I feel like this was doing a fairly different thing than InEq itself (or at least, the effect it had on me was pretty different)
This post mostly made me think about status dynamics, both within myself, Eliezer, and other people. I think this was useful to think about, but as Eliezer notes somewhere in the middle of this: it feels like this is focusing our attention disproportionately on the wrong half of the equation. (I don’t think we should think zero about the status thing, but it seems like it should be something like a 70⁄30 ratio of “thinking about system behaviors we can change” and “thinking about how status in particular works”.)
Whereas InEq focused my attention on “How do I actually notice when situations are likely to be inadequate? When can I reasonably expect outsized success for my effort?”
I think of this as a call to temporarily focus on that part of the equation so one can realize that this is what most modesty arguments are actually motivated by, and that such arguments are not useful in dealing with the object level so you should ignore them in favor of examining the object level directly. It’s a call to stop paying attention to status arguments (including when they take the form of modesty arguments) so you can see the object level.
Then there’s the mostly seperate question of using status and social dynamics as tools to analyze the failures of systems, which I agree is a useful tool that shouldn’t take up that much of our time.
Hmm. The way this feels to me is the way you once described the phrase “You shouldn’t feel bad about X”, or “If you did X, I wouldn’t blame you.” Technically the phrase is saying not to blame people, but it’s creating the implication that maybe we should blame people.
This feels similarly—since the whole thing focuses on the status frame, it encourages thinking about the status frame even if it’s saying not to.
(I think the net impact of InEq + This Post probably ends up pointing collectively in the right direction, with the right balance, I’m mostly disagreeing with (what I assumed to be) your initial point that this is an all-around better post, at least for the audience that needed to most hear it)
Datapoint: Reading InEq changed my thinking habits when evaluating projects much more than this essay did. This essay mostly reminded me to be surprised at the success of HPMOR, and think about all the useful cognitive updates Pat Modesto would make if he were to fully update on the datapoint of HPMOR.
Having actually read the whole thing now:
I feel like this was doing a fairly different thing than InEq itself (or at least, the effect it had on me was pretty different)
This post mostly made me think about status dynamics, both within myself, Eliezer, and other people. I think this was useful to think about, but as Eliezer notes somewhere in the middle of this: it feels like this is focusing our attention disproportionately on the wrong half of the equation. (I don’t think we should think zero about the status thing, but it seems like it should be something like a 70⁄30 ratio of “thinking about system behaviors we can change” and “thinking about how status in particular works”.)
Whereas InEq focused my attention on “How do I actually notice when situations are likely to be inadequate? When can I reasonably expect outsized success for my effort?”
I think of this as a call to temporarily focus on that part of the equation so one can realize that this is what most modesty arguments are actually motivated by, and that such arguments are not useful in dealing with the object level so you should ignore them in favor of examining the object level directly. It’s a call to stop paying attention to status arguments (including when they take the form of modesty arguments) so you can see the object level.
Then there’s the mostly seperate question of using status and social dynamics as tools to analyze the failures of systems, which I agree is a useful tool that shouldn’t take up that much of our time.
Hmm. The way this feels to me is the way you once described the phrase “You shouldn’t feel bad about X”, or “If you did X, I wouldn’t blame you.” Technically the phrase is saying not to blame people, but it’s creating the implication that maybe we should blame people.
This feels similarly—since the whole thing focuses on the status frame, it encourages thinking about the status frame even if it’s saying not to.
(I think the net impact of InEq + This Post probably ends up pointing collectively in the right direction, with the right balance, I’m mostly disagreeing with (what I assumed to be) your initial point that this is an all-around better post, at least for the audience that needed to most hear it)
Datapoint: Reading InEq changed my thinking habits when evaluating projects much more than this essay did. This essay mostly reminded me to be surprised at the success of HPMOR, and think about all the useful cognitive updates Pat Modesto would make if he were to fully update on the datapoint of HPMOR.