Experiment: Reaction-Ballot Voting
This open thread is using an new experimental voting system: reaction-ballot voting.
In addition to voting on a comment's overall quality, you can also vote separately on a number of axes, and apply a small set of emoji reactions. Try out and discuss this voting system here! Notes:
- Voting on each axis is weighted according to the voter's karma the same way as votes are in the regular voting system. All axes can be strong-voted with click-and-hold. The commenter's karma is only affected by your vote on the "overall" access, not your vote on any of the other axes.
- This is one experiment among several. Bugs are possible. We're interested in what effect this has on the quality of conversation, what the experience of voting in this system is like, and what the experience of skimming a thread and seeing these scores is like.
- The user interface for this voting system doesn't work well on touch/mobile devices. Third-party clients such as GreaterWrong will only be able to see and cast overall votes, but should work fine otherwise.
Please tell us what you think! Love it/hate it/think it should be different? Let us know.
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epistemic status: felt sense poetry
Think about a tree. A tree with roots going deep into the ground, and leaves spread out to catch as much sun as it can. Hold that tree in mind.
We often dream of leaving the earth and solar system under our own power. It's an important goal. It's not, however, immediately achievable. We are, for now, tied to this pale blue dot. Sol III, Terra, the world that birthed us. And when we do leave, we will take much of it with us. Some of it we will take intentionally, because we're sentimental like that. But some we will take in the marks of growing up on this pale blue dog, in *what kind of beings our first world made us*.
I want to dedicate a time of the year to think about the environment that we live in, how it shapes us and how we shape it. We ought to know the soil we grow in, and know it well. A general purpose rationality must produce local knowledge, specialized to the time and space and life we are living. We must dig our roots deep, and spread our leaves wide.
We talk a lot about the general theory of rational agents. It informs how you learn true things and make good choices. But, you are not the general example of an agent. Your mind did not spring up from first principals. Evolutionary history, cultural memetics, and human institutions also play a role in the way you learn true things and make good choices. That which is at your roots effected what the truth to be found and good choices to be made even are, thousands of years later.
The tree is a metaphor. Grand forces of optimization have existed before you, and will likely exist after you. Seek them out. Use what they can give you. Dig your roots deep.
And spread your leaves wide. Plants are often portrayed as passive; that's incorrect. They move. They move a great deal, efficiently and slowly, in order to catch the sun. In the spirit of a plant, you need not chase after every opportunity. You can position yourself well, and take the chances as they come to you. Have patience, not passivity. And spread your leaves wide. Catch every ray of sunlight and harness it. Drink in the present moment, and turn it into something awesome.