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Decius comments on Karma as Money - Less Wrong
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I don't use karma to keep score, only as one of many sources of information about other people's opinion. When one of the comments I've posted gets a much different response than I expected, it is my expectation that was at fault.
Let me be more concrete.
I don't cross-post my blog posts in the Open Thread because I don't think they are on topic.
By contrast, I don't post on certain topics related to rationality, mindkilling, and social interaction because I expect downvotes, regardless of quality or on-topic-ness.
If I understand correctly, you only post when it is both on-topic and you expect positive karma? Are there two different terminal values in play here?
Generally, yes.
I also post points in favor of feminism and post-modernism when I think they are on topic and would enhance the rationality of the average LW user. But I expect those topics to get downvoted, so I don't always make such posts, even when I think the expected value of the post would be positive for readers.
Really? You let imagined karma downvotes keep you from posting quality material? That's no way to live.
He lets expected karma downvotes keep him from posting quality material, not imagined downvotes.
If the purpose of karma is not to influence posting behavior in a positive way, then what IS its purpose?
Expected downvotes are still just imagined downvotes.
And Karma's purpose is Karma's problem; not Tim's, and not mine.
Tim thinks he has quality material to post that he expects some people to vote down. On balance, I don't think Tim's purposes are served by this. He's letting himself be controlled by some handful of people he disagrees with, for no significant gain.
Writing a quality post takes effort that is orders of magnitude more costly than 3 thumbs down. If it's worth spending that effort in the first place, a handful of downvotes should not change that that - they're insignificant by comparison.
Tim actions are not consistent with his conscious values, as estimated by me.
You might be right. I think my best defense is that your analysis of expected gain fails to account for opportunity cost. I could go troll a religious forum. And I could do so in a way that would enhance the rationality of the average reader (if believed / accepted by that reader). But that caveat is pretty huge when evaluating opportunity cost.
If I'm understanding you correctly, the expected/imagined/whatever thing is a red herring; your comment applies just as well to actual downvotes. Your claim is Tim ought not take downvotes into consideration when evaluating the value of a post, whether they be expected downvotes on expected posts, imaginary downvotes on imaginary posts, or actual downvotes on actual posts.
Yes?
Karma's purpose is not unrelated to this question. If net karma approximates an expression of the community's judgment of the value of the post to the community (which it's supposed to, though it's not clear it does) then net downvotes indicate the community judges that a post is of negative value to the community. Tim might update away from his belief that the post is valuable based on that judgment. (And, relatedly, update away from it based on his expectation of that judgment for an unsubmitted post.)
Of course, you might say in turn that the judgment of the community (whether actual or expected) should itself not cause Tim to change his belief.
It's not a red herring, it's another reason.
No. Downvotes are information. Don't ignore them. But don't let them keep you from what you consider the right thing. The context was of him not posting what he considered quality material, anticipating downvotes.
I don't suppose that at all. Do you?
I generally behave as though net karma does mean that, under the principle that this is one way I can encourage it to more closely approximate meaning that over time, and I would prefer it did so.
Note that one reason to be wrong about how people will respond to a given stimulus is to overestimate how much of a desirable trait that they have. So while "your expectation is at fault" to the extent that correctly predicting response is a goal, the update in such circumstance is still in the direction of less respect for the people you are attempting to predict. That can be disheartening at times.