I have hidden agendas, but not just that. I also have hidden compulsions.
Here my main compulsion was like “Hey people look at me, I’m abasing myself, please be in awe at how honest I am; besides you can’t point a flaw I haven’t pointed myself now, so I feel safer from criticism”.
My agenda is however, also to help people feel like they can’t do worse than me, so they should feel alright telling us about their agenda, and compulsions. Another step forward for the community.
In general :
Agendas :
I try to attract attention because I think I have helpful ideas to contribute in this community > I want to contribute, because I want to see it grow and realize its potential, so that I may be able to see, and learn, that mature art of rationality we’ve only yet started to outline > I want to use it, because I think it’ll be useful to realize all my other objectives in real life.
I also want to see the community succeed for if I’m not wrong, that will help important projects such as the one that must not yet be named. I think a mature community of mature rationalists, could indeed achieve much more than what other groups (normal science included) could do. I have selfish reasons to want the unnamed project to succeed, and just as well, the future community will probably turn its attention to issues which will benefit me. In particular fields like antiagathics.
Finally, I am as honest as I think I should. I lie when I think I can get away with it, and I’m very cautious to keep a safety margin there. In a place such as LW, I don’t feel safe lying about anything because I’m sure there are people reliably more intelligent, rational, and experimented than I am. Hence trying to be as honest as possible, and also, trying to point my flaws and hidden agendas to insure my reputation, if I am ever to slip a lie here and there without my noticing it.
Compulsions:
I have always liked to be praised for my intellectual achievements. I’ll always strive to sound honest, fair, brilliant, persevering. I notice the karma / voting system has worsened that trait. I check regularly to see how my posts fare. I feel very disappointed (aka butthurt) when I’m not upvoted, and let’s not even talk about downvotes.
I like to point flaws and mistakes; in others as well as in myself, though pointing them in myself is also a way to signal how honest I am. And this also verges on masochism.
I like to shock and confuse. For instance, I’ll defend one side of an argument, then switch my point of view and defend the other side. I don’t want people to know which “side” I’m on. Like, defending religion against bashing, then trying to bury it. This also signals fairness.
There’s more, but that should be enough already to get the picture.
One question : do we want to include in all our posts henceforth a short explanation of our hidden agenda, case by case ? Some will argue that this would burden them. But I’m for it, just as I was in favor of the idea that downvoting should usually go in hand with an explanation, so that we can understand our nonobvious mistakes.
I don’t think the point-by-point is necessary on all posts, but when your bias affects your position, (or some affiliation might be affecting your point of view) it’s probably worth mentioning.
What I’d really like is the ability to include some personal details on our profile page. Is this available in the Reddit software? How hard would it be to add something like that?
One question : do we want to include in all our posts henceforth a short explanation of our hidden agenda, case by case ? Some will argue that this would burden them.
I’d recommend it, but not make it compulsory by any means. I’ll be trying to include one in all my future posts (probably just a sentence or two), but others are of course free to do as they wish.
Perhaps that explanation could be put in a comment rather than the body of the post, which would have the dual benefits of (1) putting the hidden motivations in a subsidiary position to the actual content of the post (where I think they belong), and (2) confining the discussion of them to a single thread, so the other threads can discuss the post on its own merits.
(First of all, excellent idea)
I have hidden agendas, but not just that. I also have hidden compulsions.
Here my main compulsion was like “Hey people look at me, I’m abasing myself, please be in awe at how honest I am; besides you can’t point a flaw I haven’t pointed myself now, so I feel safer from criticism”.
My agenda is however, also to help people feel like they can’t do worse than me, so they should feel alright telling us about their agenda, and compulsions. Another step forward for the community.
In general :
Agendas :
I try to attract attention because I think I have helpful ideas to contribute in this community > I want to contribute, because I want to see it grow and realize its potential, so that I may be able to see, and learn, that mature art of rationality we’ve only yet started to outline > I want to use it, because I think it’ll be useful to realize all my other objectives in real life.
I also want to see the community succeed for if I’m not wrong, that will help important projects such as the one that must not yet be named. I think a mature community of mature rationalists, could indeed achieve much more than what other groups (normal science included) could do. I have selfish reasons to want the unnamed project to succeed, and just as well, the future community will probably turn its attention to issues which will benefit me. In particular fields like antiagathics.
Finally, I am as honest as I think I should. I lie when I think I can get away with it, and I’m very cautious to keep a safety margin there. In a place such as LW, I don’t feel safe lying about anything because I’m sure there are people reliably more intelligent, rational, and experimented than I am. Hence trying to be as honest as possible, and also, trying to point my flaws and hidden agendas to insure my reputation, if I am ever to slip a lie here and there without my noticing it.
Compulsions:
I have always liked to be praised for my intellectual achievements. I’ll always strive to sound honest, fair, brilliant, persevering. I notice the karma / voting system has worsened that trait. I check regularly to see how my posts fare. I feel very disappointed (aka butthurt) when I’m not upvoted, and let’s not even talk about downvotes.
I like to point flaws and mistakes; in others as well as in myself, though pointing them in myself is also a way to signal how honest I am. And this also verges on masochism.
I like to shock and confuse. For instance, I’ll defend one side of an argument, then switch my point of view and defend the other side. I don’t want people to know which “side” I’m on. Like, defending religion against bashing, then trying to bury it. This also signals fairness.
There’s more, but that should be enough already to get the picture.
One question : do we want to include in all our posts henceforth a short explanation of our hidden agenda, case by case ? Some will argue that this would burden them. But I’m for it, just as I was in favor of the idea that downvoting should usually go in hand with an explanation, so that we can understand our nonobvious mistakes.
I don’t think the point-by-point is necessary on all posts, but when your bias affects your position, (or some affiliation might be affecting your point of view) it’s probably worth mentioning.
What I’d really like is the ability to include some personal details on our profile page. Is this available in the Reddit software? How hard would it be to add something like that?
It’s issue 108 in the bug tracker.
I’d recommend it, but not make it compulsory by any means. I’ll be trying to include one in all my future posts (probably just a sentence or two), but others are of course free to do as they wish.
Perhaps that explanation could be put in a comment rather than the body of the post, which would have the dual benefits of (1) putting the hidden motivations in a subsidiary position to the actual content of the post (where I think they belong), and (2) confining the discussion of them to a single thread, so the other threads can discuss the post on its own merits.