Hufflepuff is more of a literary reference, it means “people that are more down to earth, not particularly ambitious, but, are warm and empathetic and operationally competent and reliably show up every day to do the shit that needs doing”. It’s not, like, a particularly natural way of carving up psychometrics, I wrote “Project Hufflepuff” because it was a shared literary reference I could easily build on at the time.
I don’t think that explanation would paint the right picture in the head of someone who doesn’t already have most of the picture.
A closer pointer IMO: “hufflepuff” is about being the opposite of individualistic. It’s the personality type which wants to be part of a team, and stick to their role within that team, support their teammates and be supported by their teammates (including the warm and empathetic part), be reliable for their teammates, etc. It’s also usually the personality type for which The Importance of Sidekicks really clicks. It’s highly correlated with “submissive” in the BDSM sense, especially the aspect of wanting someone else to take the lead.
It’s also a difficult personality type to talk about, because it’s a little too easy for “hufflepuff” to morph into an insult about having low agency. Competent agentic hufflepuffs are really spectacularly high value—a fact that most people experienced in leadership positions will attest (Mo’s comment gives several good examples). Unfortunately, the median hufflepuff… isn’t that. (Indeed, a major motivation for writing up this post is that I’ve had in the back of my mind for several years now some posts on “rationalism for subs”, which is centrally about being the high-value sort of hufflepuff.)
That is an incredibly useful definition for a term I’ve seen floating around here for years — thanks!
…could it be put somewhere moderately prominent, where people can stumble over it?
I’m kind of hoping it could be somewhere prominent in the first page of results on https://www.lesswrong.com/search?query=hufflepuff. I’m looking at https://www.lesswrong.com/sequences/oyZGWX9WkgWzEDt6M and while your comment’s definition makes the page make sense, I wouldn’t be able to independently generate your comment’s definition from “comradery, reliability, trustworthiness, willingness to do physical work, willingness to stick with things for a long time, etc.”.
Hufflepuff is more of a literary reference, it means “people that are more down to earth, not particularly ambitious, but, are warm and empathetic and operationally competent and reliably show up every day to do the shit that needs doing”. It’s not, like, a particularly natural way of carving up psychometrics, I wrote “Project Hufflepuff” because it was a shared literary reference I could easily build on at the time.
I don’t think that explanation would paint the right picture in the head of someone who doesn’t already have most of the picture.
A closer pointer IMO: “hufflepuff” is about being the opposite of individualistic. It’s the personality type which wants to be part of a team, and stick to their role within that team, support their teammates and be supported by their teammates (including the warm and empathetic part), be reliable for their teammates, etc. It’s also usually the personality type for which The Importance of Sidekicks really clicks. It’s highly correlated with “submissive” in the BDSM sense, especially the aspect of wanting someone else to take the lead.
It’s also a difficult personality type to talk about, because it’s a little too easy for “hufflepuff” to morph into an insult about having low agency. Competent agentic hufflepuffs are really spectacularly high value—a fact that most people experienced in leadership positions will attest (Mo’s comment gives several good examples). Unfortunately, the median hufflepuff… isn’t that. (Indeed, a major motivation for writing up this post is that I’ve had in the back of my mind for several years now some posts on “rationalism for subs”, which is centrally about being the high-value sort of hufflepuff.)
Okay yeah that explanation is way better.
That is an incredibly useful definition for a term I’ve seen floating around here for years — thanks!
…could it be put somewhere moderately prominent, where people can stumble over it?
I’m kind of hoping it could be somewhere prominent in the first page of results on https://www.lesswrong.com/search?query=hufflepuff. I’m looking at https://www.lesswrong.com/sequences/oyZGWX9WkgWzEDt6M and while your comment’s definition makes the page make sense, I wouldn’t be able to independently generate your comment’s definition from “comradery, reliability, trustworthiness, willingness to do physical work, willingness to stick with things for a long time, etc.”.