Declare your signaling and hidden agendas

Asking "what are you signaling?" is like asking "what is your greatest weakness?" during a job interview. It handicaps honest people.

We don't tell people our signaling intentions, even if we're aware of them, because that often would make the signaling less effective.

Rational protocols should not handicap the honest.

ADDED: I think it's a good idea to let people know your agendas. Looking at the examples above, most of them are things that it's fine to put out in public. But when you start in on personal motives such as "seek fame and scholarship", it gets tricky. I'd rather leave decisions on revealing such motives up to the individual, rather than have an inflexible community rule.

For the record, my primary reason for reading this site is because I think it's fun.

"Declare your hidden agendas" is somewhat of an oxymoron -- obviously anyone with a true hidden agenda isn't going to declare it. Seems like this idea of disclaimers in front of LW posts is a non-starter.

I don't want to know your 'hidden agendas.' I assume without an agenda, you wouldn't have the motivation to say something interesting, like pjeby says here. I first heard it articulated by Penn and Teller saying 'trying to become famous for the sake of being famous is vapid, be famous to spread your ideas' in an interview.

If you tell me your agendas, I will think of those when reading your ideas, and it will make it easier to hide any further hidden agendas, because I'll look at your ideas and know why you think that and stop looking for further agendas. Whether this is because your supposed agendas are rationalizations that make it easier for you to hide your agenda from yourself, or because you're purposely using misdirection, doesn't matter.

I've read here articles on detecting bias by playing word games that I never stopped using as a child... I think it's a good habit to think that way constantly. I think that since we aren't changing the world, we should look at each other with the standards we do with the rest of the world.

But if you're just going to link to your old articles later without telling me, then it's going to be easy enough to ignore it.

Moderate desire to signal not comprehending other's obsessions with signaling as though it were something special.

Maybe it's from having done a smattering of postings here and there for awhile, but I really don't have any thoughts of fame from posting here, OB, or anywhere else. I think it's cool if someone likes what I write, but I don't have the time to really devote to becoming one of the karmic elite here. I'm sure there's some unconscious signaling going on, but on the conscious level, it's more about the feeling of participating in a conversation instead of just observing it.

(First of all, excellent idea)

I have hidden agendas, but not just that. I also have hidden compulsions.

Here my main compulsion was like "Hey people look at me, I'm abasing myself, please be in awe at how honest I am; besides you can't point a flaw I haven't pointed myself now, so I feel safer from criticism".

My agenda is however, also to help people feel like they can't do worse than me, so they should feel alright telling us about their agenda, and compulsions. Another step forward for the community.

In general :

Agendas :

I try to attract attention because I think I have helpful ideas to contribute in this community > I want to contribute, because I want to see it grow and realize its potential, so that I may be able to see, and learn, that mature art of rationality we've only yet started to outline > I want to use it, because I think it'll be useful to realize all my other objectives in real life.

I also want to see the community succeed for if I'm not wrong, that will help important projects such as the one that must not yet be named. I think a mature community of mature rationalists, could indeed achieve much more than what other groups (normal science included) could do. I have selfish reasons to want the unnamed project to succeed, and just as well, the future community will probably turn its attention to issues which will benefit me. In particular fields like antiagathics.

Finally, I am as honest as I think I should. I lie when I think I can get away with it, and I'm very cautious to keep a safety margin there. In a place such as LW, I don't feel safe lying about anything because I'm sure there are people reliably more intelligent, rational, and experimented than I am. Hence trying to be as honest as possible, and also, trying to point my flaws and hidden agendas to insure my reputation, if I am ever to slip a lie here and there without my noticing it.

Compulsions:

I have always liked to be praised for my intellectual achievements. I'll always strive to sound honest, fair, brilliant, persevering. I notice the karma / voting system has worsened that trait. I check regularly to see how my posts fare. I feel very disappointed (aka butthurt) when I'm not upvoted, and let's not even talk about downvotes.

I like to point flaws and mistakes; in others as well as in myself, though pointing them in myself is also a way to signal how honest I am. And this also verges on masochism.

I like to shock and confuse. For instance, I'll defend one side of an argument, then switch my point of view and defend the other side. I don't want people to know which "side" I'm on. Like, defending religion against bashing, then trying to bury it. This also signals fairness.

There's more, but that should be enough already to get the picture.

One question : do we want to include in all our posts henceforth a short explanation of our hidden agenda, case by case ? Some will argue that this would burden them. But I'm for it, just as I was in favor of the idea that downvoting should usually go in hand with an explanation, so that we can understand our nonobvious mistakes.

How does desire to signal resistance to groupthink relates to actual resistance to groupthink? When you desire to signal scholarship, does it mean that you are trying to appear more scholastic than you think you really are? Is "desire to signal X" just a polite disclaimer, such as IMHO?

If we say "declare your agendas", and leave it up to the individual to decide whether to keep common, personal, embarrassing, uninteresting motives to themselves, then it's a good idea. It's just the word "hidden" that gives me trouble. And "signaling".

I mean, we've demonstrated pretty thoroughly in our exchanges that we're all emotional beings. Diplomacy was defined by some famous diplomat (Bismarck?) as being primarily about hiding your motives. Sometimes, saying what you really think just shuts discussion down. Sometimes I write something in response to someone else's opinion that I think is wrong, and I may judge it undiplomatic to spell that out.