-- A note: I originally sent Duncan criticism privately. I didn’t want to add too much negativity to the discussion. But Duncan asked me to post publicly and I will defer to his judgement. Its his project and he is a very capable guy. I really hope DA succeeds, the rationalist community could be doing much better on many metrics. In general I find the model of DA very promising. But I have some serious concerns.
-- The ethics code seems extremely strict.
For example this rule strikes me as extraordinarily hard to follow: “A Dragon will assume good faith in all interactions with other Dragons”. As does “A Dragon will be fully present and supportive when interacting with other Dragons in formal/official contexts”.
Earlier in the document Duncan said “Discuss, and then agree upon, and then rigidly and rigorously enforce a norm of perfection in all formal undertakings”. This implies to me that Duncan intends to enforce the CoC pretty strictly. Should Duncan be confidant its reasonable to expect such large deviations from how humans normally operate? I should note that normal bootcamps do not require as much psychologically from their recruits. Even though bootcamps require obedience they don’t normally require recruits to think a certain way.
Duncan explicitly said he was willing to modify norms that members felt were too hard to follow (” Be ruthless about discarding standards during strategic review; if a member of the group says that X or Y or Z is too high-cost for them to sustain, believe them, and make decisions accordingly.”). But he also said that the CoC was unlikely to change. If I thought the CoC was meant more as a set of guidelines than strict rules I would be less worried. But that is not how I interpreted the post.
-- How many people do we expect to leave or get kicked out?
I have moderated some internet communities (And admin an active one now). Temp bans and warnings can only go so far. At some points you have to be willing to pull the trigger and ban people.
The section on reparations reassured me that Duncan was thinking hard about to keep people from falling off the path. In addition, unlike most internet communities, the DA recruits will be heavily vetted. But in order to enforce the reparations you either have to appeal to social pressure or the threat of kicking people out. I think the standards are very strict so serious discipline might be needed.
-- Are there practical or ethical problems with this plan?
People who get kicked out of DA are still required to pay rent until they can find a replacement. Assuming they are on the lease it seems highly unlikely you can kick them out of the house. However if someone gets kicked out of the house they might be pretty negative towards the rest of the group. It probably a bad situation to keep them around, but maybe they can’t easily find a replacement or a new place to live.
Secondly people who get kicked out might be psychologically unable to remain at the DA barracks. But until they can find someone to replace them they are on the hook for rent. In my personal opinion joining dragon army should be a “Good deal” for anyone involved. Its important that the downside of: “get kicked out” → “lose friends, need to find a replacement despite the fact that you got kicked out and maybe can’t give DA a good review, on the hook for lots of rent” is manageable. I would really hate to see anyone get hurt. I assume Duncan shares my concerns but he didn’t address them in the post.
In addition, has Duncan looked into the legalities surrounding renter’s rights in California (and Berkeley in particular)? This isn’t in the post even if he has done the research.
-- Duncan said the following “I also considered whether to update/change my tone given your first impression, but it seems to be enough of an outlier that I probably won’t make any deliberate effort.
Its plausible to me they aren’t much of an outlier. I had the same reaction, as did several people I showed Duncan’s post to (though other people thought Duncan’s post sounded fine). If I didn’t know Duncan was the curriculum director at CFAR I would have thought he was crazy and probably dangerous. Stuff about “living under my thumb”, self comparisons to Tyler Durden and the ender’s game quote about “quick, decisive obedience” really worried me. Some of the most shocking stuff, from my perspective, was in the pop culture references. But a number of things in the main text gave off an extremely strong cult vibe. Some examples include the “house salute” and the “Various call-and-response patterns surrounding house norms”. I should note I am not accusing Duncan of anything, based on his reputation he seems trustworthy. But his tone definitely set off loud alarm bells for me.
--
Again I am really happy people are considering new rationalist norms. Duncan seems like a very good choice to lead an experimental project. The general strategy of DA seems like a good one. But I wanted to share my concerns.
+1; general appreciation for your willingness to make the commentary public, so that I and others can interact with it openly.
EDIT: I got distracted dealing with the troll. I still hope to return to this comment, but if I fail to, please know that I am definitely mulling it over and taking its content seriously, and that I again thank you for posting.
I have moderated some internet communities (And admin an active one now). Temp bans and warnings can only go so far. At some points you have to be willing to pull the trigger and ban people.
In an internet community, you have less tools to change behavior than in personal conversations (and I say that as having moderated in a big personal development internet forum for years).
As far as personal development frameworks go ideas like of “code of perfection” can be found in Landmark (/The Four Agreements). On the other hand the actual verbal techniques advocated are NVC/Circling/Focusing/Internal Double Crux, which have values of authenticity and accepting the emotions that arise in the moment.
Humans sometimes do have instincts to see other people in bad faith. There are two ways to deal with it.
① Surpress it because you have a codex that doesn’t allow the instinct to be carried out.
② Bring it authentically to the front and be open about it.
Landmarkish thought would advocate ① while Circling leads to ②. Both can work as cultural norms but they are different and if there’s a desire to be in Circling mode, don’t have rules that require the other.
I’m managing/leading an internet gaming community, and the only tools I’ve ever had to use are selection and conversation.
I’ve had one person leave because their goal in joining was to acquire enough information and power to cause harm and they were so unsubtle about it that I was able to identify that and stop them. One additional person left because our norms of ‘don’t cheat’ and ‘be nice to our friends’ were given to him gently by everyone in voice chat every time they were violated.
Oddly enough, both of those people ended up joining a specific competing group that held neither of the norms ‘don’t cheat’ nor ‘don’t make public rape threats towards people who call out your cheating’.
