And how are people supposed to make the distinction between your fun and signs of pathological narcissism?
I don't see this as a particular problem in this instance. The responses are of the form that if anything an indication that he isn't taking himself too seriously. The more pathologically narcissistic type tend to be more somber about their power and image.
No, if there was a problem here it would be if the joke was in poor taste. In particular if there were those that had been given the impression that Eliezer's power or Narcissism really was corrupting his thinking. If he had begun to use his power arbitrarily on his own whim or if his arrogance had left him incapable of receiving feedback or perceiving the consequences his actions have on others or even himself. Basically, jokes about how arrogant and narcissistic one is only work when people don't perceive you as actually having problems in that regard. If you really do have real arrogance problems then joking that you have them while completely not acknowledging the problem makes you look grossly out of touch and socially awkward.
For my part, however, I don't have any direct problem with Eliezer appreciating this kind of reasoning. It does strike me as a tad naive of him and I do agree that it is the kind of thing that makes Luke's job harder. Just... as far as PR missteps made by Eliezer this seems so utterly trivial as to be barely worth mentioning.
How do I make the distinction between a guy who has an "arrogance problem" and has fun encouraging comments that imply that people think of him as a god vs. a guy with a serious issue?
The way I make such distinctions is to basically ignore 'superficial arrogance'. I look at the real symptoms. The ones that matter and have potential direct consequences. I look at their ability to comprehend the words of others---particularly those others without the power to 'force' them to update. I look at how much care they take in exercising whatever power they do have. I look at how confident they are in their beliefs and compare that to how often those beliefs are correct.
Various people raised concerns that growth might ruin the culture after reading my "LessWrong could grow a lot" thread. There has been some discussion about whether endless September, a phenomenon that kills online discussion groups, is a significant threat to LessWrong and what can be done. I really care about it, so I volunteered to code a solution myself for free if needed. Luke invited debate on the subject (the debate is here) and will be sent the results of this poll and asked to make a decision. It was suggested by him in an email that I wait a little while and then post my poll (meta threads are apparently annoying to some, so we let people cool off). Here it is, preceded by a Cliff's notes summary of the concerns.
Why this is worth your consideration:
- Yvain and I checked the IQ figures in the survey against other data this time, and the good news is that it's more believable that the average LessWronger is gifted. The bad news is that LessWrong's IQ average has decreased on each survey. It can be argued that it's not decreasing by a lot or we don't have enough data, but if the data is good, LessWrong's average has lost 52% of it's giftedness since March of 2009.
- Eliezer documented the arrival of poseurs (people who superficially copycat cultural behaviors - they are reported to over-run subcultures) which he termed "Undiscriminating Skeptics".
- Efforts to grow LessWrong could trigger an overwhelming deluge of newbies.
- LessWrong registrations have been increasing fast and it's possible that growth could outstrip acculturation capacity. (Chart here)
- The Singularity Summit appears to cause a deluge of new users that may have similar effect to the September deluges of college freshman that endless September is named after. (This chart shows a spike correlated with the 2011 summit where 921 users joined that month, which is roughly equal to the total number of active users LW tends to have in a month if you go by the surveys or Vladmir's wget.)
- A Slashdot effect could result in a tsunami of new users if a publication with lots of readers like the Wall Street Journal (they used LessWrong data in this article) decides to write an article on LessWrong.
- The sequences contain a lot of the culture and are long meaning that "TLDR" may make LessWrong vulnerable to cultural disintegration. (New users may not know how detailed LW culture is or that the sequences contain so much culture. I didn't.)
- Eliezer said in August that the site was "seriously going to hell" due to trolls.
- A lot of people raised concerns.
Two Theories on How Online Cultures Die:
Overwhelming user influx.
There are too many new users to be acculturated by older members, so they form their own, larger new culture and dominate the group.
Trending toward the mean.
A group forms because people who are very different want a place to be different together. The group attracts more people that are closer to mainstream than people who are equally different because there are more mainstream people than different people. The larger group attracts people who are even less different in the original group's way for similar reasons. The original group is slowly overwhelmed by people who will never understand because they are too different.
Poll Link:
Endless September Poll.
Request for Feedback:
In addition to constructive criticism, I'd also like the following:
Your observations of a decline or increase in quality, culture or enjoyment at LessWrong, if any.
Ideas to protect the culture.
Ideas for tracking cultural erosion.