Will_Newsome comments on The Power of Reinforcement - Less Wrong

96 Post author: lukeprog 21 June 2012 01:42PM

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Comment author: Will_Newsome 21 June 2012 10:17:15PM 8 points [-]

Furthermore at least one person I know (er, myself) picks up on any sort of test-like or game-like or we're-judging-you-so-you-better-not-screw-up-like context and starts acting in extremely confusing/uninformative/atypical/misleading ways so as not to be seen as the kind of person who is easily manipulable (there are probably other motivations involved too). Any incentive structure I'm put under thus has to somehow take this into account, even e.g. the LessWrong karma system. Explicitly manipulative socially mediated praise/M&Ms would strike my brain as outright evil and would stand some chance of being inverted entirely. That said I don't get the impression this sort of defense mechanism is very common.

Comment author: Oligopsony 27 June 2012 08:37:23PM 26 points [-]

Excellent insight. Downvoted.

Comment author: Lethalmud 26 June 2013 02:45:51PM *  4 points [-]

So you are saying that, to change your mode of behavior, all one has to do is create a judging context? That would actually make you very easy to manipulate..

Comment author: TheOtherDave 21 June 2012 10:21:21PM 2 points [-]

Explicitly manipulative socially mediated praise/M&Ms would strike my brain as outright evil and would stand some chance of being inverted entirely. That said I don't get the impression this sort of defense mechanism is very common.

I experience this as common, but I suspect it's because of a small number of exceptionally vocal "manipulation is evil!" types in my life, rather than a larger number of typically vocal ones.