Luisa, I’m so glad you wrote this. I somehow found tears coming to my eyes when you turned towards better epistemics as the solution. Maybe some part of me was expecting you to surround yourself with a lot of positive and true thoughts and people (which would also be good but… not as powerful and awesome?).
Extra joy as I check the byline before leaving this comment and see that this was written by you, a friend from the GiveWell chapter of our journeys!
One section of your article that I was really hoping to see and didn’t: The good things that Imposter Syndrome might be trying to protect.
This section is not yet written in my head but I’m sure I could help you write it if you’re interested. Something feels important to me about this piece of the puzzle for reasons I have not yet articulated.
Thank you for all your service toward the greater good over the years.
I love the idea of adding a section on good things that imposter syndrome’s trying to protect :) I’d love your help writing it if you’re up for it! I’ll DM you :)
Here’s some thoughts from DM with Luisa. She said she agreed with these and suggested I just post these now in comments. So here goes!
It might be dangerous to talk too much about ‘the good things imposter syndrome may be trying to protect’ unless/until we have sufficiently crushed imposter syndrome (ie convinced the readers that it doesn’t serve where it doesn’t serve). So I think the fact that the intuition to add this section came up for me is a sign that I feel like your article crushed it!
In my mind, the purpose of this section would not be to be a counter-argument, or a reason to have imposter syndrome. It would be to help people keep their eyes open as they take any interventions against imposter syndrome so that they don’t accidentally throw some babies out with the bath water.
Some good things that seem to sometimes cause imposter syndrome:
Luisa, I’m so glad you wrote this. I somehow found tears coming to my eyes when you turned towards better epistemics as the solution. Maybe some part of me was expecting you to surround yourself with a lot of positive and true thoughts and people (which would also be good but… not as powerful and awesome?).
Extra joy as I check the byline before leaving this comment and see that this was written by you, a friend from the GiveWell chapter of our journeys!
One section of your article that I was really hoping to see and didn’t: The good things that Imposter Syndrome might be trying to protect.
This section is not yet written in my head but I’m sure I could help you write it if you’re interested. Something feels important to me about this piece of the puzzle for reasons I have not yet articulated.
Thank you for all your service toward the greater good over the years.
This meant so much <3
I love the idea of adding a section on good things that imposter syndrome’s trying to protect :) I’d love your help writing it if you’re up for it! I’ll DM you :)
Here’s some thoughts from DM with Luisa. She said she agreed with these and suggested I just post these now in comments. So here goes!
It might be dangerous to talk too much about ‘the good things imposter syndrome may be trying to protect’ unless/until we have sufficiently crushed imposter syndrome (ie convinced the readers that it doesn’t serve where it doesn’t serve). So I think the fact that the intuition to add this section came up for me is a sign that I feel like your article crushed it!
In my mind, the purpose of this section would not be to be a counter-argument, or a reason to have imposter syndrome. It would be to help people keep their eyes open as they take any interventions against imposter syndrome so that they don’t accidentally throw some babies out with the bath water.
Some good things that seem to sometimes cause imposter syndrome:
Protecting honesty in self and community
Defense against overconfidence/delusion
Overcoming the unilateralist curse
General caution (e.g. the precautionary principle)
Incentivizing people to gain better contact with reality, like you did!
OK, I’ll stop there, though I’m guessing we can come up with more? Obviously a lot of these are overlapping.