“Musings on X” style posts tend not to be remembered as much, and I think this is a fairly important post for people to remember.
I guess I’m pretty guilty of this, as I tend to write “here’s a new concept or line of thought, and its various implications” style posts, and sometimes I just don’t want to spoil the ending/conclusion, like maybe I’m afraid people won’t read the post if they can just glance at the title and decide whether they already agree or disagree with it, or think they know what I’m going to say? The Nature of Offense is a good example of the latter, where I could have easily titled it “Offense is about Status”.
Not sure if I want to change my habit yet. Any further thoughts on this, or references about this effect, how strong it is, etc.?
Scott strongly encourages using well-crafted concept handles for reasons very similar to what Raemon describes, and thinks Eliezer’s writing is really impactful partly because he’s good at creating them. And “Offense is about status” doesn’t seem to me like it would create the reactions you predicted if people see that you in particular are the author (because of your track record of contributions); I doubt the people who would still round it off to strawman versions would not do so with your boring title anyway, so on the margin seems like a non-issue.
I’m mostly going off intuitions. One bit of data you might look over is the titles of the Best of LessWrong section, which is what people turned out to remember and find important.
I think there is something virtuous about the sort of title you make, but, also a different kind of virtue in writing to argue for specific points or concepts you want in people’s heads. (In this case, the post does get “Illegible problems” into people’s heads, it’s just that I think people mostly already have heard of those, or think they have)
(I think an important TODO is for someone to find a compelling argument that people who are skeptical about “work on illegible stuff” would find persuasive)
I guess I’m pretty guilty of this, as I tend to write “here’s a new concept or line of thought, and its various implications” style posts, and sometimes I just don’t want to spoil the ending/conclusion, like maybe I’m afraid people won’t read the post if they can just glance at the title and decide whether they already agree or disagree with it, or think they know what I’m going to say? The Nature of Offense is a good example of the latter, where I could have easily titled it “Offense is about Status”.
Not sure if I want to change my habit yet. Any further thoughts on this, or references about this effect, how strong it is, etc.?
Scott strongly encourages using well-crafted concept handles for reasons very similar to what Raemon describes, and thinks Eliezer’s writing is really impactful partly because he’s good at creating them. And “Offense is about status” doesn’t seem to me like it would create the reactions you predicted if people see that you in particular are the author (because of your track record of contributions); I doubt the people who would still round it off to strawman versions would not do so with your boring title anyway, so on the margin seems like a non-issue.
I’m mostly going off intuitions. One bit of data you might look over is the titles of the Best of LessWrong section, which is what people turned out to remember and find important.
I think there is something virtuous about the sort of title you make, but, also a different kind of virtue in writing to argue for specific points or concepts you want in people’s heads. (In this case, the post does get “Illegible problems” into people’s heads, it’s just that I think people mostly already have heard of those, or think they have)
(I think an important TODO is for someone to find a compelling argument that people who are skeptical about “work on illegible stuff” would find persuasive)