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adamzerner comments on Confession Thread: Mistakes as an aspiring rationalist - Less Wrong Discussion

18 Post author: diegocaleiro 02 June 2015 06:10PM

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Comment author: diegocaleiro 02 June 2015 06:47:13PM *  8 points [-]

Arrogance: I caution you not to take this as advice for you to your own life, because frankly, arrogance goes a long, long loooooong way. Most rationalists are less arrogant in person than they should about their subject areas, and rationalist women who identify as females and are straight are even less frequently arrogant than the already low base rate. But some people are over-arrogant, and I am one of these. Over arrogance isn't about the intensity of arrogance, it is about the non-selectivity. The problem I have always had and been told again and again isn't generalized arrogance, it is leaking the arrogance into domains I'm not actually worth a penny. To see this with full clarity: that one should have a detailed model of when to be confident, when arrogant, and when humble took me a mere fourteen days, eleven months and twenty eight years, and counting.

Comment author: adamzerner 03 June 2015 04:39:51AM 3 points [-]

Would you mind sharing examples? It'd help me to understand/internalize the idea your talking about. I too am sort of arrogant. Idk. I like to think that assign appropriate confidence levels based on the domain/information/situation, but I probably don't.