled to take such choices, they are entitled to sacrifice someone without their consent for the greater good. This is a very different thing. It generates an excuse for others in far different situations.
A truly saintly person would push the fat man then demand to be punished, because the choice was right but he was not entitled to make such a choice and others should not feel entitled to either.
I’m not sure how much I agree with the whole “punishing correct behavior to avoid encouraging it” (how does the saintly person know that this is the right thing for him to do if it is wrong for others to follow his example), but I think the general point about tracking whose utility (or lives in this case) you are sacrificing is a good one.
No, my point is that, that the decision is correct, but believing we are allowed to make such decisions is less correct in general, and rules that allow them are suboptimal. E.g. we can believe putting violent criminals into prison is correct, and we can simultaneously believe only the criminal justice system should be allowed to do this and not every person feeling entitled to build a prison in their basement and imprisoning anyone they judge to be violent.
A truly saintly person would push the fat man then demand to be punished, because the choice was right but he was not entitled to make such a choice and others should not feel entitled to either.
Saintly in what sense? From a consequentialist point of view, there is no point in punishing the pusher (and in any case “entitled to make the choice” is not a consequentialist concept). From a deontological point of view, the pusher shouldn’t push the man in the first place.
I think this is a fairly deep and important issue and I think you may be taking it too lightly. Good choices vs. entitlements to make choices are absolutely at the root at the whole history of civilization as such. We may easily agree that putting violent criminals into prison is a good choice, but if we all feel entitled to judge 1) who is a violent criminal 2) who belongs to prison, we are quickly back to the system of mutual vendettas that characterizes pre-civilized life. So the idea that beyond the strictest needs of self-defense, we don’t claim any entitlement to take any sort of a violent or coercive action but leave it to judges, policemen etc. is that lies at the heart of civilization. (Of course, democracy makes it a bit of a farce, but whatever.)
Same story here. Sacrificing 1 life to save 5 is the right choice, but it is highly dangerous if people feel they are entitled to kill others just because they think they will serve the greater good that way. Every murderer could manufacture an excuse and could try to plead having made a honest mistake at worst. Thus, while it is the right choice, having rules that allow making choices of this kind are not good rules. This is what it boils down to.
Pushing the fat man is the wrong choice because it forces fat men everywhere to constantly be on the lookout for consequentialists, and causes moral hazard by encouraging lax safety around railroads. Consequentialism is only indisputably the correct morality when everybody is perfectly rational and everybody has the same goals. In reality people have differing terminal goals and perfect rationality is impossible because of limited computational ability. Deontology is superior because it is far more predictable. Nobody has to waste brain cycles on avoiding being a convenient victim for some dubious “greater good”.
Being a pure consequentialist will not give off the signals that a socially acceptable person, who leans towards consequentialism, will. To predict someone’s ethical behaviour, some stronger signals could be checked e.g. did the guy ask himself how to create the greatest good for humanity and then go and do that in about five different industries? If so, probably high on ethics.
The question about people skills is a good question to ask when you want to predict someone’s social behaviour, but that is not the same as ethics, which empathy is often a proxy for.
Consequentialist thinking has a general tendency to get one labeled an asshole.
e.g.
“Hey man, can you spare a dollar?”
“If I did have a dollar to spare, I strongly doubt that giving it to you would be the most effective use of it.”
“Asshole.”
Although I think that it’s dangerous to think that you can accurately estimate the cost/benefit of tact; I think most people underestimate how much effect it has.
The flip side is that if you’re not consequentialist, consequentialists will label you a fool.
When I’m labeling myself, “fool” feels less punishing than “asshole”, but I think when it’s coming from others I’d rather look like an asshole than like a fool. I do wonder how much that is an influence on my consequentialist leanings.
The Elon Musk biography that just came out is quite entertaining, but I didn’t any significant actionable knowledge in it.
There’s an interesting turn at the end. The author thought at the beginning of the project that Musk was particularly terrible with people. At the end, he says he thinks he gets it: Musk has basically just calculated the work of his companies to be more important that the feelings of its employees, and to go against that calculation would be illogical, which for Musk makes it kind of physically painful. So he’d rather put someone down in 5 seconds than waste another minute that he has a better use for on politeness or common decency. And it isn’t that he has no empathy, he just has more empathy for mankind as a whole than for the guy standing in front of him, and he’s drawing logical conclusions from that difference.
Now first of all I admire that. But this reminds me that even if I could be that consequentialist, most people would still find it hard to recognize me as one, and comparatively easy to just put me in the asshole category.
That’s a risky game. It makes the company culture less enjoyable. That makes hiring harder and can motivate people to quit. Musk can afford this because of the strength of the vision of his company, that makes people to work there but it’s still not clear that it’s optimal.
But it is clear that Musk isn’t the only highly successful entrepreneur that used this strategy successfully Jobs was the same way.
The problem is that both Musk and Jobs likely act in a way that can’t be summarized in a paragraph.
If someone tries to copy them based on the idea that his time is more important than the feeling of his employees the person is likely to mess things up.
Basically the ends don’t justify the means (Among Humans). We are nowhere near smart enough to think those kinds of decisions (or any decisions really) through past all their consequences (and neither is Elon Musk).
