No problem:) Hope it helps & all the best!
ambigram
Karma: 375
I find Feldenkrais generally useful for releasing tension. There are exercises which are targeted at jaw/facial tension like this (tried this once, worked for me), but I find that exercises which release tension in my hips tend to also release tension in my jaws, so looking at exercises for hips may work as well. I’ve enjoyed working through the exercises in this channel.
Hmm didn’t really find anything similar, but here are some examples of rating systems I found that looked interesting (though not necessarily relevant):
2-factor rating systems
SaidIt: (1) Insightful & (2) Fun
SaidIt is a Reddit alternative which seeks to “create an environment that encourages thought-provoking discussion”. SaidIt has two types of upvotes to choose from: 1) insightful, and 2) fun.[1]
Goodfilms: (1) quality & (2) rewatchability
Goodfilms is a movie site for users to rate, review, share films and find movies to watch. Users rate movies on two dimensions: quality and rewatchability. The ratings are displayed as a scatterplot, giving users a better sense of the type of movie (e.g. most people agree it is highly rewatchable, but there is disagreement on its quality ⇒ may not be very good, but is fun to watch).[2]
Scatterplot for Starship Troppers ratings Suggestion by Majestic121: (1) Agree/Disagree & (2) Productive/Unproductive
A Hacker News comment by Majestic121 suggests a 2-factor voting system:
Up/Down : Agree/Disagree Left/Right : Makes the discussion go backward/forward
This way you could express disagreement while acknowledging that the point is interesting, or like a joke without having it drown a conversation
Suggestion by captainmuon: (1) Promote/Bury & (2) Reward
Hacker News comment by captainmuon: Promote/Bury and Reward buttons
Up/downvotes always have multiple conflicting dimensions.
The post is factually right / wrong
Confirms to the site rules / breaks the rules
I agree / disagree
I want to promote / bury this post
Reward poster with XP / punish
I am usually very pragmatic and upvote a post when I want other people to read it (because I want to see the discussion, or because I want to spread the idea). I also upvote to reward the poster.
I don’t tend to downvote factually wrong posts when they are still interesting, because that limits the chance they get good discussion, and because I don’t want to punish somebody for Being Wrong On The Internet. I do downvote positions that I find bad in order to reduce their reach.
It would be probably possible to have a site that implements two dimensions as a cross (maybe only for users with a certain XP) although the UX might not be to great. Maybe it is a good idea to have “promote/bury” and “reward” buttons?
Others
Pol.is: displays a cluster graph of participants based on their voting patterns on statements
Pol.is is a platform where participants submit statements for others to vote on (agree/disagree/pass), and participants are then clustered based on their votes. People can see this map of voters and are incentivized to craft statements that also appeal to members of other groups to gain more support, thus converging on a consensus.[3]
Description of graph extracted from Pol.is report:
In this graph, statements are positioned more closely to statements which were voted on similarly. Participants, in turn, are positioned more closely to statements on which they agreed, and further from statements on which they disagreed. This means participants who voted similarly are closer together.
Example of cluster graph from Taiwan’s Uber case study Example case study: vTaiwan Uber
People in Taiwan were invited to discuss the regulation of Uber. At the beginning, there were two groups: pro-Uber and anti-Uber. As people tried to submit statements that would gain more supporters, they converged on a set of seven comments that majority agreed on, such as “It should be permissible for a for-hire driver to join multiple fleets and platforms.” These suggestions shaped the regulations that were eventually adopted by the government. [3]
Other Pol.is case studies and reports: https://compdemocracy.org/Case-studies
Tweakers: users can assign scores from −1 to +3, with detailed guidelines on how to vote
Tweakers is a Dutch technology website. Users can assign a score of +3 (insightful), +2 (informative), +1 (on-topic), 0 (off-topic/irrelevant), −1 (unwanted) to comments. The median score is displayed, but users can click to view the breakdown of votes.[4] 0 scores with 0 votes are displayed in a different color from 0 votes with >= 1 votes.
