[Link] Detachment
http://www.urticator.net/essay/0/48.html
Might be a useful read apropos of Wei Dai's recent question:
Why are we causing [people] to think of LW in terms of identity in the first place, instead of, say, a place to learn about and discuss some interesting ideas?
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Comments (11)
"Resist the Happy Death Spiral" — "cut up your Great Thingy into smaller independent ideas, and treat them as independent."
Wei Dai's wording makes it sound like identity formation is something LW is placing special emphasis on, which doesn't appear to me to be the case. Forming identities based on the places you spend time is just what people do by default, and I am pessimistic about the possibilities for preventing this. Maybe everyone should read Keep Your Identity Small every morning. Also, it might not be a bad idea for us to stop using the word "rationalist."
EY's wholehearted endorsement of the New York chapter's bonding rituals.
I wonder if it's pertinent that Eliezer doesn't live in New York City?
I don't think we're intentionally placing emphasis on identity formation, but it does seem like we may be doing certain things that unintentionally cause people to think of LW more in terms of identity, and which we may be able to avoid or counteract.
I suspect that those may contribute to the identity-forming tendencies of LW participation, but I think a great deal of the work is already done by the fact that LW as a community deviates so significantly from mainstream cultural norms. I suspect that qualities which set people apart from the majority are more likely to become incorporated into their identities (for instance, a homeschooled person is more likely to think of themselves as a homeschooled person than a person who went to public school is to think of themselves as a public schooled person.)
Why do you think it's tougher to tackle than other human biases?
Personally, I think I've found reading things like the identity essay you linked to and the detachment essay I linked to useful... just like most of the other biases we talk about on LW, it feels (from the inside, at least) like reading the right stuff can be helpful.
The default reaction my brain (and so, generalizing from one example, I expect other brains on LW too) has to this whole program of overcoming biases is "oh cool! I'm the kind of person who overcomes biases now! That makes me so much better than all those other biased people." Successfully overcoming other biases actually makes this one a little worse. But I think I'm okay with this one as long as I'm using it to motivate myself.
"Rationalist" or "someone who overcomes biases" seems to be a smaller identity than "part of LW" (as the latter tends to be construed, by SamLL for example, as including beliefs that are merely popular around here instead of having to do with rationality). If we can't (or it would be counterproductive to) avoid adopting the former identity, it should still be possible (or sensible) to avoid adopting the latter identity.
So maybe this should be the last bias one overcomes then :)
In any case, this particular link doesn't deal with identity itself, just a potential negative side effect.
Likely because of it's association with the Singularity Institute, where brand image matters.