The issues on polyamory are very related, but are distinct from dating more generally. They could be their own top-level post. I tend to downgrade my confidence in my own theories or the validity of my questions, so I put them in open threads rather than as top-level posts. I don’t want to initially signal more confidence in my own theories than I think is justified. When I have a model of how the world works, I try to live the virtue of lightness by seeking to break it by asking others. My strength as a rationalist only seems such that when I think something might be true, but I’m not confident I can evaluate my map of the territory by myself, I bring in the rest of your for help.
So, I try to separate questions on a common topic down to a level at which they’re most intelligible and easy to answer, without losing the gist of what I’m trying to figure out. This habit was confirmed when I made several suggestions for the 2014 Less Wrong Survey, one of which was heavily adopted and upvoted, another which was downvoted and improved upon by other suggestions. Had I just put all those suggestions for improving the Survey in one comment, the strength of votes as signals would have been diluted, and been noisier. Thus, I might not have caused the survey to improve at all. That would be worse for everyone.
That example demonstrates the rationale for why I make multiple comments in the open thread. If I don’t separate my posts so atomically, even if it seems redundant, I’m worried the quality of the feedback I receive will be jumbled. If I’m polluting the open thread, or ruining it, I’ll change tactics, but it seems a low-intensity environment where people don’t mind some amount of repetition.
… Are you sure that your three related posts on this topic in this open thread alone wouldn’t warrant their own top-level post?
The issues on polyamory are very related, but are distinct from dating more generally. They could be their own top-level post. I tend to downgrade my confidence in my own theories or the validity of my questions, so I put them in open threads rather than as top-level posts. I don’t want to initially signal more confidence in my own theories than I think is justified. When I have a model of how the world works, I try to live the virtue of lightness by seeking to break it by asking others. My strength as a rationalist only seems such that when I think something might be true, but I’m not confident I can evaluate my map of the territory by myself, I bring in the rest of your for help.
So, I try to separate questions on a common topic down to a level at which they’re most intelligible and easy to answer, without losing the gist of what I’m trying to figure out. This habit was confirmed when I made several suggestions for the 2014 Less Wrong Survey, one of which was heavily adopted and upvoted, another which was downvoted and improved upon by other suggestions. Had I just put all those suggestions for improving the Survey in one comment, the strength of votes as signals would have been diluted, and been noisier. Thus, I might not have caused the survey to improve at all. That would be worse for everyone.
That example demonstrates the rationale for why I make multiple comments in the open thread. If I don’t separate my posts so atomically, even if it seems redundant, I’m worried the quality of the feedback I receive will be jumbled. If I’m polluting the open thread, or ruining it, I’ll change tactics, but it seems a low-intensity environment where people don’t mind some amount of repetition.