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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   5953 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 22, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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It sounds like you have a couple questions rolled into one.

Do mottizens want to look smart? Sure, perhaps even more than the average person.

Do mottizens take deceptive actions to achieve this? Probably. I think that's pretty common in general, and status games apply here, too.

Do those actions include dismissing topics which are too low-status? Ohhhh yeah. I can't say how we do compared to the base rate, but it's certainly an appealing choice sometimes.

Now, for the kicker: how often is a dismissal based on complexity? I'm going to argue...not that often. There are a lot of competing reasons to dismiss a topic. It's simple, it's complicated, it's common knowledge, it's not widely known but should stay that way. Status games, strategic reasons, personal distaste--all bubbling under the surface. I don't think perceived complexity takes priority all that often.

I don't think perceived complexity takes priority all that often.

Which article would you bet receives more upvotes? 1) An article which is easily accessible by the general public, treats a simple common topic in a novel way, and has zero references to lesswrong-specific terms. 2) An article which is completely inaccessible to the general public, analyzes a complex topic, has a dozen lesswrong-specific terms, and references 4 lesswrong-like articles.

Genuinely hard to say. I’ve seen both do well and both do poorly.

That’s also not a very controlled comparison. What you need are two articles almost identical but for the lesswrong-bait. I’m not even sure it’s possible to keep two articles similar except have one completely inaccessible.

here is the most highly voted article in themotte.com's short history: https://www.themotte.org/post/335/six-months-in-the-life-of

What can we make of it? It's authentic, personal, and it shows effort and subject matter expertise. Text posts almost always do better compared to links, too. I think this matters more than smart/dumb, complex/simple, lesswrong references or lack thereof, left/right, etc. Theory-of-the-world articles tend to do way worse, maybe because they come off as pretentious or out of touch. Lesswrong is not as popular as often assumed.

Fair enough. I think article 1 would be trashed and article 2 praised, but that might be just my experience.

an article is trashed if the author comes off as arrogant and is wrong. The worst combination. It has nothing to do with the simplicity or complexity of the topic.

Which has nothing to do with what we are talking about. And the article being "wrong" is a subjective opinion which might itself be wrong.

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