There’s an unhelpful kind of munchkinry that looks for poor phrasing in pre-stated rejections like a devil in a fantasy novel or a highly motivated and perhaps unscrupulous lawyer, making suggestions that technically satisfy my rejections but obviously aren’t what I meant.
I think the original true rejection post is one of these. “Why should I believe him when he doesn’t have a PhD” probably means that the PhD is one of multiple conditions, not that it’s the sole reason for rejection. But Eliezer’s original post treats it as if it’s a gotcha.
Also, remember the Hidden Complexity of Wishes. Phrasing your rejection in such a way that nobody can abuse a misphrasing is really hard, even with feedback, and a lot like trying to phrase a wish properly. (And ironically, in this context, Eliezer asked me my background in computer science which essentially is asking what degree I have. I wonder if that was his true rejection.)
I think the original true rejection post is one of these. “Why should I believe him when he doesn’t have a PhD” probably means that the PhD is one of multiple conditions, not that it’s the sole reason for rejection. But Eliezer’s original post treats it as if it’s a gotcha.
Maybe, though if it’s the only condition given and I actually went out, got a PhD, came back, and the other person didn’t change their mind I’d be kind of annoyed. I have some direct experience with
if the potential customer says, “It seems good, but you don’t have feature X,” that may not be the true rejection. Fixing it may, or may not, change anything.
and anecdotal evidence seems in favour of Eliezer’s point. Having feature X doesn’t mean they’ll buy, and they might buy even without feature X if you change some other thing.
I’m noticing I’m not clear if we’re disagreeing here, or where that disagreement might lie. I think but am not at all confident that you think the unhelpful munchkinry is so prevalent and multiple rejections are sufficiently common as to make this technique useless. Can you try restate your point? At present this thread doesn’t seem productive to me.
I think but am not at all confident that you think the unhelpful munchkinry is so prevalent and multiple rejections are sufficiently common as to make this technique useless.
Pretty much.
If “true rejection” allows multiple reasons for rejection, not just one, and isn’t used as a gotcha, I have no real problem with it, but the difficulty of genie-proofing it and the ease of using it as a gotcha make it not work very well in practice.
This is also one reason I oppose bets.
I have some direct experience with
if the potential customer says, “It seems good, but you don’t have feature X,” that may not be the true rejection. Fixing it may, or may not, change anything.
But that sounds like the multiple reason case. If the customer has multiple reasons why he doesn’t like the product, and he’s only stated the biggest one, the customer may be unsatisfied after you fix it. Claiming “the customer didn’t state his true rejection” assumes that a true rejection can’t consist of multiple reasons. And even if the customer did phrase his rejection in some way that implies that it’s the only reason, I don’t think “failed to state all his reasons” is meaningfully like “didn’t give his true rejection”.
I think the original true rejection post is one of these. “Why should I believe him when he doesn’t have a PhD” probably means that the PhD is one of multiple conditions, not that it’s the sole reason for rejection. But Eliezer’s original post treats it as if it’s a gotcha.
Also, remember the Hidden Complexity of Wishes. Phrasing your rejection in such a way that nobody can abuse a misphrasing is really hard, even with feedback, and a lot like trying to phrase a wish properly. (And ironically, in this context, Eliezer asked me my background in computer science which essentially is asking what degree I have. I wonder if that was his true rejection.)
Maybe, though if it’s the only condition given and I actually went out, got a PhD, came back, and the other person didn’t change their mind I’d be kind of annoyed. I have some direct experience with
and anecdotal evidence seems in favour of Eliezer’s point. Having feature X doesn’t mean they’ll buy, and they might buy even without feature X if you change some other thing.
I’m noticing I’m not clear if we’re disagreeing here, or where that disagreement might lie. I think but am not at all confident that you think the unhelpful munchkinry is so prevalent and multiple rejections are sufficiently common as to make this technique useless. Can you try restate your point? At present this thread doesn’t seem productive to me.
Pretty much.
If “true rejection” allows multiple reasons for rejection, not just one, and isn’t used as a gotcha, I have no real problem with it, but the difficulty of genie-proofing it and the ease of using it as a gotcha make it not work very well in practice.
This is also one reason I oppose bets.
But that sounds like the multiple reason case. If the customer has multiple reasons why he doesn’t like the product, and he’s only stated the biggest one, the customer may be unsatisfied after you fix it. Claiming “the customer didn’t state his true rejection” assumes that a true rejection can’t consist of multiple reasons. And even if the customer did phrase his rejection in some way that implies that it’s the only reason, I don’t think “failed to state all his reasons” is meaningfully like “didn’t give his true rejection”.