There are detailed guidelines on what each score means, as well as how to handle common scenarios, such as:
Comments about spelling, typos etc.: −1, because they should be reported in the Dear Editorial Forum instead
Inaccurate comments: no less than 0 if it is well-intentioned, −1 is for socially inappropriate behavior
Opinions you disagree with: comments should not receive lower ratings simply because they conflict with your opinion. To express dissatisfaction, reply the comment with your refutation.
Strategic voting e.g. upvoting a comment because you think its score is too low, rather than because you think it deserves the high score: do not do this
The guidelines also vary based on the context, with the guidelines explaining how moderation practices should differ for downloads, product reviews, and other pages.
(Disclaimer: site was in Dutch so I used Google Translate)
Slashdot: voting by assigning different types of labels (e.g. insightful, redundant)
Moderators can assign different labels to comments, which will add or deduct a point from the comment’s score. There are descriptions of what each label means in the FAQ. The labels are as follows:
Normal (default setting)
Offtopic
Flamebait
Troll
Redundant
Insightful
Interesting
Informative
Funny
Overrated
Underrated
Placebo button :p
Hacker News comment by kevin_thibedeau:
They should have dummy agree/disagree buttons that disappear once selected and has no function other than to satisfy the malcontents that the machine has recorded their opinion.
In a two-factor voting system, what happens if I’m not sure if I agree or disagree, e.g. because I am still thinking about it?
If agree means “I endorse the claims or reasoning and think that more people should believe them to be true”, I would probably default to no (I would endorse only if I’m pretty sure about something, and not endorsing doesn’t mean I think it’s wrong), so it’s more like +1/0 voting. But if agree means “I think this is true”, disagree would then mean saying “I think this is false”, i.e. more like +1/-1 voting, so I would probably abstain?
Claim 2: Agree/disagree buttons are confusing or even harmful for comments that are making multiple claims. This is significant enough that there should not be an agree/disagree button for comments where agree/disagree buttons are not suitable.
Agree: The negative consequences are significant enough that there should not be agree/disagree buttons for certain types of comments. For example, authors may be able to decide if they will allow agree/disagree votes on their comment.
Disagree: It is acceptable to have agree/disagree votes even for posts/comments where this does not make sense, e.g. because people will adjust accordingly. We can add in a feature to disable agree/disagree votes for certain comments, but it is also okay if we don’t.
Claim 1C: See claim 1A.
Agree: I may or may not think that I/other users have this experience, but I think the effects are negative and significant enough, or have the potential to be significant enough that we should see if there are ways to address this when designing a new voting system.
Disagree: I may or may not think that I/other users have this experience, but I think that the effects are not negative or are negligible enough that we do not need to factor this into the design of a new voting system.
Claim 1B: See claim 1A.
Agree: This may or may not match my experience, but I believe that for majority (>50%) of users on LW, they are less likely to write replies expressing agreement/disagreement because they can now vote agree/disagree.
Disagree: This may or may not match my experience, but I believe that majority (>50%) of users on LW, would still write a reply even if they can just vote agree/disagree.
Claim 1A: Agree/disagree buttons disincentivizes productive conversations because clicking the disagree button satisfies the need for expressing disagreement (or agreement) with lower cost (less effort & no reputational cost since votes are anonymous) than writing out a reply. This is a significant enough concern that we should consider its effects when deciding whether or not to go with the new voting system.
Agree: This matches my experience: I am less likely to write replies expressing agreement/disagreement because I am now able to vote agree/disagree.
Disagree: This does not match my experience: If I was already going to write a reply, I would still write one even if I can just vote agree/disagree.
This comment is an experiment. I’m trying out a variant of the proposed idea of voting by headings/block quotes: this comment contains my comment, and the replies below contain claims extracted from my comment for agree/disagree voting.
Agree/disagree buttons incentivizes knee-jerk, low-effort reactions rather than deliberate, high-effort responses
Something I like about LW’s system of upvotes meaning “things you want to see more of” and having no agree/disagree button is that there’s no simple way of expressing agreement or disagreement. This means that when there’s something I disagree with, I’m more incentivized to write a comment to express it. That forces me to think more deeply because I need to be able to state clearly what it is I’m agreeing or disagreeing with, especially since it can be quite nuanced. It also feels fairer because if someone went to the effort of writing a comment, then surely it’s only fair that I do likewise when disagreeing. (Unless of course it was a low effort comment, in which case I could always just downvote.)
