Desire for unbounded criticism

I think unbounded criticism can help me reach my goals.

My main goal is to be happy and enjoy my life. Living and acting in accordance with my values is what makes me happy. I think learning CF is one of the best ways to live and act in accordance with my values, which makes me happy.

So anything that helps me learn CF (like unbounded criticism) will improve my overall happiness.

This article explains the benefits of cycling between different prerequisites and CF. I think this is relevant because it shows learning CF isn’t limited to a single domain. If you limit your criticism to a single domain (or even a subset of domains), you’ll be missing out on potential errors and valuable criticism.

I don’t want to make learning CF unnecessarily hard. Missing out on criticism is both unnecessary and inefficient. The end result of receiving the criticism will be an increase in my own happiness. Ignoring unbounded criticism would be acting against my own interests.

Bounded criticism isn’t necessarily bad, but it is inherently limited. You’re placing a limit on your critics to only address a certain type of error. You’re telling people “Don’t tell me about errors you see me making, I’d prefer to remain ignorant.” I think that purposefully trying to remain ignorant of your errors is illogical.

I think this is related to Elliot’s idea of Paths Forward:

Quote from the article:

“But we can at least correct errors that other people already understand and are willing to explain to us. That’s a relatively easy, accessible opportunity. There’s no need to stay wrong about issues that people have already figured out and are willing to share information about.”

Asking for bounded criticism means your critics won’t have an opportunity to help you explain all the errors you’re making. Correcting your own errors helps you, it doesn’t make sense to limit people who want to help you learn.

Here’s another quote where I think Elliot is sharing why he thinks unbounded criticism is important:

Link to original post: Moved, Off-Topic Posts - #7 by Elliot

If Elliot identified something as a bottleneck that is holding me back, why wouldn’t I want to know about that?

Here are some example unbounded criticisms I would want to hear:

“You are making too many errors trying to learn this idea in CF. It would be more efficient for you to go make progress in some prerequisites for now.”

“You are being dishonest in the level of effort that will be required to learn this topic. You should reevaluate your approach or consider a different topic.”