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juliawise comments on Less Wrong mentoring thread - Less Wrong Discussion

31 Post author: John_Maxwell_IV 29 December 2011 12:10AM

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Comment author: juliawise 29 December 2011 06:56:10PM 6 points [-]

The disadvantage to this is that it gives your roommate an incentive to distract you.

Comment author: Vaniver 29 December 2011 07:28:45PM 0 points [-]

Yep. But having a compliance officer is helpful more often than not.

Comment author: Karmakaiser 30 December 2011 03:21:31PM 0 points [-]

It'd be easier to make a beeminder account and just give someone the link to watch your graphs.

Comment author: Vaniver 30 December 2011 03:42:52PM 0 points [-]

Easier, perhaps, but better? I don't find the incentives from websites to be nearly as strong as the ones from people who live with me.

Comment author: Karmakaiser 30 December 2011 04:21:46PM 0 points [-]

It allows for wider selection of confidants. A roommate might be a trusted friend who've you known for a while, it might be a bland personality from craigslist. Further, an offline analog one is subject to conjoleing, conflicts of interests, and lawyering that an online digital system is not subject to. When failure is automatic if you don't report progress and the money goes to a third party these relational complexities are removed with a scalpel rather than having to be dealt with like a bad itch. By having a person keep taps on you through typing in a URL rather than having to go through to trouble of getting a picture or text everyday you lower the barrier of entry and the amount of work it takes for the system to remain stable.