So not indiscriminate silence, but more like avoiding spreading infohazards, contributing to inflammatory and unproductive conversations, sharing cruel gossip, that sort of thing. Scott makes the point that this is a very difficult virtue to practice, because by its nature it’s sort of impossible to get noticed and praised for it.
In this instance, someone demonstrated a virtue (I just saw them go out of their way to help a coworker)
They generally demonstrate a virtue (they never make ad hominem attacks)
Now, technically, these are really the same: even in the latter the signal is composed of individual observations. But they differ in that with the former each instance gives lots of signal (going out of your way is rare) while in the latter each instance gives very little signal (even someone pretty disagreeable is still going to spend most of their time not making ad hominem attacks).
I’m interpreting Caroline as saying that when someone is practicing this virtue well you don’t notice any individual instance of silence, and praise is generally something we do at the instance level. On the other hand, we can still notice that someone, over many opportunities, has consistently refrained from harmful speech.
I agree, though, that it isn’t a very good signal because of the difficulty in reception (less legible).
Self-signaling value ain’t something to sneeze at. Personally, a lot of my desire-for-demandingness is about reinforcing my identity as someone who’s willing to make sacrifices in order to do good. (“reinforcing” meaning both getting good at that skill, and assuring myself that that’s what I’m like :)
I’m referencing this Slate Star Codex post: https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/06/14/the-virtue-of-silence/
So not indiscriminate silence, but more like avoiding spreading infohazards, contributing to inflammatory and unproductive conversations, sharing cruel gossip, that sort of thing. Scott makes the point that this is a very difficult virtue to practice, because by its nature it’s sort of impossible to get noticed and praised for it.
I agree it’s very valuable, but how can it be a good signal and impossible to notice at the same time?
Compare:
In this instance, someone demonstrated a virtue (I just saw them go out of their way to help a coworker)
They generally demonstrate a virtue (they never make ad hominem attacks)
Now, technically, these are really the same: even in the latter the signal is composed of individual observations. But they differ in that with the former each instance gives lots of signal (going out of your way is rare) while in the latter each instance gives very little signal (even someone pretty disagreeable is still going to spend most of their time not making ad hominem attacks).
I’m interpreting Caroline as saying that when someone is practicing this virtue well you don’t notice any individual instance of silence, and praise is generally something we do at the instance level. On the other hand, we can still notice that someone, over many opportunities, has consistently refrained from harmful speech.
I agree, though, that it isn’t a very good signal because of the difficulty in reception (less legible).
Self-signaling value ain’t something to sneeze at. Personally, a lot of my desire-for-demandingness is about reinforcing my identity as someone who’s willing to make sacrifices in order to do good. (“reinforcing” meaning both getting good at that skill, and assuring myself that that’s what I’m like :)