I suspect that if there’s an agree/disagree button, the emotional part of me would be satisfied with clicking the disagree button, whereas currently, it pushes me to express my disagreement as a (thought-through, reasoned) reply. I aspire to be someone who responds thoughtfully, but that is not an instinctive behavior. With the disagree button available, I would be fighting instinct rather than working with it. It encourages emotional, knee-jerk reactions rather than deliberate responses.
(It’s nice to be able to get a rough gauge of the community’s opinion of a statement though. It’s not of much practical use in terms of evaluating the truth of a statement, because I prefer to weight different people’s opinions differently based on the topic, but it does give a general sense of the community’s opinion.)
Agree/disagree buttons are confusing or even harmful for comments that are making multiple claims
There are Telegram channels by news agencies where they post messages for articles. Each message contains a headline and a link to the article, and people would then react to the chat message using emojis. It’s quite amusing when there are headlines like “Person X convicted of Y and sentenced to Z” and you see many thumbs up and thumbs down. It makes me wonder, are you showing approval/disapproval for the crime, the conviction, or the punishment? It also seems to contribute to typical mind fallacy/confirmation bias problems.
Similarly, having agree/disagree buttons on comments that have multiple claims doesn’t really make sense, because we can’t tell which part is being agreed/disagreed with and people might end up interpreting the votes according to their own beliefs.
Suggested alternative: agree/disagree buttons for claims created specifically for voting
Others have suggested allowing voting per heading or by block quote but I think that the way I phrase my comments is different from how I would craft a claim. Also, some statements aren’t meant for people to evaluate (e.g. sharing of personal stories, giving encouragement, sharing related posts).
Thus, one possibility I can think of is to let users create claims specifically for agree/disagree voting. Other users (besides the author) can also add in separate claims extracted from the comment. Hopefully, when claims are designed to be agreed/disagreed with, it makes the agree/disagree votes easier to interpret. (Ideally, there should probably be a third option that says “this is not a statement that can be meaningfully agreed/disagreed with” or “this is not a well-crafted statement”.)
Thoughts after trying it out
This is really, really hard. I’m not sure if my claims as well-formulated, and I’m not sure which claims are meaningful to extract from my comment. When there are many ways to disagree with a statement, I can’t tell which ways are more meaningful (i.e. where to draw the line for agree/disagreeing or which ones are worth creating separate claims for). It’s also very high effort to write compared with a typical comment.
I notice that a part of me seems to prefer uncontroversial claims to get that validation, while another part of me wants more controversial claims so that it’ll be more fun (i.e. won’t know what answer to expect).
Would it make sense to have a separate section where we can view all the claim comments for a post? (probably needs to support some form of sorting by relevance) Would that be a way to help the community reason something out collectively?
I wonder if it has a tendency to focus attention on a narrower set of ideas, simply because those are the options offered.
MSRayne is saying “no, not in my experience,” but afaict MSRayne has also self-identified as being in the set of [people whose personal boundaries already lie outside of the social boundary, such that even things which do not violate the social boundary are already violating their personal boundary].
Yes I’d read about this in the other comment but I think it didn’t really register until I saw MSRayne’s reply above.
The reply was enough for something to click in my head, possibly because it was a more concrete explanation, but your explanation made the misunderstanding more explicit to me, so thanks!
Oh I think I see what you mean. If there’s always a cost to saying no, then all boundary violations are basically threats and hence aggressive.
And I think you always lose something if you say no to someone—always. It is always coercive. It just may not be visible on the surface—but they will resent you a little bit for it, and the more you do it the more resentment will build up.
I recognize this, or at least something like it—it’s like when people ask for your opinions. People say that there is no wrong answer and that you should say what you really think, but I always felt that that wasn’t true. There are wrong answers, and you will know that they are wrong because people will respond negatively to them (e.g. they like you less afterwards because your opinion differed from theirs). People don’t really want to hear what you have to say; they just want validation.
