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Absent context, I notice I'm confused about which sense of the word "values" she's using here. Perhaps someone can elucidate? In particular is she talking about moral/ethical type values or is she using it in a broader sense that we might think of as goals?
Funny enough, I'm confused by your distinction between moral or ethical values and goals – aren't those really the same?
Ayn Rand held that some preferences were rational or more rational than others.
In response to
Rationality Quotes Thread February 2015
I don’t think you can reason people out of positions they didn’t reason themselves into.
That's really interesting! Are you able to break down the relevant skills at all?
Some relevant skills, off the top of my head:
- 'Mind-reading', e.g. how are they going to interpret a complaint or request or comment
- 'Filtering', e.g. what decision or evaluation should or must be made by a 'hero'
- 'Readiness', e.g. "this just needs your signature"
Really, there must be lots of specific sub-skills, as the three I listed overlap to a large degree.
I initially thought I would be able to list lots of skills specific to software, and of course there are many, but they're relatively unimportant for being a good sidekick generally. For example, being able to provide clear instructions on how to reproduce a bug is incredibly valuable, but that's really just an example of the general skills I listed above, i.e. providing info that's unambiguous about what's wrong (and ideally why), not providing info that's irrelevant, and providing enough info so that they can most efficiently fix the bug.
Generally, being a good sidekick requires sufficient empathy and self-awareness. Empty because you have to know the mind of your hero to know how to best help them. And self-awareness because you have to know whether your hero's cause is really yours too. Tho, of course, some sidekick's cause is ultimately serving a specific hero.
In fantasy terms, a good sidekick delivers obvious monsters that the hero can slay.
In response to
The Importance of Sidekicks
Open source projects, especially (or maybe just most saliently for me) software projects, desperately need sidekicks. I write 'desperately' because most such projects die from 'over-forking', i.e. everyone wanting to be the leader (hero) of their own project (adventure).
What I've learned most recently is that being even a moderately competent sidekick is really hard. It takes a lot of work to even be able to contribute without creating lots of extra work for the heroes and their more-devoted sidekicks.
Have you heard of Charlie Munger? Most people probably haven't, which is part of why he's a great (male, real life) sidekick. Munger is the vice-chairman of Berkshire Hathaway and has been Warren Buffet's right hand man for decades. Munger is one of the examples in Michael Eisner's (former Disney CEO) book on partnerships. One of the book's main points is that 50-50 is a very unstable split in a business partnership, but if one of the partners is willing to stand half a step lower the couple can achieve more.
You see this example a lot in sports, and by "you" I mean me because I've met few rationalists who care about sports as much as I do :) Scottie Pippen would've been an excellent player on his own, but being Michael Jordan's sidekick made him an all-time great.
Since professional sports is very competitive and rewards "alpha dogs" with all of the money and fame (endorsement deals, max contracts, hottest groupies), players who could have been amazing Robins become mediocre Batmans. If players were only paid based on winning championships, I'm sure that would change. If your goal is to save the world, that's the only goal and no one cares about "individual stats". With this goal drawing quite a few heroes, being a sidekick may well be the best, noblest, and most effective way to contribute.
one of the partners ... willing to stand half a step lower
That's a great description of why my wife and I have adopted The Dictator Principle for joint projects. The principle is just that someone must be The Dictator and, as the project leader, must be ultimately responsible for all decisions. Being ultimately responsible doesn't preclude delegation but it does prevent conflict arising from, e.g. "I thought you were going to do that! I thought you were going to do that!".
In response to
The Importance of Sidekicks
I think that there can be a difference between being Frodo's Sam, and being a real-life hero's personal assistant/sidekick/support. In the former case, Sam is fighting orcs, hiking through treacherous mountain passes, dealing with Sméagol, etc., which is quite similar to what Frodo is doing; in the latter case, the job of the secretary/personal assistant would be much different from the job of the real-life hero. I would be happy to be Frodo's Sam, but lukewarm about being, say, Bostrom's personal assistant.
Aren't you forgetting that Frodo was wearing the ring? The book describes it as being a punishing task.
Something else to remember: The Lord of the Rings took around six months. And considering that hobbits live longer than humans, by human standards it's more like 4 months. In other words, heroes and sidekicks in pieces of fiction do not use up all their life or pawn their future in order to be heroes or sidekicks. Perhaps if they get unlucky (Frodo was injured), but that's only a chance.
Even superheroes, who seem to be an exception to this, are saved by the genre conceits that 1) for some strange reason, if you're not specifically obsessed like Batman, being a superhero doesn't completely preclude a normal life, and 2) although the timescale of comic books means we don't see it much, superheroes eventually stop being superheroes, and starting a family is one of the biggest reasons for one to stop.
Even if heroes and sidekicks existed in the real world, dedicating your life to Eliezer's cause is a lot more extreme than being a hero or a sidekick, and should be thought of with appropriately greater skepticism.
Aren't you cherry-picking, even from the single work of fiction you mention? Sure, Frodo and Samwise didn't dedicate their lives to be heroes. But Gandalf and Aragorn did.
And your superhero genre conceits don't seem to match what I've read. It's a near-universal trope of superhero comics that heroes can't lead normal lives and that when they do, they're inevitably reminded of the inherent dangers, e.g. perfect hostages in the form of their loved ones. And it's also another near-universal trope whereby the retired hero is called back into service in The Hour of Dire Need.
I agree that one should be more skeptical of dedicating one's life to Eliezer's cause than a character typically depicted in superhero comics might be given the prospect of super-powers. But let's not forget that Hero is a trope with Real Life examples and dedicating one's life to something is a pretty common occurrence.
In response to
Graphical Assumption Modeling
It would be cool to share models via URLs pointing to web services that output calculations.
And even cooler if (web) discussions of models included embedded diagrams like what you've produced.
In response to
Graphical Assumption Modeling
It would be cool to share models via URLs pointing to web services that output calculations.
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There the xkcd comic asking regarding the moon landing: "If NASA were willing to fake great accomplishments, they'd have a second one by now."
It's mean, but given the fake NASA discovery that "expands the definition of life" it's funny. At a time where jokes like that can be made, there's really question where the trust is supposed to come from.
I can easily understand how someone could consider everything NASA (or technologists generally) claims to do as being faked. Everything they claim to do is really hard to verify for almost anyone. And, a lot of it might actually be easier to pull off by faking it – CGI is pretty impressive nowadays and it's not that hard to believe that a lot of images and even video are manipulated or even generated from whole cloth.
If you had to verify, personally, that the ESA actually controlled a spacecraft that orbited a comet, etc., how would you do it? Myself, I accept that I'm really trusting a network of people and that I can't practically verify almost anything I'm told.