when I first encountered Eliezer Yudkowsky, I actually had a bad vibe about him. If I’d followed that feeling, I would’ve missed out on learning from one of the authors who has helped me a lot.
Have you ever been completely wrong about a bad vibe? If so, what did you learn from it?
I learned a lot from him and I STILL have a bad vibe about him. People can be correct, useful, and also unsafe. (Primarily, I suspect him to be high on scales of narcissism, to which I’m very sensitive. Haven’t met the guy personally, but his text reeks of it. Doesn’t negate his genius; just negates my will to engage with him in any other dimension.)
It’s safer to read the text of a person’s blog than to engage in more high-bandwidth interactions that shape your personal life. The examples in the OP is that you should be extra conservative when it comes to things like starting a business venture or sharing personal secrets. Those are not concerns if you are reading only EY’s posts on the internet, therefore it is safe because his ability to impact you is limited.
Of course, vibes are not infallible. As I mentioned in the post, a bad first vibe can change when you get to know someone more. So if you can collect more information in a low-risk way, it may be worth it. Reading someone’s writing is usually (though not always) pretty low-risk.
I think a lot of my learning when I’ve changed my mind about someone’s vibe has been implicit, similar to what Anni’s comment is pointing at. Getting a better sense of what flavors of bad feelings are less reliable, which I expect to also update the mechanism that produced those particular kinds of vibes in the first place.
How often do we risk losing something important by assigning too high a priority to a bad vibe?
Personally, I try not to ignore any vibe or thought, but I also attempt to prioritize them by importance. Maybe I should start a ‘bad vibes journal’—a record of every time I feel something off and then compare it to the actual outcomes. My sense is that I often misjudge, but without tracking it, I can’t really calibrate my accuracy.
when I first encountered Eliezer Yudkowsky, I actually had a bad vibe about him. If I’d followed that feeling, I would’ve missed out on learning from one of the authors who has helped me a lot.
Have you ever been completely wrong about a bad vibe? If so, what did you learn from it?
I learned a lot from him and I STILL have a bad vibe about him. People can be correct, useful, and also unsafe. (Primarily, I suspect him to be high on scales of narcissism, to which I’m very sensitive. Haven’t met the guy personally, but his text reeks of it. Doesn’t negate his genius; just negates my will to engage with him in any other dimension.)
It’s safer to read the text of a person’s blog than to engage in more high-bandwidth interactions that shape your personal life. The examples in the OP is that you should be extra conservative when it comes to things like starting a business venture or sharing personal secrets. Those are not concerns if you are reading only EY’s posts on the internet, therefore it is safe because his ability to impact you is limited.
Of course, vibes are not infallible. As I mentioned in the post, a bad first vibe can change when you get to know someone more. So if you can collect more information in a low-risk way, it may be worth it. Reading someone’s writing is usually (though not always) pretty low-risk.
I think a lot of my learning when I’ve changed my mind about someone’s vibe has been implicit, similar to what Anni’s comment is pointing at. Getting a better sense of what flavors of bad feelings are less reliable, which I expect to also update the mechanism that produced those particular kinds of vibes in the first place.
How often do we risk losing something important by assigning too high a priority to a bad vibe?
Personally, I try not to ignore any vibe or thought, but I also attempt to prioritize them by importance. Maybe I should start a ‘bad vibes journal’—a record of every time I feel something off and then compare it to the actual outcomes. My sense is that I often misjudge, but without tracking it, I can’t really calibrate my accuracy.