Enforcing existing norms is generally prosocial, but it’s more problematic if each person is trying to enforce the norms that he personally wishes the group to have.
Indeed. This is a major failure mode, important enough to deserve it’s own post (or perhaps woven into some other posts – there’s a lot I could say on this topic and I’m not sure how to crystallize it all). I try to catch myself when I do this behavior and am annoyed when I see others doing it and it was a major motivator for this post.
One problem is that people often have very different expectations about what norms had already been established, that people had implicitly bought into (by working at a given company, but being a ‘rationalist’ or whatnot).
Indeed. This is a major failure mode, important enough to deserve it’s own post (or perhaps woven into some other posts – there’s a lot I could say on this topic and I’m not sure how to crystallize it all). I try to catch myself when I do this behavior and am annoyed when I see others doing it and it was a major motivator for this post.
One problem is that people often have very different expectations about what norms had already been established, that people had implicitly bought into (by working at a given company, but being a ‘rationalist’ or whatnot).