MichaelVassar comments on That other kind of status - Less Wrong

71 Post author: Yvain 29 December 2009 02:45AM

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Comment author: happyseaurchin 29 December 2009 03:11:20PM 0 points [-]

Nice post, thanks.

"In this model, people aren't just seeking status, they're (also? instead?) seeking a state of affairs that allows them to believe they have status."

Replace also or instead with rather. That is, the default state of mind is that individuals believe they have status. This might be through the regular strategy of seeking social wealth (icons, respect, position, possessions), as well as through invisibles (A Big Idea, the truth, The Secret). The status is always self-assigned; think of those who do do not accept the status conferred upon them. Which leads to...
I am specifically interested in individuals who are not playing the status game, who consider themselves end-nodes, nobody's, or self-less. Consider Mother Teresa as an example perhaps. How does your model deal with this? (This line of thinking might parallel altruistic behaviour, which might be a useful space to connect up.)
More needs to be said about relative scale, that is cultures and subcultures, families and tribes. There are multiple superimposed groupings going on in any specific individual's life (daughter, sister, wife, mother, colleague, friend, consumer, etc), and I look forward to reading this.

Comment author: MichaelVassar 29 December 2009 06:20:24PM 10 points [-]

Mother Teresa had lots of status as a consequence of successful and effective self-promotion, which is precisely why she came to mind as an example of a non-status seeking person rather than failing to come to mind becaus you had never heard of her.

Comment author: happyseaurchin 29 December 2009 09:09:27PM 0 points [-]

Does this mean that every well-known person that impinges upon my/your reality must have been exercising self-promotion? Given the second-order subtlety of Yvain's original post, namely "seeking a state of affairs that allows them to believe they have status", the emphasis seems to be on creating conditions that enable a status-engagement with others. That is, it is not self-orientated but condition-enabling. (But I may be departing from Yvain's distinctions and model here. I might then also flag the word "seeking".)

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky comment score below threshold [+] (10 children)

Comment author: orthonormal 30 December 2009 02:24:43AM * 5 points [-]

but when your recent comments all get downvoted, it means you need to stop posting here.

Upon looking through happyseaurchin's posts, I agree with the particular case, but not with the heuristic. The line between "potentially good to have around" and "crank or troll" isn't quite that simple to draw in general.

Comment author: happyseaurchin 29 December 2009 10:20:30PM * 13 points [-]

I am sorry to hear that. I am not enough of an academic to adopt the nomenclature accurately enough. I do apologise.

Since you are to delete this post, may I suggest

Automate the process so that if a comment receives eg -2 points, it is deleted. This may avoid the uncomfortable feelings I had upon reading your comment, as well as the feelings you must have had in writing it.
You make posting etiquette a little clearer in the ABOUT section.

Although I am disheartened that my enthusiasm got the better of me in that I contributed before knowing the lay of the land, I will still look forward to reading posts. Perhaps one day I shall be able to contribute something useful. Be well.

Comment author: LauraABJ 29 December 2009 11:18:26PM 5 points [-]

I was interested to see what you had posted that got you expelled from the blog. I think your problem is two-fold: 1) Your comments are very unclearly phrased, such that it takes the reader a long time to figure out what you are trying to say, and 2) You have commented a lot in a very short period of time.

Try putting more time into a small number of well thought-out, well-phrased comments.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 29 December 2009 11:53:39PM 2 points [-]

Seemed to me like confused thinking, not confused writing, or I would've acted otherwise. You can tell people to write better. Thinking better is a matter of years if it gets done at all.

Comment author: LauraABJ 30 December 2009 12:03:34AM 1 point [-]

I had hoped that by asking him to write clearly, he would need to have a point to make clear. You are probably right that this is not the case.

Comment author: happyseaurchin 30 December 2009 10:30:12PM 2 points [-]

Thank you, LauraABJ. My language is not precise enough to match the level of eg Eliezer. My experience has mostly been with children. My experience justifies a rather extreme position: objectification of conscious experience, especially in the form of writing, is inherently misleading if our objective is to comprehend the human condition. That is, although I respect linguistic control, there are strict limits that prevent words from carrying the levels of comprehension we are seeking. Hence, the adoption of maths. I was so enthused by the articles here, I got carried away...

Thank you, Eliezer; in the balance between writing and thinking, my writing is worse. I do apologise, but in the same way I have been premature with my commentary to the LW site, you may have been premature with your judgement of my thinking. I have thought and rethought my words here, and the best I can come up with is this. This community, and especially you, have had the time to explore your ideas and develop a system of thinking. This is clearly very powerful, and it attracts bright minds (even as non-verbal as my own). I have also developed a system of thinking, and it mostly relies on dynamics that are not based entirely on the mechanics of words -- hence my disadvantage here. There is an overlap, thankfully: mathematics. With further reading into the application of bayes' theorem on this site, I hope to contribute something useful, in a manner acceptable, such that our goals are brought closer.

Comment author: anonym 29 December 2009 11:31:43PM 2 points [-]

Regarding 1, automating could be done so that anybody whose net karma is below a certain negative threshold (e.g., -5/-10/-20) gets their account suspended for 1 month, and next time they visit the site, there is a notification that the account was suspended and a link to a page that spells out community netiquette and norms that are expected to be adhered to. After the account is unsuspended, the individual may post again, and if they drop another 5/10/20 points in karma, the account is permanently disabled and/or deleted.

This seems more likely to result in people taking the feedback constructively and staying around as readers who may one day be able to contribute positively, as well as avoiding much of the drama that sometimes results in these kinds of situations, though I'm glad that happyseaurchin took the advice constructively in this case.

Regarding 2, we definitely do need a prominent section in the About page (and probably as part of the sign-up process) that spells out posting standards and norms that happyseaurchin violated.

P.S. I'm one of those who voted you down repeatedly in the hope that you would think about why you were being consistently downvoted and adjust your behavior accordingly, but I hope you stay around as a reader, starting with the really old material and the wiki (also, work on your grammar/writing skills). At some point, you may sign up again and participate productively.

Comment author: happyseaurchin 30 December 2009 08:56:56PM 1 point [-]

Thank you, anonym. I did try to modify my posts and style, the last attempts being a little too bold. I have written a reasonable amount, and my comprehension of the human condition departs quite considerably from accepted norms. I liked the name of the site, and appreciated the attempts made in posts to bring more accuracy to the subject matter. I am happy with my ability to communicate, at least in person, and hope one day I may, as you say, participate productively. Thank you for your consideration of my parting suggestion. Be well!

Comment author: MrHen 30 December 2009 04:33:51PM 1 point [-]

I would normally disagree with stuff like this, but since our downvotes are capped relative to our upvotes, I consider them valuable.

That being said, I still downvoted you because the polite way would have been to send a private message.

Comment author: Bindbreaker 31 December 2009 09:02:53AM * 3 points [-]

Being polite is only essential when it can be done without causing problems. Administrative decisions are better kept in public so as to avoid confusion and aid in transparency.

MichaelVassar comments on That other kind of status - Less Wrong

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