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Kaj_Sotala comments on Open Thread, November 8 - 14, 2013 - Less Wrong Discussion

1 Post author: witzvo 08 November 2013 08:13PM

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Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 12 November 2013 04:12:09AM *  2 points [-]

There's an important difference between making intentional mistakes, and becoming careless. By incentivization of mistakes I meant the latter.

Ah, that does sound more plausible. If I'm in an environment where I can trust others to catch my mistakes, and I don't feel bad about those mistakes being pointed out, then I could definitely see myself getting more sloppy and relying on others to catch the mistakes instead of looking for them myself. In fact, I'm pretty sure that I have done that on a few occasions...

On the other hand, this might also make for a useful cure for perfectionism. It's not obvious that trying to catch every mistake yourself would be the optimal division of labor, assuming that you really are in an environment where you can trust on others to correct some of the mistakes. Of course, it could be a problem if you develop lazy habits and carry them over to an environment without that external assistance.

Comment author: hyporational 12 November 2013 05:40:23AM 0 points [-]

It's not obvious that trying to catch every mistake yourself would be the optimal division of labor, assuming that you really are in an environment where you can trust on others to correct some of the mistakes.

I agree that we could probably rely more on others to catch our mistakes in certain contexts where equal expertise can be assumed. The problem is, if you're writing an article or a book for example, you're usually the expert compared to your readership, so you can't really expect others to reliably correct your mistakes, and some of your mistakes get cluelessly adopted.