It is possible that Musk is right and (in this specific case) it really is a net benefit to mankind to not take one minute to phrase something in a way that it is less hurtful, but in the history of mankind I would expect that the vast majority of people who believed this were actually just assholes trying to justify their behavior. And besides, how many hurt feelings are 55 seconds of Elon Musks time really worth from a utilitarian standpoint? I don’t know, but I doubt Musk has done any calculations on it.
It is a risky game but there are many factors to consider. I used to work for someone who was quite similar in that they would go completely off the rails if someone underperformed (I never got yelled at, thankfully). I actually never observed resentment or quitting due to this behavior (at least, it was never the quoted reason). However, I did observe that when mistakes happened, people tended to try to hide it much harder. There also grew a culture where people would hide the mistakes of their coworkers even if the mistakes were quite serious. All in all, I don’t think productivity was much higher than other workplaces I’d been in.
My story is anecdotal of course and I’d love to see actual statistics comparing ‘high pressure’ workplaces with those that are more lenient.
The general problem with it is that it can be used too easily as an excuse. Hm, I think we should try to find the meta of this, this looks useful. Basically imagine a graph where various human situations are on the X and the usefulness of a given thing in that situation is the Y. And another graph, where the usefulness of that thing as an excuse is on Y. And if the second tends to be higher, that is not a good thing.
Another meta: there is a difference between thinking I figure X is good and thinking I am entitled to decide whether X is good.
For example the good old trolley problem. Pushing the fat man is the almost obviously right choice looking at that situation only (“shut up and multiply”, feelings like OMG I am a murderer now do not matter as much as lives), but it is highly dangerous if people feel like they are entitled to take such choices, they are entitled to sacrifice someone without their consent for the greater good. This is a very different thing. It generates an excuse for others in far different situations.
A truly saintly person would push the fat man then demand to be punished, because the choice was right but he was not entitled to make such a choice and others should not feel entitled to either.
I’m not sure how much I agree with the whole “punishing correct behavior to avoid encouraging it” (how does the saintly person know that this is the right thing for him to do if it is wrong for others to follow his example), but I think the general point about tracking whose utility (or lives in this case) you are sacrificing is a good one.
No, my point is that, that the decision is correct, but believing we are allowed to make such decisions is less correct in general, and rules that allow them are suboptimal. E.g. we can believe putting violent criminals into prison is correct, and we can simultaneously believe only the criminal justice system should be allowed to do this and not every person feeling entitled to build a prison in their basement and imprisoning anyone they judge to be violent.
Saintly in what sense? From a consequentialist point of view, there is no point in punishing the pusher (and in any case “entitled to make the choice” is not a consequentialist concept). From a deontological point of view, the pusher shouldn’t push the man in the first place.
I think this is a fairly deep and important issue and I think you may be taking it too lightly. Good choices vs. entitlements to make choices are absolutely at the root at the whole history of civilization as such. We may easily agree that putting violent criminals into prison is a good choice, but if we all feel entitled to judge 1) who is a violent criminal 2) who belongs to prison, we are quickly back to the system of mutual vendettas that characterizes pre-civilized life. So the idea that beyond the strictest needs of self-defense, we don’t claim any entitlement to take any sort of a violent or coercive action but leave it to judges, policemen etc. is that lies at the heart of civilization. (Of course, democracy makes it a bit of a farce, but whatever.)
Same story here. Sacrificing 1 life to save 5 is the right choice, but it is highly dangerous if people feel they are entitled to kill others just because they think they will serve the greater good that way. Every murderer could manufacture an excuse and could try to plead having made a honest mistake at worst. Thus, while it is the right choice, having rules that allow making choices of this kind are not good rules. This is what it boils down to.
Pushing the fat man is the wrong choice because it forces fat men everywhere to constantly be on the lookout for consequentialists, and causes moral hazard by encouraging lax safety around railroads. Consequentialism is only indisputably the correct morality when everybody is perfectly rational and everybody has the same goals. In reality people have differing terminal goals and perfect rationality is impossible because of limited computational ability. Deontology is superior because it is far more predictable. Nobody has to waste brain cycles on avoiding being a convenient victim for some dubious “greater good”.
For the record, I don’t. The “I’m too important to pay attention to little people. They are nothing but tools” attitude leads to bad places.
http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/ma6/open_thread_jun_1_jun_7_2015/cfn2
Being a pure consequentialist will not give off the signals that a socially acceptable person, who leans towards consequentialism, will. To predict someone’s ethical behaviour, some stronger signals could be checked e.g. did the guy ask himself how to create the greatest good for humanity and then go and do that in about five different industries? If so, probably high on ethics.
The question about people skills is a good question to ask when you want to predict someone’s social behaviour, but that is not the same as ethics, which empathy is often a proxy for.
Consequentialist thinking has a general tendency to get one labeled an asshole.
e.g.
“Hey man, can you spare a dollar?” “If I did have a dollar to spare, I strongly doubt that giving it to you would be the most effective use of it.” “Asshole.”
Although I think that it’s dangerous to think that you can accurately estimate the cost/benefit of tact; I think most people underestimate how much effect it has.
Except if the priority of consequences is ranked as 1. prevent x-risk 2. be popular and you act accordingly :)
I agree and you shouldn’t be downvoted.
The flip side is that if you’re not consequentialist, consequentialists will label you a fool.
When I’m labeling myself, “fool” feels less punishing than “asshole”, but I think when it’s coming from others I’d rather look like an asshole than like a fool. I do wonder how much that is an influence on my consequentialist leanings.