>Yeah, a better way at gesturing at what Eliezer means by “status-blind” might be “doesn’t reflexively assign status or deference to people based on a felt sense of how authoritative/respectable/impressive people are likely to view them as being.”
Yes, but I think the difference is in “how people are likely to view them” vs “how I see them”, and not in “doesn’t reflexively assign status or deference”.
>As a “status-sighted” person, I don’t think the difference feels internally like a distinct “emotion”; it feels more like people’s impressiveness is just baked into the world as an obvious, perceptible fact. It’s just goddamn different to meet a senator in full regalia versus meet the head of a local anarchist group.
This is what I meant when I said that status is invisible when agreed upon. In “competent elites”, Eliezer wrote that he was expecting to find “fools in business suits” and was shocked that these people were “visibly much smarter than average mortals” and felt “more alive”, even. This was two years before the “status blind” Eliezer of 2010, but this is a pretty clear depiction of his experience noting their surprisingly high status as an obvious perceptible fact about these people (as measured by him). Heck, he even described Jaynes as having a “magical aura of destiny”.
If he were to be unimpressed by some dressed up senator, it wouldn’t be because he is incapable of having the same status responses, just that the senators fancy pants obviously didn’t earn it to him.
>Indeed, I think that’s another factor that makes it really hard for me to notice when my behavior is authoritativeness-influenced is that it doesn’t feel subjectively distinct from when part of my mind is quietly making a rational, calculated decision to play the politics game.
Well sure, that’s how you implement these concerns. Similarly to how you can eat because you’re hungry and avoid painful things because it “hurts” without consciously thinking through whether or not you need more food or the spicy pepper is going to damage you. When you get down to the bottom of it though, emotions and even “physical pain” will completely change as you start to see things differently (and of course, won’t change so long as you’re just insisting to yourself that you “should” see it differently)
>I agree with sil ver, too. This is one of the conclusions I reached when I tried to figure out why my output wasn’t as amazing as Eliezer’s or Scott’s, and what I could do to change that.
>Yeah, a better way at gesturing at what Eliezer means by “status-blind” might be “doesn’t reflexively assign status or deference to people based on a felt sense of how authoritative/respectable/impressive people are likely to view them as being.”
Yes, but I think the difference is in “how people are likely to view them” vs “how I see them”, and not in “doesn’t reflexively assign status or deference”.
>As a “status-sighted” person, I don’t think the difference feels internally like a distinct “emotion”; it feels more like people’s impressiveness is just baked into the world as an obvious, perceptible fact. It’s just goddamn different to meet a senator in full regalia versus meet the head of a local anarchist group.
This is what I meant when I said that status is invisible when agreed upon. In “competent elites”, Eliezer wrote that he was expecting to find “fools in business suits” and was shocked that these people were “visibly much smarter than average mortals” and felt “more alive”, even. This was two years before the “status blind” Eliezer of 2010, but this is a pretty clear depiction of his experience noting their surprisingly high status as an obvious perceptible fact about these people (as measured by him). Heck, he even described Jaynes as having a “magical aura of destiny”.
If he were to be unimpressed by some dressed up senator, it wouldn’t be because he is incapable of having the same status responses, just that the senators fancy pants obviously didn’t earn it to him.
>Indeed, I think that’s another factor that makes it really hard for me to notice when my behavior is authoritativeness-influenced is that it doesn’t feel subjectively distinct from when part of my mind is quietly making a rational, calculated decision to play the politics game.
Well sure, that’s how you implement these concerns. Similarly to how you can eat because you’re hungry and avoid painful things because it “hurts” without consciously thinking through whether or not you need more food or the spicy pepper is going to damage you. When you get down to the bottom of it though, emotions and even “physical pain” will completely change as you start to see things differently (and of course, won’t change so long as you’re just insisting to yourself that you “should” see it differently)
>I agree with sil ver, too. This is one of the conclusions I reached when I tried to figure out why my output wasn’t as amazing as Eliezer’s or Scott’s, and what I could do to change that.
Good. I hope it changes :)
I think I’m still missing some pieces of the puzzle, but I think we nearly-agree about everything.