= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
army1987 comments on Checklist of Rationality Habits - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (186)
I like your comment, but one problem is that telling people you don't know stuff projects low status. I think most people, including me, really know very little, but if you're honest about this all the time then this can contribute to persistent low status. (I tried the "don't care about status" thing for a while, but being near the bottom of the social totem pole just doesn't seem to work for me psychologically. So lately I've decided to optimize for status everywhere at least somewhat.)
That only happens if it's credible, otherwise it's taken as counter-signalling. When I say I don't know much about something, people generally realize I'm just holding myself to a high standard and don't genuinely believe I know less than the typical person; the problem is that they also think that when I actually don't know shit about something (in the sense the typical person would use that phrase). Conversely, showing off knowledge can come across as arrogant in certain situations.
Even if you don't care about status, I'd say that what X (e.g. “I don't know”) actually means in English is what English speakers actually mean when they say X, regardless of etymology (huh, it sounds tautological when put this way, doesn't it?), and if you're aware of this and use X to mean something else you're lying (unless your interlocutor knows you mean something else).
"telling people you don't know stuff projects low status"
If it's a random stranger, I don't care about status. If it's a friend or a fellow "geek", it's probably a high status signal to send. That pretty much leaves work as the only area I'd potentially run in to this, and I've found "I don't know; but I can find out!" works wonders (part of this is that at work, I'm presumably expected to actually know these things)
I've found "I don't know, but isn't it fun to find out!" is a fairly successful tactic, but I'm also deliberately aiming to attract geeks and people who like that answer in my life :)
“A physicist is someone who answers all questions with ‘I don't know, but I can find out.’” -- Someone (possibly Nicola Cabibbo, quoting from my memory)
Rarely. It is often a useful signal to send but seldom high status.
I don't really understand the reply. Are you saying it's rarely high status even within my social circles? Or are you saying that my social circles are unusual? To the former, all I can say is that we apparently have very different experiences. To the latter... well, duh, that's WHY I specified that it was specific to THOSE groups...
I am saying that is more likely that you are inflating the phrase "high status" to include things that are somewhat low status but overall socially rewarding than that your subculture is stretched quite that far in that (unsustainable) direction.
How would "I don't know" being high status be unsustainable?
For that matter, what distinction are you drawing between high status and socially rewarding?
Yes, "high status" being the inflated does seem to be the crux of the matter.
Socially rewarding behaviors that, ceritus paribus are low status.
My general experience has been that "I don't know, but I'll find out", said to someone currently equal or lower status than me, clearly but mildly correlates with most of the low status behavior you mentioned. I'm not as sure how it affects people higher status than me, since I don't have as many of those relationships / data points.
So I continue my assertion that, yes, it's high status, not merely socially rewarding. I still suspect this is a weird and unusual set of experiences, and probably has to do with how I position "I don't know" relative to others.
In some circles, perceived signal usefulness is a causal factor towards the signal's status-level.
To unbox the above: In some groups I've been with, sending compressed signals that everyone in the group understands is a high-status signal, regardless of whether it's a "low-status" or "high-status" signal in other environments.
"Hey, I have an idea but I'm not quite sure how to go about putting it in practice" is a very low status signal in meatspace for all meatspaces I've been in except one, but a very high status signal in e.g. certain online hacking communities.
Likewise for the case at hand, there are places where "I don't know" can even be the highest status signal. For the most memorable example, I've once visited a church where the people at the top were answering "I don't know" to the most questions, signaling their closeness to divinity implicitly, while the "simpletons" at the bottom of the ladder had an opinion on everything, and thus would never "not know".
I've had people tell me to taboo "I don't know" because I use it so much. These being fairly average or slightly above average people who are annoyed that I don't have a strong opinion about things like "what do you want to eat tonight?" Some have made jokes about putting "I don't know" on my tombstone. Assuming that I die and am later resurrected and discover this was actually done, I will be most displeased.
I usually interpret that context as "I don't have a preference", which I would readily agree is useful to taboo. If you genuinely don't know what you want (despite having an apparent hidden but strong preference) then ... that's a new one on me ^^;
Toss a mental coin and pretend to enthuse about the result?
Before declining to offer an opinion, it's worth considering whether you'd benefit from the decision being made. (For instance, you could get a prompt dinner.) If so, why not offer a little help? Decision making can be tiring work, and any input can make it easier.
You could: - mention any limiting factors (i.e. I have $20 or 1 hour) - Mention options that are convenient - Offer support to the person who makes the decision (particularly if you can avoid critiquing their choice).