To avoid saying the wrong thing, I ended up trying to figure out what people were hoping to hear (e.g. based on how they phrase their questions), so that I could tell them what they wanted me to say. I didn’t even notice that habit until one day when someone asked me a question and I couldn’t tell what they wanted—they were completely blank to me. I ended up giving an answer truer to myself, and was expecting a negative response. Yet they didn’t show disapproval, and more surprisingly, neither did they show approval. They really just did want my answer!
The experience showed me that something I thought was a trait of all humans was actually more like an attribute that varies based on the individual. Some people just want validation, but others genuinely want to hear what you have to say. That changes the game, because it means it’s not actually my job to say what people want to hear, it’s just how some people prefer to be dealt with. I can always keep my true thoughts aside for people who want to hear them.
Some time after, I shared my opinion with someone who responded dismissively. Yet days later, they asked me a question that showed that they were thinking about what I’d said. I learned that just because someone responds negatively, it doesn’t necessarily mean they are upset with me and want me to be different; sometimes it’s just a natural response to hearing something you don’t like or even just something new. What’s interesting is that had I continued saying what I thought others would want to hear, I wouldn’t have realised that people are ok with listening to what I have to say.
There are things I tend to avoid because they weren’t good experiences in the past and when I think of doing them now, it just feels like a bad idea. Sometimes when I’m with the right people or in the right context though, my mind realizes that there is a very low likelihood of something terrible happening, it’s just my heart that’s convinced that something awful will happen. But when my heart wants something badly enough, the risk becomes worth it and so I try it even though it feels scary. So far, it’s paid off every time. Sure, sometimes it doesn’t go the way I hope for, but then again nothing terrible happened either.
I think the difference is that where I used to pay attention to just my negative experiences, I now also pay attention to when there isn’t a negative response, both for my myself and when watching others interact. I notice that the ratio is different from what I’d always thought it was (1:0), because the people I’m with are different, because people change, and because I pay attention to a broader slice of reality. That’s why to feels safer to try (with the right people). (There’s also that I’m more capable now, and can therefore cope better with anything that might happen.)
I think it’s quite interesting how sometimes you can’t tell if your beliefs are wrong unless you are willing to do things that past experiences say you shouldn’t, and create opportunities to prove your beliefs false. It’s like confirmation bias, except I’d never thought to apply it to personal/emotional experiences.
I don’t know, can’t know what your experiences are like—I couldn’t even understand Caperu_Wesperizzon’s and your comments. I want to say though, that I think people who are nice and good with boundaries do exist, and I hope that you get to meet them someday.
If you fail to respond adequately you decrease the respect of your comrades (because you can’t take it like a man or whatever) and thus by proxy decrease intimacy.
Hmm if you lose respect for responding wrongly then it doesn’t really seem like a benign boundary violation anymore? The way I see it, a boundary violation can be considered benign only if you are capable of saying no, and the other person is genuinely capable of accepting and respecting a no. Otherwise, it’s more like coercion. (And the violation shouldn’t have very negative consequences for the person, based on what can be anticipated. )
If your friend takes your things without asking and you tell them to stop doing it because you don’t like it, and they apologise and stop doing it, then that was a benign boundary violation. If they stop but then go around telling others that you are selfish, or they stop and then complain about how they always have to give in to your demands, or they ignore you and tell you that best friends share everything, then that’s not benign at all. You can’t really tell from the boundary violating action though, only from their response when you say no.
People who are more powerful (e.g. physically stronger, higher social status) are more capable of saying no because the consequences of saying no are less severe for them. In that sense, things that seem like benign boundary violations are more likely to be benign for them, so they tend to see it as benign (and may not realise that this is not the case for others). I don’t think it’s benign just for the masculine though, because it works the other way around as well. If the person who is violating the boundaries is responsible about it (e.g. sensitive to potential power imbalances), it can also work. Also, boundary violations don’t have to be aggressive (?). Here are some examples that are milder/more feminine that I think also count as benign boundary violations (if done properly):
affectionate nicknames (For a female version of the faggot example, I had a schoolmate who called people “bitch” only if she considered them a friend, e.g. greeting them with “Hey bitch!”)
