Some of it was mistaken assumptions about karma. Much more of it was the lack of recognition of the presence of a huge amount of underlying structure which is necessary to explain what looks like seemingly irrational behavior (to someone who doesn’t have that structure). I also didn’t recognize most of the offered help because I didn’t understand it. (Even just saying to a newbie, “I know that you don’t recognize this as help because you don’t get it yet but could you please trust me that it is intended as help” would probably convince many more people to just look again rather than bailing).
Some of the epiphany was figuring out the various parts that make up karma and truly recognizing its accuracy and efficiency. A lot more of it was just figuring out that there had to be structures present to explain the seemingly irrational behavior. Yeah, that’s duh! obvious in hindsight but it’s difficult to figure out by yourself (until you catch the underlying regularities and make the right assumptions).
One of the largest problems for newbies is that the culture has evolved a great many “terms of art” that are not recognizable as such to the newbie. Getting “hammered” for questioning the upvote of a comment apparently without substance was a shock for me. Fortunately, the underlying consistency of the “irrationality” was also becoming apparent at the same time.
Just reading and even fully understanding the sequences does not fully prepare one for contributing here. This fact is NOT evident to new contributors. Smacking a new contributor on the nose (with karma) while pointing at a sequence that they are rather sure that they comprehended and nothing else is not going to make sense to them until they have the necessary understandings.
One must understand the expected process and expectations of contribution and understand the “terms of art” that are invariable used in the evaluatory comments. Clear and confused have very specific meanings here that do not unpack correctly unless you have the underlying structure/understanding. I was also very shocked by the number of perceived strawmen and the community’s acceptance of them—contrary to virtually every other “rational” website.
I know that I still don’t have all of it but most of the behavior that totally baffled me before and appeared irrational now makes total sense. The rules are totally different here from what I expected/assumed and the unnoticed phase change caused my “rational” behavior to be deemed “irrational” (only because it was ;-) and “irrational” behavior to be widely accepted (not what you expect on a site devoted to rationality ;-).
Most of what I think I have in mind is just to point out where and explain why the rules are very different from what is likely to be assumed by an outsider. In particular, it’s very hard to accept that you’re confused and wrong when your bayesian priors give that a low probability—and a near-zero probability when the people informing you aren’t making sense and acting irrationally (except when they’re all doing it—and doing it consistently).
The real epiphany was when I said “F it. These people are managing to be consistent. There has to be some set of rules that allow them to do that. Now . . . . what the F are they?” And, for me, that was pretty rapidly followed by the “Ohhhhh. WOW! Damn. Now I feel bad.” of my apology.
If I could figure out some way to be helpful to steer people towards that epiphany without actually giving it to them, it would be ideal. Some work is necessary to fully integrate something like this. On the other hand, if it’s too hard and confusing, I think that a lot of people will (and do) bail out with a very bad taste in their mouths (which I still believe is very contrary to the stated goals of the community).
I’m also looking for any interested individuals who would like to help.
I confess that this reply doesn’t clarify the matter at all for me. I haven’t the faintest what “structures” you’re referring to that are so particular to this specific community. I’m looking forward to seeing more detail if you do write the top-level post that has been suggested.
By “structures” I mean “interlocking sets of values, virtues, norms, practices, identities, technologies, and psychological mechanisms that work together to fulfill the goal of stabilization (of something)”.
Examples:
The “terms of art” like “confused” (different from common use in that it can imply sins of omission as well as commission), the use of karma, the nearly uniform behavior when performing certain tasks, the nearly uniform reactions to certain things, etc. are all part of the “structures” supporting the community.
interlocking sets of values, virtues, norms, practices, identities, technologies, and psychological mechanisms that work together to fulfill the goal of stabilization (of something)
Now this is pretty meaningless, but in many words purporting to explain something. Beware curiosity-stoppers.
Edit: I misinterpreted mwaser’s comment, correction.
No, I know. But I don’t know what they are in any way that is unusual to this place. It’s possible that we come from such different backgrounds that what seems extraodinary to you is unnoticeable to me; it’s also possible you’ve figured out something about LW that I haven’t. Either way I’m curious what it is.
Even just saying to a newbie, “I know that you don’t recognize this as help because you don’t get it yet but could you please trust me that it is intended as help” would probably convince many more people to just look again rather than bailing
That’s a really good point. Humans are particularly bad at communicating over that kind of inferential distance (see post by that name for jargon or infer from context—kinda means what you are saying). People who have been thinking from within one culture for a long time will often not even understand what their words will mean to someone who has not. This applies to university courses too. Looking back it doesn’t seem like I learned anything that wasn’t bloody obvious… until I look at the people who didn’t have equivalent training.
You, having recently understood the culture in question, are in a perfect place to inform others. And it is best to do it now, before you forget why what you now know wasn’t always obvious. And you will forget, given time.
This reply, with a little tinkering to target it specifically to the desired effect, would make a good post and I can imagine people referring to it frequently. People may still take it as an insult and leave in disgust.… but some may not.
