I found this to be useful. I had not explicitly reasoned about the hypothesis generation and subsequent iteration process like this.
For this part about updating with regards to criticism:
One of my strongest hopes is that whomever is playing the part of the “generator” is able to compile the list of critiques easily and use them to update somewhere close to the optimal direction. This would be difficult if the sum of all critiques is either directionless (many critics point in opposite or near-opposite directions) or very high-magnitude (Critics simply say to get as far away from here as possible).
I’m curious exactly what that might entail. Are there any good examples you can give where someone gives a hypothesis, and then some critique in a certain direction / magnitude causes them to shift? What is the analogy when applied to, say, posts on LW about motivation, for example?
(Maybe someone gives an equation for motivation that satisfies certain qualities. And then someone critiques by bringing up an important quality the equation misses out?)
I’m curious exactly what that might entail. Are there any good examples you can give where someone gives a hypothesis, and then some critique in a certain direction / magnitude causes them to shift?
Well, I think the recent Dragon Army post and subsequent discussion was a good example. It generated a huge volume of critique, much of it following Norm One, and some of it not. The stuff that did follow Norm One actually did point mainly in the same direction, and mostly consisted of suggestions for how to make the system more robust to failure and implementing proper safe-guards. This did seem to cause Duncan to update his plan in that direction, and made it a lot more palatable to some (consider Scott Alexander’s shift of opinion on it).
Contrast that with the more hostile criticism from that discussion, which probably caused no one to update in any direction, and if anything made it more likely for people to become entrenched in their views.
Cool. I think I agree with the general spirit of making criticism that follows these guidelines.
I think the thing I’m having trouble parsing is how to translate typical critique into the style of Norm One. My current interpretation is something like, “Give small, incremental suggestions that they can actually implement, rather than larger, more nebulous vague-pointing things. (And if you want to do the nebulous thing, maybe only do that after giving the small incremental stuff and use the nebulous thing as more of a goalpost of what you intend by giving the incremental stuff.)”
I found this to be useful. I had not explicitly reasoned about the hypothesis generation and subsequent iteration process like this.
For this part about updating with regards to criticism:
I’m curious exactly what that might entail. Are there any good examples you can give where someone gives a hypothesis, and then some critique in a certain direction / magnitude causes them to shift? What is the analogy when applied to, say, posts on LW about motivation, for example?
(Maybe someone gives an equation for motivation that satisfies certain qualities. And then someone critiques by bringing up an important quality the equation misses out?)
Well, I think the recent Dragon Army post and subsequent discussion was a good example. It generated a huge volume of critique, much of it following Norm One, and some of it not. The stuff that did follow Norm One actually did point mainly in the same direction, and mostly consisted of suggestions for how to make the system more robust to failure and implementing proper safe-guards. This did seem to cause Duncan to update his plan in that direction, and made it a lot more palatable to some (consider Scott Alexander’s shift of opinion on it).
Contrast that with the more hostile criticism from that discussion, which probably caused no one to update in any direction, and if anything made it more likely for people to become entrenched in their views.
Cool. I think I agree with the general spirit of making criticism that follows these guidelines.
I think the thing I’m having trouble parsing is how to translate typical critique into the style of Norm One. My current interpretation is something like, “Give small, incremental suggestions that they can actually implement, rather than larger, more nebulous vague-pointing things. (And if you want to do the nebulous thing, maybe only do that after giving the small incremental stuff and use the nebulous thing as more of a goalpost of what you intend by giving the incremental stuff.)”