“Social signalling is anti-inductive in the sense that the signals that work to trick us into being unduly impressed or intimidated by others’ perceived competence cannot be easily summarized with simple rules for what to avoid or look out for.”
Interesting! Good point.
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If you follow someone because you have confidence in your ability to evaluate whether they’re worth following, then maybe you should follow them. If you follow someone to compensate for your lack of confidence, that’s less likely to produce good consequences. I “follow” some people because I’m confident in their abilities, e.g. I think Eliezer is worth trying to learn from. I think he’s also worth deferring to if you choose not to be an explorer and instead someone who wishes to spend their time Doing and less time figuring out stuff.
“I am skeptical that people capable of becoming people with vision are easily deterred by social norms”
I’d like to believe this, but I strongly disagree. I read a comment from Steven Byrnes saying that he (iirc) was was held back by being really uncertain for a long time about whether he had anything usefwl to contribute to the community. I know some other people I think have the power to guide themselves to great things, but who don’t fully trust themselves enough.
Personally, I spent years thinking I was purely “catching up” to what everyone else already knows. Every new idea I had was “ah, so this is what the smart people think already”. It took someone who believed in me to make me feel safe pursuing my own path. It’s really hard to be motivated when you’re constantly questioning yourself, even when you try to pursue independence.
I want to push the confidence pendulum way further than it has ever been. I want people to pursue independence, ambition, and self-sacrifice until the road is littered with failed or delusional projects. This is how you sample for outliers on a fat-tailed distribution and double the number of Bankman-Frieds, Yudkowskys, and Borlaugs.
But I have a bit more nuance in what I mean by “confidence”. I don’t mean unjustified probability estimates. I don’t mean lack of curiosity in other people’s viewpoints. I don’t mean the stereotypical social role, I just mean the stuff that’s usefwl for independently pursuing ambitious things with motivation and less wasted motion.
Interesting! Good point.
- - - - -
If you follow someone because you have confidence in your ability to evaluate whether they’re worth following, then maybe you should follow them. If you follow someone to compensate for your lack of confidence, that’s less likely to produce good consequences. I “follow” some people because I’m confident in their abilities, e.g. I think Eliezer is worth trying to learn from. I think he’s also worth deferring to if you choose not to be an explorer and instead someone who wishes to spend their time Doing and less time figuring out stuff.
I’d like to believe this, but I strongly disagree. I read a comment from Steven Byrnes saying that he (iirc) was was held back by being really uncertain for a long time about whether he had anything usefwl to contribute to the community. I know some other people I think have the power to guide themselves to great things, but who don’t fully trust themselves enough.
Personally, I spent years thinking I was purely “catching up” to what everyone else already knows. Every new idea I had was “ah, so this is what the smart people think already”. It took someone who believed in me to make me feel safe pursuing my own path. It’s really hard to be motivated when you’re constantly questioning yourself, even when you try to pursue independence.
I want to push the confidence pendulum way further than it has ever been. I want people to pursue independence, ambition, and self-sacrifice until the road is littered with failed or delusional projects. This is how you sample for outliers on a fat-tailed distribution and double the number of Bankman-Frieds, Yudkowskys, and Borlaugs.
But I have a bit more nuance in what I mean by “confidence”. I don’t mean unjustified probability estimates. I don’t mean lack of curiosity in other people’s viewpoints. I don’t mean the stereotypical social role, I just mean the stuff that’s usefwl for independently pursuing ambitious things with motivation and less wasted motion.