Not helping. I still have no idea whether you actually changed your mind about anything. You say you did, but you didn’t give any specific detail (explicit statements about the beliefs you changed; I don’t expect you should’ve changed your mind so soon, for that matter). The change that’s obvious is that you snapped out of adversarial mode, which is great (and in long term sufficient to start learning), but is generally unrelated to changes in what you believe.
For example, people in crackpot hubs can well agree with each other on all the contradicting and meaningless woo they generate, thus starting to agree with the community is generally not a sure sign of changing your mind.
Thanks for the long reply. My first experience with the site was to make a couple of comments which seemed “rational” to me at the time but were painfully (although not surprisingly) stupid in hindsight. The community told me, in a way that I now recognize as being as polite as possible, that I was being an idiot. At first I resisted, but after I started to dig into the site a little, it became clear to me that they were 100% right, and I deleted those early comments out of tremendous embarrassment. I say all this because it sounds like it might basically be the same experience you had, except that I came around more quickly.
I agree with most of your thoughts about the abundance of confusing local jargon, acceptance of strawmen, etc. It also might as well be explicitly laid out that everyone is expected to read all the sequences before they’ll be taken seriously. Which understandably seems really stupid and unfair the first time one bumps into it, but it might as well be stated.
I guess what confused me about your post was that the karma system and the way it’s used here has always made sense to me, so I’m not sure what about it you weren’t expecting. But then, that’s exactly why it would be great for you to write up the quickstart guide: Most of us can’t see the flaws and hurdles in the system (and therefore, can’t guide others around them) because we’re already used to it.
So good luck with this. I’d put it on the wiki, and when it becomes mature enough see to it that it gets linked to in any future “Welcome to Less Wrong” posts (which seem to be where newcomers making boneheaded comments like I did inevitably get directed).
Ditto. I think the more general rule is that you’re expected to have read the common background on a topic you’re posting about. It’s okay not to know anything about quantum mechanics as long as you don’t go posting about how everyone else has got it all wrong.
I think that’s less due to a community-accepted rule and more because you can’t get called out on not having the background reading if you don’t demonstrate that you lack it.
It’s still a good guideline for newbies to adhere to, though.
Well, I think it’s that you don’t need the background reading if you don’t demonstrate that you lack it. I don’t know much about brain surgery either, but nobody’s going to yell at me for that if I just want to read some articles about it or watch someone else discuss it. The problem that’s caused by newbies not reading the sequences is that they take up space in conversations without making valuable conversations. If they’re not doing that, it doesn’t matter what they merely know.
Any way you can give us a spolier of what you have in mind? I’m really curious what exactly what it is that you “didn’t get”, what epiphany you had.
What I didn’t get?
Some of it was mistaken assumptions about karma. Much more of it was the lack of recognition of the presence of a huge amount of underlying structure which is necessary to explain what looks like seemingly irrational behavior (to someone who doesn’t have that structure). I also didn’t recognize most of the offered help because I didn’t understand it. (Even just saying to a newbie, “I know that you don’t recognize this as help because you don’t get it yet but could you please trust me that it is intended as help” would probably convince many more people to just look again rather than bailing).
Some of the epiphany was figuring out the various parts that make up karma and truly recognizing its accuracy and efficiency. A lot more of it was just figuring out that there had to be structures present to explain the seemingly irrational behavior. Yeah, that’s duh! obvious in hindsight but it’s difficult to figure out by yourself (until you catch the underlying regularities and make the right assumptions).
One of the largest problems for newbies is that the culture has evolved a great many “terms of art” that are not recognizable as such to the newbie. Getting “hammered” for questioning the upvote of a comment apparently without substance was a shock for me. Fortunately, the underlying consistency of the “irrationality” was also becoming apparent at the same time.
Just reading and even fully understanding the sequences does not fully prepare one for contributing here. This fact is NOT evident to new contributors. Smacking a new contributor on the nose (with karma) while pointing at a sequence that they are rather sure that they comprehended and nothing else is not going to make sense to them until they have the necessary understandings.
One must understand the expected process and expectations of contribution and understand the “terms of art” that are invariable used in the evaluatory comments. Clear and confused have very specific meanings here that do not unpack correctly unless you have the underlying structure/understanding. I was also very shocked by the number of perceived strawmen and the community’s acceptance of them—contrary to virtually every other “rational” website.
I know that I still don’t have all of it but most of the behavior that totally baffled me before and appeared irrational now makes total sense. The rules are totally different here from what I expected/assumed and the unnoticed phase change caused my “rational” behavior to be deemed “irrational” (only because it was ;-) and “irrational” behavior to be widely accepted (not what you expect on a site devoted to rationality ;-).
Most of what I think I have in mind is just to point out where and explain why the rules are very different from what is likely to be assumed by an outsider. In particular, it’s very hard to accept that you’re confused and wrong when your bayesian priors give that a low probability—and a near-zero probability when the people informing you aren’t making sense and acting irrationally (except when they’re all doing it—and doing it consistently).
The real epiphany was when I said “F it. These people are managing to be consistent. There has to be some set of rules that allow them to do that. Now . . . . what the F are they?” And, for me, that was pretty rapidly followed by the “Ohhhhh. WOW! Damn. Now I feel bad.” of my apology.
