For half the time, with Anna, I was an intern, not a Fellow. During that time I did a lot of intern stuff like driving people around. Part of my job was to befriend people and make the atmosphere more cohesive. Sometimes I planned dinners and trips but I wasn't very good at that. I was very charismatic and increasingly smart, and most importantly I was cheap. I was less cheap as a Fellow in the Berkeley apartments and accomplished less. I wrote and helped people occassionally. There weren't clear expectations for Fellows. Also people like Eliezer, who had power, never asked for any signs of accomplishment. Eliezer is also very bad at reading. Nonetheless I think I should have accomplished more somehow, e.g. gotten experience writing papers from scratch.
I believe I almost always turned down credit for contributions to papers, but I didn't make too many substantive contributions; I did a fair bit of editing, which I'm good at.
You could get a decent idea by looking at what the average Visiting Fellow did, then remember that I often couldn't remember things I did -- cognitive quirk -- and that I tried to avoid credit when possible at least half the time.
often couldn't remember things I did
That's interesting. I also have something like that. It extends to not being able to remember names, and not being able to easily come up with specific examples. Is it like that for you?
Thank you for your cooperation and understanding. Don't worry, there won't be future posts like this, so you don't have to delete my LessWrong account, and anyway I could make another, and another.
But since you've dared to read this far:
Credibility. Should you maximize it, or minimize it? Have I made an error?
Discuss.
Don't be shallow, don't just consider the obvious points. Consider that I've thought about this for many, many hours, and that you don't have any privileged information. Whence our disagreement, if one exists?