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Kaj_Sotala comments on Declare your signaling and hidden agendas - Less Wrong
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Asking "what are you signaling?" is like asking "what is your greatest weakness?" during a job interview. It handicaps honest people.
We don't tell people our signaling intentions, even if we're aware of them, because that often would make the signaling less effective.
Rational protocols should not handicap the honest.
ADDED: I think it's a good idea to let people know your agendas. Looking at the examples above, most of them are things that it's fine to put out in public. But when you start in on personal motives such as "seek fame and scholarship", it gets tricky. I'd rather leave decisions on revealing such motives up to the individual, rather than have an inflexible community rule.
Does it necessarily? I think it depends on the context and the environment. Sure, a senator isn't going to tell a reporter all of his signaling intentions, but we're in a rationalist environment, looking for the truth. People also appreciate honesty. One of my hidden agendas for this post was explicitly bringing out my previous hidden agendas, in order to promote them better. I don't know if it was the best strategy possible, but if somebody else had come up with the idea before I did, I think I'd respect them more for it, not less.
We're not rational enough for me to bare my soul here. Also, Google is watching.
ADDED: I'd be more willing to do this if I weren't using my real name.
I wish to become someone who could lay his soul bare anywhere. What can be destroyed by truth, deserves to be. What is there in that soul of mine that I don't yet want to show, that couldn't then be fixed ?
Would that be too idealistic ? After all, if I can't lay bare my soul in here, then it means that there's either a problem with the soul, either a problem with the place, or both.
Both can be solved given time, the purpose of this community is to solve the latter (in part), it is up to me to solve the former. But I can help for the latter, and I'd hope that the community can help with the former.
One either believes in men, or do not.
You want to become someone who doesn't have any agendas that could subject you to distrust, ostracism, etc. anywhere, by anyone?
Connoting that some belief is virtuous (assuming that is what you're doing) considered harmful. Vague applause lights, too. People are as they are, and trying to see them as you think you should see them or you think they should be doesn't win. Believing some not-nice things about people doesn't mean you have to morally devalue them.
After commenting, I realized that this might be seen as morally devaluing for anyone who wouldn't follow that example. I didn't mean it that way.
Please consider the other side of the issue. If someone signals here that he doesn't want to declare his agendas, for all those good reasons, it ruins the purpose of the thread.
If you don't want to declare, then don't. But don't either give additional possible reasons that could turn into rationalizations, for others not to do it. It may be all that is needed as they might be scared enough already not to do it.
The last part, "One either believes in men, or do not.", relates to bystander apathy. If everyone is willing to believe in his fellow man, then it is possible (though not assured, acknowledgedly) to work together. If you don't, then everyone will simply eye the others, and wait for someone else to jump in the fray.
You can show people, by your own example, that it's ok and human to be irrational, and that we can help it in here. You can also more explicitly tell them that it's ok, here, to trust other people to be tolerant, that we can believe in each other.
That's impossible. What I want, is to be brave enough to show my self regardless. And it may help to have more benign and friendly agendas for that purpose.
Can you prove that statement, or is it an article of faith? Imagine a scientist about to make a world-changing discovery (like penicillin) suddenly learning something awful about his past (like Oedipus) and killing himself.
Definitely a problem with the place. The world is the wrong place to bare one's soul.
"I don't believe anything. Gets in the way of learning." If you believe in men, there's definitely some learning coming.
But LW isn't, as far as I know, a job interview.