Potential counterargument: That kinda hurts you precisely in the timelines in which you may have large impact, no?
I mean, I guess it’s correct if you don’t have high ambitions, or if you’re very strongly confident that your pathways of realizing those ambitions won’t route through becoming publicly well-known. But if you’re ultimately aiming high, and are leaving yourself the option to be opportunistic about how to do it (rather than committing to a specific path from the start), being open like this early may have significant negative effects for you later on. (Impacting your ability to acquire, compound, or wield power.)
I’m instinctively tempted to reject this counterargument, but I think my instinctive rejection is invalid. It seems to be rooted in the feelings of “how is cyberbullying real, just walk away from the screen” and “if you’re leading your life in a way where you’re at the mercy of the vicissitudes of the public opinion, you’re doing something wrong”. The latter is a preference over paths-to-power, and while paths that route through publicity are dispreferred by me, they’re still valid. The former fails to take into account that, on some paths, your career opportunities/ability to make business deals/whether VCs would fund you/etc. depend on whether other people (or corporations/other entities) believe that cyberbullying is real.
So I think it’s a fine strategy if you’re a hermit researcher aiming to solve alignment and apply the solution to a brain in a box in a basement, or if you don’t have big plans to begin with. But maybe not so good if you’re aiming for policy/advocacy/fieldbuilding/etc.
Inner Taleb says: dude, variance is extremely positive EV when it comes to publicity. Far better to have some people love you and some people hate than to have nobody care, for the vast majority of ambitions.
If you’re ambitious and trying to have nobody hate you, you are making a very major mistake.
You are not considering how the manner in which you gain fame constrains the options for your ambition. If your personal sexual details are online, that may constrain your options for political office, executive and academic leadership, for example.
Being hated is rarely helpful for ambition. It’s a consequence of pursuing ambition—making some people unhappy to make others happy. If you do stuff that garners ambition-undermining hate without giving you a greater base of ambition-serving support, then it’s not helpful for this goal. I continue to not see the case for how posting sexual kinks and other taboo info online will advance people’s ambitions for the vast majority of people and ambitions.
Potential counterargument: That kinda hurts you precisely in the timelines in which you may have large impact, no?
I mean, I guess it’s correct if you don’t have high ambitions, or if you’re very strongly confident that your pathways of realizing those ambitions won’t route through becoming publicly well-known. But if you’re ultimately aiming high, and are leaving yourself the option to be opportunistic about how to do it (rather than committing to a specific path from the start), being open like this early may have significant negative effects for you later on. (Impacting your ability to acquire, compound, or wield power.)
I’m instinctively tempted to reject this counterargument, but I think my instinctive rejection is invalid. It seems to be rooted in the feelings of “how is cyberbullying real, just walk away from the screen” and “if you’re leading your life in a way where you’re at the mercy of the vicissitudes of the public opinion, you’re doing something wrong”. The latter is a preference over paths-to-power, and while paths that route through publicity are dispreferred by me, they’re still valid. The former fails to take into account that, on some paths, your career opportunities/ability to make business deals/whether VCs would fund you/etc. depend on whether other people (or corporations/other entities) believe that cyberbullying is real.
So I think it’s a fine strategy if you’re a hermit researcher aiming to solve alignment and apply the solution to a brain in a box in a basement, or if you don’t have big plans to begin with. But maybe not so good if you’re aiming for policy/advocacy/fieldbuilding/etc.
Inner Taleb says: dude, variance is extremely positive EV when it comes to publicity. Far better to have some people love you and some people hate than to have nobody care, for the vast majority of ambitions.
If you’re ambitious and trying to have nobody hate you, you are making a very major mistake.
You are not considering how the manner in which you gain fame constrains the options for your ambition. If your personal sexual details are online, that may constrain your options for political office, executive and academic leadership, for example.
Being hated is rarely helpful for ambition. It’s a consequence of pursuing ambition—making some people unhappy to make others happy. If you do stuff that garners ambition-undermining hate without giving you a greater base of ambition-serving support, then it’s not helpful for this goal. I continue to not see the case for how posting sexual kinks and other taboo info online will advance people’s ambitions for the vast majority of people and ambitions.
Taleb claims he rarely puts forth new ideas but repeats very Lindy ones.
And that seems to be a variation of:
”Any publicity is good publicity”