I think I disagree with EY’s conclusion in the essay you linked to. Given scary research findings related to status differences (also potentially relevant if “high-status person’s opinion” could act as an effective stand-in for “majority opinion”), I think there are good epistemological reasons to try to treat everyone as an equal by default. (BTW, the relatively large status differences between LW users worry me some. I read LW for years before noticing status-related biases in my thinking and attempting to fix them.)
Acknowledging someone’s long list of accomplishments and perceiving them as higher status seem to me like different brain phenomena, in the same way saying “Oh, that’s going to make it hard for me to accomplish my goal” and feeling discouraged are different brain phenomena (in other words, emotions and declarative thoughts don’t have to be in perfect correspondence). Yes, it’s good to reinforce people for doing useful things, but acting like a fanboy/fangirl is not the only way to reinforce someone.
Edit: Reply to EY’s essay:
Yes, having people show off how willing they are to disagree with you is problematic for everyone involved. Suggestion: Try to make yourself less imposing so disagreeing or agreeing with you is less of a big deal. (BTW, I think EY is getting better at this, good for him.)
In the library story, all of the problems you describe are problems that arise from status differences. When there’s a high-status person around, it becomes difficult to define yourself except in terms of whether you agree or disagree with them. (Insert evolutionary psychology speculation here.) Like many social problems, status differences are the product of the behavior of both parties in the interaction, and therefore the problem can be attacked from both ends.
Overall, reluctance to acquiesce to high-status people among the “our kind” crowd is a good thing, because it pushes against certain status and conformity-related failure modes. (See above links. Yes, if Less Wrong were an army platoon it might be a bad thing, but we’re not.) I think it’s probably better to try to express this reluctance through casual egalitarianism than deliberate rebellion, though.
Yeah, I definitely agree with your first point. EY writes “and then from talking to this person for 30 seconds I determined that they were not worth listening to” which makes me terrified and therefore much less likely to make sense in those initial 30 seconds if I were confronted with … him. (That link was one of the more forgiving contexts.)
But I think I was trying to push for a boring, paperwork evaluation of where that status came from. In some cases, you might examine it and decide you should actually trust the person’s expertise on some matter. But not all matters everywhere ever and no they can’t also sign your arm/face.
I think I disagree with EY’s conclusion in the essay you linked to. Given scary research findings related to status differences (also potentially relevant if “high-status person’s opinion” could act as an effective stand-in for “majority opinion”), I think there are good epistemological reasons to try to treat everyone as an equal by default. (BTW, the relatively large status differences between LW users worry me some. I read LW for years before noticing status-related biases in my thinking and attempting to fix them.)
Acknowledging someone’s long list of accomplishments and perceiving them as higher status seem to me like different brain phenomena, in the same way saying “Oh, that’s going to make it hard for me to accomplish my goal” and feeling discouraged are different brain phenomena (in other words, emotions and declarative thoughts don’t have to be in perfect correspondence). Yes, it’s good to reinforce people for doing useful things, but acting like a fanboy/fangirl is not the only way to reinforce someone.
Edit: Reply to EY’s essay:
Yes, having people show off how willing they are to disagree with you is problematic for everyone involved. Suggestion: Try to make yourself less imposing so disagreeing or agreeing with you is less of a big deal. (BTW, I think EY is getting better at this, good for him.)
In the library story, all of the problems you describe are problems that arise from status differences. When there’s a high-status person around, it becomes difficult to define yourself except in terms of whether you agree or disagree with them. (Insert evolutionary psychology speculation here.) Like many social problems, status differences are the product of the behavior of both parties in the interaction, and therefore the problem can be attacked from both ends.
Overall, reluctance to acquiesce to high-status people among the “our kind” crowd is a good thing, because it pushes against certain status and conformity-related failure modes. (See above links. Yes, if Less Wrong were an army platoon it might be a bad thing, but we’re not.) I think it’s probably better to try to express this reluctance through casual egalitarianism than deliberate rebellion, though.
Yeah, I definitely agree with your first point. EY writes “and then from talking to this person for 30 seconds I determined that they were not worth listening to” which makes me terrified and therefore much less likely to make sense in those initial 30 seconds if I were confronted with … him. (That link was one of the more forgiving contexts.)
But I think I was trying to push for a boring, paperwork evaluation of where that status came from. In some cases, you might examine it and decide you should actually trust the person’s expertise on some matter. But not all matters everywhere ever and no they can’t also sign your arm/face.