Vladimir_Nesov comments on The Finale of the Ultimate Meta Mega Crossover - Less Wrong

31 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 20 September 2009 05:21PM

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Comment author: gwern 25 September 2009 01:01:23PM 0 points [-]

I think you err in inferences about EY's degree of consumption based on his ease of recall. Given his extreme intelligence, we would expect him to have extraordinary recall relative to almost everybody with similar habits of consumption. Reading/viewing just moderately more than your average avid reader/viewer and having an extraordinary memory seems more than sufficient to explain this case.

Perhaps. Short of testimony from EY or testing him, I can't know directly whether it's great recall or great consumption.

And I think your criticism is not really valid given that EY is the mad scientist of the organization. It would be more appropriate -- if relevant, which it doesn't seem to be -- leveled at Michael Vassar, the President of SIAI.

I'll fall back on what I've said before: even if EY is not actually spending so much time on consuming media that it's detrimental to his performance, the appearance is still damaging. What are the odds that every potential donor who sees things like this will just go 'oh, that lovable-scamp/mad-scientist EY!'?

I dunno about you, but in the time period I was raised in, the archetype of 'mad scientist' didn't include "loves fanfiction". (Leaving aside entirely how relevant or important Michael Vassar may or may not be in fundraising & public outreach.)

Comment author: anonym 25 September 2009 03:21:26PM 2 points [-]

I think of Feynman as the archetypal mad scientist, and while I don't think he happened to love fanfiction (and actually, don't we mean "writes fanfiction"?), I wouldn't have been surprised to have found out that he did and I wouldn't have thought less of him if he did.

I think the real issue is not that "writes fanfiction" is not part of the archetype but that you have (or think others will have) some kind of moral/emotional reaction to "writes fanfiction" that causes you to think about it in different terms than "writes poetry" or "loves functional programming" or "loves stamp collecting" or "loves civil war re-enactments" or whatever.

I think the underlying question is how inauthentic one should be willing to be in order to "present the best image." You and I both love functional programming, but there are many "Enterprise Architects" that would find passion for functional programming weird and suspect, deeming it pointless love of complexity for the sake of obfuscation. Imagine you were a public figure for a software company that marketed mostly to Enterprise Java shops, and somebody tells you that you should consider avoiding writing publicly about functional programming, working on xmonad, participating in haskell-cafe, because it might give potential customers the wrong impression (however stupid that "wrong" impression might be). If you think that "functional programming" and "stamp collecting" and "writing poetry" are more valid "side passions" than writing scifi or fanfiction, can you give a good explanation for why, or is it just a matter of "what most people would think"?

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 25 September 2009 03:33:03PM *  13 points [-]

Robin Hanson wrote about a relevant phenomenon in Why Signals Are Shallow:

We all want to affiliate with high status people, but since status is about common distant perceptions of quality, we often care more about what distant observers would think about our associates than about how we privately evaluate them.

Thus, people can genuinely dislike their allies having an activity that gives shallow negative impression (feel the dislike, not just deem the activity a mistake), even if they understand this first impression to be incorrect, or that any person giving a minute's thought to the question will come to the same conclusion.

Comment author: gwern 26 September 2009 03:00:29PM 7 points [-]

After re-reading that, and reflecting on my feelings reading the OP, I think my opinion of Hanson's signaling theories has gone up quite a bit.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 26 September 2009 05:21:21PM 4 points [-]

This explains a LOT as applied to the feedback I get.

Money is just a proxy. Status makes the world go round.

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