If I could figure out some way to be helpful to steer people towards that epiphany without actually giving it to them, it would be ideal. Some work is necessary to fully integrate something like this. On the other hand, if it’s too hard and confusing, I think that a lot of people will (and do) bail out with a very bad taste in their mouths (which I still believe is very contrary to the stated goals of the community).
I’m also looking for any interested individuals who would like to help.
I confess that this reply doesn’t clarify the matter at all for me. I haven’t the faintest what “structures” you’re referring to that are so particular to this specific community. I’m looking forward to seeing more detail if you do write the top-level post that has been suggested.
By “structures” I mean “interlocking sets of values, virtues, norms, practices, identities, technologies, and psychological mechanisms that work together to fulfill the goal of stabilization (of something)”.
Examples: The “terms of art” like “confused” (different from common use in that it can imply sins of omission as well as commission), the use of karma, the nearly uniform behavior when performing certain tasks, the nearly uniform reactions to certain things, etc. are all part of the “structures” supporting the community.
Now this is pretty meaningless, but in many words purporting to explain something. Beware curiosity-stoppers.
Edit: I misinterpreted mwaser’s comment, correction.
It is a definition, not an explanation. I misunderstood his post to be questioning what the quoted word “structures” meant so I provided a definition.
I am editing it to provide examples. It was certainly not intended as a curiosity-stopper.
As a definition, it had meaning—but none that was new to you.
Sorry, I still have plenty of prejudice, will try to be more careful.
No, I know. But I don’t know what they are in any way that is unusual to this place. It’s possible that we come from such different backgrounds that what seems extraodinary to you is unnoticeable to me; it’s also possible you’ve figured out something about LW that I haven’t. Either way I’m curious what it is.
That’s a really good point. Humans are particularly bad at communicating over that kind of inferential distance (see post by that name for jargon or infer from context—kinda means what you are saying). People who have been thinking from within one culture for a long time will often not even understand what their words will mean to someone who has not. This applies to university courses too. Looking back it doesn’t seem like I learned anything that wasn’t bloody obvious… until I look at the people who didn’t have equivalent training.
You, having recently understood the culture in question, are in a perfect place to inform others. And it is best to do it now, before you forget why what you now know wasn’t always obvious. And you will forget, given time.
This reply, with a little tinkering to target it specifically to the desired effect, would make a good post and I can imagine people referring to it frequently. People may still take it as an insult and leave in disgust.… but some may not.
Not helping. I still have no idea whether you actually changed your mind about anything. You say you did, but you didn’t give any specific detail (explicit statements about the beliefs you changed; I don’t expect you should’ve changed your mind so soon, for that matter). The change that’s obvious is that you snapped out of adversarial mode, which is great (and in long term sufficient to start learning), but is generally unrelated to changes in what you believe.
For example, people in crackpot hubs can well agree with each other on all the contradicting and meaningless woo they generate, thus starting to agree with the community is generally not a sure sign of changing your mind.
Thanks for the long reply. My first experience with the site was to make a couple of comments which seemed “rational” to me at the time but were painfully (although not surprisingly) stupid in hindsight. The community told me, in a way that I now recognize as being as polite as possible, that I was being an idiot. At first I resisted, but after I started to dig into the site a little, it became clear to me that they were 100% right, and I deleted those early comments out of tremendous embarrassment. I say all this because it sounds like it might basically be the same experience you had, except that I came around more quickly.
I agree with most of your thoughts about the abundance of confusing local jargon, acceptance of strawmen, etc. It also might as well be explicitly laid out that everyone is expected to read all the sequences before they’ll be taken seriously. Which understandably seems really stupid and unfair the first time one bumps into it, but it might as well be stated.
I guess what confused me about your post was that the karma system and the way it’s used here has always made sense to me, so I’m not sure what about it you weren’t expecting. But then, that’s exactly why it would be great for you to write up the quickstart guide: Most of us can’t see the flaws and hurdles in the system (and therefore, can’t guide others around them) because we’re already used to it.
So good luck with this. I’d put it on the wiki, and when it becomes mature enough see to it that it gets linked to in any future “Welcome to Less Wrong” posts (which seem to be where newcomers making boneheaded comments like I did inevitably get directed).
I’m taken reasonably seriously, I think, but I’m very clear that I don’t know the math and physics, and I don’t post about them.
Ditto. I think the more general rule is that you’re expected to have read the common background on a topic you’re posting about. It’s okay not to know anything about quantum mechanics as long as you don’t go posting about how everyone else has got it all wrong.
I think that’s less due to a community-accepted rule and more because you can’t get called out on not having the background reading if you don’t demonstrate that you lack it.
It’s still a good guideline for newbies to adhere to, though.
Well, I think it’s that you don’t need the background reading if you don’t demonstrate that you lack it. I don’t know much about brain surgery either, but nobody’s going to yell at me for that if I just want to read some articles about it or watch someone else discuss it. The problem that’s caused by newbies not reading the sequences is that they take up space in conversations without making valuable conversations. If they’re not doing that, it doesn’t matter what they merely know.