playing with/braiding someone’s hair without asking
adjusting someone’s collar when you see the tag sticking out
giving someone very sour candy without telling them that beforehand
untying someone’s shoelaces (making sure they notice it before standing up so they don’t accidentally trip)
asking “Can I borrow your pen pretty pretty please? Just 5 seconds! Thanks!” and taking it before you hear them say yes
asking sensitive questions like salary or asking a woman for her age
playful emotional manipulation like making puppy eyes at someone to persuade them to share their snack with you (only works if the other person is capable of saying no if they genuinely don’t want to do it, and you are capable of truly accepting the rejection, and both parties understand that it’s play)
We have dangerous knowledge like nuclear weapons or bioweapons, yet we are still surviving. It seems like people with the right knowledge and resources are disinclined to be destructive. Or maybe there are mechanisms that ensure such people don’t succeed. What makes AI different? Won’t the people with the knowledge and resources to build GAI also be more cautious when doing the work, because they are more aware of the dangers of powerful technology?
In AI software, we have to define an output type, e.g. a chatbot can generate text but not videos. Doesn’t this limit the danger of AIs? For example, if we build a classifier that estimates the probability of a given X-ray being abnormal, we know it can only provide numbers for doctors to take into consideration; it still doesn’t have the authority to decide the patient’s treatment. This means we can continue working on such software safely?
it was explained to me why my concerns were wrong
Not sure if what I have in mind is the same, but I can think of scenarios where an explanation of how I’m wrong makes it feel like my concerns are being dismissed instead of being addressed. I’m guessing it’s because a child’s reasoning can seem illogical to an adult even though they actually make sense from the child’s perspective, and it’s upsetting when adults fail to acknowledge this.
Notice that jefftk is responding to the child from the child’s perspective. The child thinks that there’s not enough pasta, presumably because of what they can see from the serving bowl. jefftk shows the child the extra pasta in the kitchen (so the child can see that there’s actually more pasta), thus addressing the child’s concerns.
In contrast, one may answer from the adult’s perspective instead. For example, they may say that there’s enough because one serving of pasta is x grams and they made 10 servings when we have only 8 people. Or maybe they say that it’s made by grandma who has lots of experience in estimating how much everyone needs. These make sense from the adult’s perspective, but if the child doesn’t really understand or trust the reasoning (e.g. because they don’t have the concepts yet), then such explanations would feel more like dismissals of the child’s concerns.
Not really a response, just something I thought of while reading this comment:
The obvious solution to people having different and unclear boundaries is to make those boundaries clearer, such as by asking for explicit consent, or by having a No-Prank List mentioned in johnswentworth’s comment. Stating boundaries too clearly may lead to misuse though, but I suppose it does also make bad actors more obvious, because they can no longer hide behind the excuse of ignorance.
Nonetheless, even if we do somehow manage to convey most of our boundaries (e.g. via AR glasses), it would be highly unlikely that we’d be able to communicate all our boundaries all the time. Boundaries are sensitive to context and may change from moment to moment. We may not even realise where our boundaries lie until someone violates it. It would be impractical to find ways to make our boundaries clear enough that accidental boundary violations no longer happen. Worse still, if we managed to clearly communicate the simpler boundaries (where the consequence of violating boundaries are often lesser) but not the more complex boundaries (where consequences tend to be more severe), how would we get to practice negotiating ambiguous boundaries? There won’t be any simple cases to safely experiment and learn from!
Thus, the more practical solution would be to improve people’s abilities to negotiate ambiguous boundaries, such as the skills mentioned in Linda Linsefors’ comment, or learning how to say no. Or say, learning to pay attention to your personal boundaries instead of just social boundaries. (e.g. if someone touches me in a way that makes me feel uncomfortable, I move away instead of staying still just because there’s no social rule saying that it’s wrong) Another useful skill would be finding ways to limit the consequences of having your boundaries violated (or finding ways to meet your needs without violating other people’s boundaries). For example, informing your hosts beforehand that you are allergic to peanuts, or bringing earplugs to noisy places if you’re sensitive to sounds.
