Kaj_Sotala comments on How my social skills went from horrible to mediocre - Less Wrong

29 Post author: JonahSinick 19 May 2015 11:29PM

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Comment author: tgb 20 May 2015 02:00:55AM 4 points [-]

For example, if a student tells me that I'm the worst teacher he or she has ever had, it makes me feel bad because I feel like I'm not contributing value, but I'm not at all upset with the student: my attitude is that the student is conveying valuable information to me, and that I should be appreciative.

I'm tempted to take that as a Crocker's rule invocation. But I have realized that you wrote this for people-like-you, that is, after all, pretty much its explicit purpose. As such, I'm not sure I have an criticism that I can't definitively think is helpful.

Nonetheless, I want to point out two general things about this will make this hard post to read for most people. First is the length, and even in this you note that you spend too much time explaining something that you've worked on. I think the length was partially unnecessary and not just a reflection of me not being your target audience (I assume). The second is that you come across as exceedingly arrogant. I think you are attempting to explain your background so that we understand the situation. But you explicitly call yourself smarter than the typical reader of the site that you are posting this on. Ouch! But again, perhaps this is just a reflection of you having a very narrow target audience and for them this could read like a "ah, finally someone gets it!"

I hope that you take this to be useful, particularly for when you write for a wider audience. For what its worth, my mental post it note has you labelled as a user that I should pay attention to. I say that since I kind of suspect that you already know everything I just mentioned and aren't bad at overcoming these in other situations, but thought this worth saying explicitly given the context of trying to improve.

Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 20 May 2015 05:32:27AM 18 points [-]

The second is that you come across as exceedingly arrogant.

As a datapoint, I didn't get this impression; I felt it was a pretty humble recounting of one's flaws and mistakes. (Though I'm probably much less perceiving of arrogance than the typical person.)

Comment author: MrMind 20 May 2015 07:41:05AM 6 points [-]

Seconded.

To me it was both arrogant and humble, and I too do not have very strong emotional response to arrogance.

Although I want to point that arrogance !== miscalibration.

Comment author: Lumifer 20 May 2015 04:31:44PM 4 points [-]

As a datapoint, I didn't get this impression; I felt it was a pretty humble recounting of one's flaws and mistakes.

As another datapoint, I think it's both -- I read an unusual combination of both humility AND arrogance.