What makes this situation unusual is that being acknowledged by famous computer scientist Donald Knuth to have contributed something useful to one of his works is inherently prestigious; the check is evidence of that reward, not itself the reward. (Note that many of the checks do not even get cashed! A trophy showing that you fixed a bug in Knuth’s code is vastly more valuable than enough money to buy a plain slice of pizza.)
In contrast, Less Wrong is not prestigious. No one will be impressed to hear that you wrote a Less Wrong post. How likely do you think it is that someone who is paid some money for a well-researched LW post will, instead of claiming said money, frame the check and display it proudly?
I think you’re viewing intrinsic versus extrinsic reward as dichotomous rather than continuous. Knuth awards are on one end of the spectrum, salaries at large organizations are at the other. Prestige isn’t binary, and there is a clear interaction between prestige and standards—raising standards can itself increase prestige, which will itself make the monetary rewards more prestigious.
Sure, but we can close the global prestige gap to some extent, and in the mean time, we can leverage in-group social prestige, as the current format implicitly does.
What makes this situation unusual is that being acknowledged by famous computer scientist Donald Knuth to have contributed something useful to one of his works is inherently prestigious; the check is evidence of that reward, not itself the reward. (Note that many of the checks do not even get cashed! A trophy showing that you fixed a bug in Knuth’s code is vastly more valuable than enough money to buy a plain slice of pizza.)
In contrast, Less Wrong is not prestigious. No one will be impressed to hear that you wrote a Less Wrong post. How likely do you think it is that someone who is paid some money for a well-researched LW post will, instead of claiming said money, frame the check and display it proudly?
I think you’re viewing intrinsic versus extrinsic reward as dichotomous rather than continuous. Knuth awards are on one end of the spectrum, salaries at large organizations are at the other. Prestige isn’t binary, and there is a clear interaction between prestige and standards—raising standards can itself increase prestige, which will itself make the monetary rewards more prestigious.
I don’t see where Said’s comment implies a dichotomous view of prestige. He simply believes the gap between LessWrong and Donald Knuth is very large.
Sure, but we can close the global prestige gap to some extent, and in the mean time, we can leverage in-group social prestige, as the current format implicitly does.