I’d thought that how the No-Prank List and “welcomes hugs” stickers worked was by making boundaries clearer so people know what they’re allowed to do and what they cannot do, but now it seems like their value lies more in how they limit the downsides of being wrong. Because you now know who doesn’t want to be pranked, or who doesn’t want unsolicited feedback, you can safely take action without fearing unacceptably negative consequences. Maybe someone likes being pranked in some ways but not others, and I use a prank they don’t really enjoy. However, since they did not add their names to the list, it suggests that they think they will be okay with most pranks (even if they may not like it). The list doesn’t ensure I never violate other people’s boundaries; it makes it safer for me to explore.
I find the terminology confusing because asking for more “benign boundary violations” sounds like wanting strangers to do things that breach social boundaries that are not personal boundaries, yet the examples refer to friends and partners, not strangers. It doesn’t make sense to say these are examples of “benign boundary violations” for close relationships though. Boundaries for friends are different for boundaries for strangers, so such behavior wouldn’t be considered boundary violations.
I think of it differently: within any relationship, there is a space that you are generally allowed to explore without first asking for explicit consent. (“Allowed to explore” meaning that mistakes are tolerated.) You still need to negotiate your boundaries within this space, but it’s done via informed guesses, non-verbal cues or slow escalation, rather than directly asking someone for their answer.
When someone tries an interaction (e.g. ruffling your hair), there are two levels to look at:
Is it ok that they explored that interaction space, e.g. are you ok with them trying friendly physical touch?
Are you ok with the action e.g. are you ok with having your hair ruffled?
Being too explicit when asking for someone’s consent implies that you don’t consider the action to lie within the permitted exploration space for the relationship, and therefore that you think that your relationship is more distant (like how you would preface a personal question with “Can I ask you a personal question?” for a stranger but not a friend). Daring to try something that violates social norms (e.g. ruffling someone’s hair) implies that you think you are in a close enough relationship to justify the attempt, even if turns out that the other person doesn’t like it. If it is indeed a close enough relationship, the other person can always accept the attempt while rejecting the specific action.
I think a typical way of handling individuals who have needs that are violated by social norms would carving out spaces for people with different needs, like having quiet carriages on trains, or providing vegetarian options on a menu. We can also be more accepting towards people who try to carve out their own spaces. For example, if someone needs alone time to recharge and thus chooses to sit separately from the group, the group accepts this rather than complaining about anti-social behavior.
A similar example: when you don’t understand what someone is saying, it can be helpful to say “I don’t understand. Do you mean X or Y?” instead of just saying “I don’t understand”. This way, even if X and Y are completely wrong, they now have a better sense of where you are and can thus adjust their explanations accordingly.
Just some thoughts I had while reading:
rule out everything you didn’t mean
This reminds me of something I’ve heard—that a data visualization is badly designed if different people end up with different interpretations of what the data visualization is saying. Similarly, we want to minimise the possible misinterpretations of what we write or say.
Each time I add another layer of detail to the description, I am narrowing the range of things-I-might-possibly-mean, taking huge swaths of options off the table.
Nice point, I’ve never really thought about it this way, yet it sounds so obvious in hindsight!
Choosing to include specific details (e.g. I like to eat red apples) constrains the possible interpretations along the key dimensions (e.g. color/type), but leaves room for different interpretations along presumably less important dimensions (e.g. size, variety).
I have a tendency to be very wordy partly because I try to be precise about what I say (i.e. try to make the space enclosed by the moat as small as possible). Others are much more efficient at communicating. I’m thinking it’s because they are much better at identifying which features are more relevant, and are happy to leave things vague if they’re less critical.
For perfectionism, I think never being satisfied with where you’re at now doesn’t mean you can’t take pride in how far you’ve come?
“Don’t feel complacent” feels different from “striving for perfection” to me. The former feels more like making sure your standards don’t drop too much (maintaining a good lower bound), whereas the latter feels more like pushing the upper limit. When I think about complacency, I think about being careful and making sure that I am not e.g. taking the easy way out because of laziness. When I think about perfectionism (in the 12 virtues sense), I think about imagining ways things can be better and finding ways to get closer to that ideal.
I don’t really understand the ‘argument’ virtue so no comment for that.