komponisto comments on Negative and Positive Selection - Less Wrong

71 Post author: alyssavance 06 July 2012 01:34AM

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Comment author: Swimmer963 07 July 2012 11:06:58PM 0 points [-]

When it's your own thing, you need a lot less of it.

This strikes me as untrue for most people. Can you give me examples of people who were not conscientious and were nonetheless able to complete large, multi-step projects?

Comment author: komponisto 08 July 2012 01:02:43AM 0 points [-]

most people

Not really the issue in this discussion, which is about the negative effects of a filtering system that excludes a certain small but highly valuable population.

Can you give me examples of people who were not conscientious and were nonetheless able to complete large, multi-step projects?

As I've suggested earlier, EY is a pretty good example of the type of personality I have in mind.

Comment author: Swimmer963 08 July 2012 01:28:28AM 1 point [-]

most people

Not really the issue in this discussion, which is about the negative effects of a filtering system that excludes a certain small but highly valuable population.

Fair enough. The highly valuable 'outliers' are likely going to be different enough from me that I'll have trouble mapping and comparing my traits onto theirs, which makes that kind of comparison not very useful.

EY is a pretty good example of the type of personality I have in mind.

You may know better than me, but as far as I can tell, EY does have the ability to coax himself into working productively on projects that aren't necessarily a lot of fun all the time. He just won't do it for any goal that that he doesn't consider important. He strikes me more as someone who dislikes authority figures and cares less about the typical social reinforcement that comes of achieving more "conventional" goals, like going to university.

Comment author: komponisto 08 July 2012 01:44:09AM 2 points [-]

He just won't do it for any goal that that he doesn't consider important.

Yes, exactly. This is exactly the kind of story that such folks will tell about themselves.

Whereas, by contrast, the "conscientious" have enough willpower resources to spare for tasks that others consider "important" for them to do, as well.