And my selection method? Be public and pushy about what kind of norms you have, and push away people who don’t already have and want to follow those norms.
-- A note: I originally sent Duncan criticism privately. I didn’t want to add too much negativity to the discussion. But Duncan asked me to post publicly and I will defer to his judgement. Its his project and he is a very capable guy. I really hope DA succeeds, the rationalist community could be doing much better on many metrics. In general I find the model of DA very promising. But I have some serious concerns.
-- The ethics code seems extremely strict.
For example this rule strikes me as extraordinarily hard to follow: “A Dragon will assume good faith in all interactions with other Dragons”. As does “A Dragon will be fully present and supportive when interacting with other Dragons in formal/official contexts”.
Earlier in the document Duncan said “Discuss, and then agree upon, and then rigidly and rigorously enforce a norm of perfection in all formal undertakings”. This implies to me that Duncan intends to enforce the CoC pretty strictly. Should Duncan be confidant its reasonable to expect such large deviations from how humans normally operate? I should note that normal bootcamps do not require as much psychologically from their recruits. Even though bootcamps require obedience they don’t normally require recruits to think a certain way.
Duncan explicitly said he was willing to modify norms that members felt were too hard to follow (” Be ruthless about discarding standards during strategic review; if a member of the group says that X or Y or Z is too high-cost for them to sustain, believe them, and make decisions accordingly.”). But he also said that the CoC was unlikely to change. If I thought the CoC was meant more as a set of guidelines than strict rules I would be less worried. But that is not how I interpreted the post.
-- How many people do we expect to leave or get kicked out?
I have moderated some internet communities (And admin an active one now). Temp bans and warnings can only go so far. At some points you have to be willing to pull the trigger and ban people.
The section on reparations reassured me that Duncan was thinking hard about to keep people from falling off the path. In addition, unlike most internet communities, the DA recruits will be heavily vetted. But in order to enforce the reparations you either have to appeal to social pressure or the threat of kicking people out. I think the standards are very strict so serious discipline might be needed.
-- Are there practical or ethical problems with this plan?
People who get kicked out of DA are still required to pay rent until they can find a replacement. Assuming they are on the lease it seems highly unlikely you can kick them out of the house. However if someone gets kicked out of the house they might be pretty negative towards the rest of the group. It probably a bad situation to keep them around, but maybe they can’t easily find a replacement or a new place to live.
Secondly people who get kicked out might be psychologically unable to remain at the DA barracks. But until they can find someone to replace them they are on the hook for rent. In my personal opinion joining dragon army should be a “Good deal” for anyone involved. Its important that the downside of: “get kicked out” → “lose friends, need to find a replacement despite the fact that you got kicked out and maybe can’t give DA a good review, on the hook for lots of rent” is manageable. I would really hate to see anyone get hurt. I assume Duncan shares my concerns but he didn’t address them in the post.
In addition, has Duncan looked into the legalities surrounding renter’s rights in California (and Berkeley in particular)? This isn’t in the post even if he has done the research.
-- Duncan said the following “I also considered whether to update/change my tone given your first impression, but it seems to be enough of an outlier that I probably won’t make any deliberate effort.
Its plausible to me they aren’t much of an outlier. I had the same reaction, as did several people I showed Duncan’s post to (though other people thought Duncan’s post sounded fine). If I didn’t know Duncan was the curriculum director at CFAR I would have thought he was crazy and probably dangerous. Stuff about “living under my thumb”, self comparisons to Tyler Durden and the ender’s game quote about “quick, decisive obedience” really worried me. Some of the most shocking stuff, from my perspective, was in the pop culture references. But a number of things in the main text gave off an extremely strong cult vibe. Some examples include the “house salute” and the “Various call-and-response patterns surrounding house norms”. I should note I am not accusing Duncan of anything, based on his reputation he seems trustworthy. But his tone definitely set off loud alarm bells for me.
--
Again I am really happy people are considering new rationalist norms. Duncan seems like a very good choice to lead an experimental project. The general strategy of DA seems like a good one. But I wanted to share my concerns.
+1; general appreciation for your willingness to make the commentary public, so that I and others can interact with it openly.
EDIT: I got distracted dealing with the troll. I still hope to return to this comment, but if I fail to, please know that I am definitely mulling it over and taking its content seriously, and that I again thank you for posting.
In an internet community, you have less tools to change behavior than in personal conversations (and I say that as having moderated in a big personal development internet forum for years).
As far as personal development frameworks go ideas like of “code of perfection” can be found in Landmark (/The Four Agreements). On the other hand the actual verbal techniques advocated are NVC/Circling/Focusing/Internal Double Crux, which have values of authenticity and accepting the emotions that arise in the moment.
Humans sometimes do have instincts to see other people in bad faith. There are two ways to deal with it. ① Surpress it because you have a codex that doesn’t allow the instinct to be carried out. ② Bring it authentically to the front and be open about it.
Landmarkish thought would advocate ① while Circling leads to ②. Both can work as cultural norms but they are different and if there’s a desire to be in Circling mode, don’t have rules that require the other.
I’m managing/leading an internet gaming community, and the only tools I’ve ever had to use are selection and conversation.
I’ve had one person leave because their goal in joining was to acquire enough information and power to cause harm and they were so unsubtle about it that I was able to identify that and stop them. One additional person left because our norms of ‘don’t cheat’ and ‘be nice to our friends’ were given to him gently by everyone in voice chat every time they were violated.
Oddly enough, both of those people ended up joining a specific competing group that held neither of the norms ‘don’t cheat’ nor ‘don’t make public rape threats towards people who call out your cheating’.
And my selection method? Be public and pushy about what kind of norms you have, and push away people who don’t already have and want to follow those norms.