But isn’t the point of karma to be a ranking system? Surely its bad if it’s a suboptimal one?
Nathan Young
Karma: 1,807
I would have a dialogue with someone on whether Piper should have revealed SBF’s messages. Happy to take either side.
Thanks, appreciated.
Sure but shouldn’t the karma system be a prioritisation ranking, not just “what is fun to read?”
I would say I took at least 10 hours to write it. I rewrote it about 4 times.
Yeah but the mapping post is about 100x more important/well informed also. Shouldn’t that count for something? I’m not saying it’s clearer, I’m saying that it’s higher priority, probably.
Hmmmm. I wonder how common this is. This is not how I think of the difference. I think of mathematicians as dealing with coherent systems of logic and engineers dealing with building in the real world. Mathematicians are useful when their system maps to the problem at hand, but not when it doesn’t.
I should say i have a maths degree so it’s possible that my view of mathematicians and the general view are not conincident.
Yeah this seems like a good point. Not a lot to argue with, but yeah underrated.
It is disappointing/confusing to me that of the two articles I recently wrote, the one that was much closer to reality got a lot less karma.
A new process for mapping discussions is a summary of months of work that I and my team did on mapping discourse around AI. We built new tools, employed new methodologies. It got 19 karma
Advice for journalists is a piece that I wrote in about 5 hours after perhaps 5 hours of experiences. It has 73 karma and counting
I think this is isn’t much evidence, given it’s just two pieces. But I do feel a pull towards coming up with theories rather than building and testing things in the real world. To the extent this pull is real, it seems bad.
If true, I would recommend both that more people build things in the real world and talk about them and that we find ways to reward these posts more, regardless of how alive they feel to us at the time.
(Aliveness being my hypothesis—many of us understand or have more live feelings about dealing with journalists than a sort of dry post about mapping discourse)
Hmmm, what is the picture that the analogy gives you. I struggle to imagine how it’s misleading but I want to hear.
I common criticism seems to be “this won’t change anything” see (here and here). People often believe that journalists can’t choose their headlines and so it is unfair to hold them accountable for them. I think this is wrong for about 3 reasons:
We have a loud of journalists pretty near to us whose behaviour we absolutely can change. Zvi, Scott and Kelsey don’t tend to print misleading headlines but they are quite a big deal and to act as if creating better incentives because we can’t change everything seems to strawman my position
Journalists can control their headlines. I have seen 1-2 times journalists change headlines after pushback. I don’t think it was the editors who read the comments and changed the headlines of their own accord. I imagine that the journalists said they were taking too much pushback and asked for the change. This is probably therefore an existence proof that journalists can affect headlines. I think reality is even further in my direction. I imagine that journalists and their editors are involved in the same social transactions as exist between many employees and their bosses. If they ask to change a headline, often they can probably shift it a bit. Getting good sources might be enough to buy this from them.
I am not saying that they must have good headlines, I am just holding the threat of their messages against them. I’ve only done this twice, but in one case a journalist was happy to give me this leverage. And having it, I felt more confident about the interview.
I think there is a failure mode where some rats hear a system described and imagine that reality matches it as they imagine it. In this case, I think that’s mistaken—journalists have incentives to misdescribe their power of their own headlines. And reality is a bit messier than the simple model suggests. And we have more power than I think some commenters think.
I recommend trying this norm. It doesn’t cost you much, it is a good red flag if someone gets angry when you suggest it and if they agree you get leverage to use if they betray you. Seems like a good trade that only gets better the more of us do it. Rarely is reality so kind (and hence I may be mistaken)
I don’t think that’s the case, because the journalist you are speaking to is not the person who’s makes the decision.
I think this is incorrect. I imagine journalists have more latitude to influence headlines when they arelly care.
Why do you think it’s stretched. It’s about the difference between mathematicians and engineers. One group are about relating the real world the other are about logically consistent ideas that may be useful.
I exert influence where I can. I think if all of LessWrong took up this norm we could shift the headline-content accuracy gap.
Sure but I don’t agree with their lack of concern for privacy and I think they are wrong to. I think they are making the wrong call here.
I also don’t think privacy is a binary. Some things are almost private and some things are almost public. Do you think that a conversation we have in LessWrong dms is as public as if I tweeted it?
Well I do talk to journalists I trust and not those I don’t. And I don’t give quotes to those who won’t take responsibility for titles. But yes, more suggestions appreciated.
I would appreciate feedback on how this article could be better.
The work took me quite a long time and seems in line with a LessWrong ethos. And yet people here didn’t seem to like it very much.
Thank you.
Yeah aren’t a load of national parks near large US conurbations and hence the opportunity cost in world terms is significant.
Is there a summary of the rationalist concept of lawfulness anywhere. I am looking for one and can’t find it.