Elliot Shares Links (2021)

I’ve repeatedly suggested people actually write posts and share thoughts and opinions, both in general and specifically on the links I shared. I think someone actually doing that is good. People seem to find it hard/impossible in some way. 15 years ago I might have thought it’s insignificant and easy, but then I found people broadly unwilling or unable to do it (and they also won’t discuss what stops them).

Also, @internetrules (from memory) didn’t have any bad posts in the 10. He made some mistakes like re head spinning. But mistakes are OK. I didn’t see dishonesty, social climbing, second-handedness, pressuring others, cargo culting, etc. They looked like his own thoughts/opinions said without trying to have some effect on other people.

By contrast, @doubtingthomas has a history of writing bad posts. If he could write 10 posts in a row that are not bad, that would be an accomplishment. I’d be somewhat surprised if he succeeded. And if he tries and fails, it’ll probably be pressuring to me – he’ll probably do something that makes it hard for me to write zero replies. And it won’t be an accident. He wants my attention. For example, if he posted a misquote of me or anyone, that would be a tactic to try to get a reaction from me, using an area (misquotes) where I’m well known to be more reactive than most other people (and also more reactive than I am for most other types of posts).

This morning I saw 3 new posts from DT.

Yaron Brook is "looking for an objectivist who is an expert on Karl Popper" - #20 by doubtingthomas was fine. It didn’t say a lot, but it was saying a thought of his.

David Deutsch Megathread - #79 by doubtingthomas was bad. It’s acting helpless/lazy/no-motor and unnecessarily trying to get other people to do stuff. It also ignores things I’ve posted (which are not original/unique) about how to ask good questions. And it doesn’t say any thoughts, opinions or goals that DT has.

The post I’m replying to right now also has bad parts. Overall it’s fine because it shares some thoughts and the question is hard to answer and DT talked about what he already knows about it – he put some reasonable thought into answering his own question. So that’s good. But it also reads as second-handed and being like “I want praise from teacher. Why did that other kid get praise? I want to understand how to get praise.” It won’t go well to write posts because of second-handed motivations, instead of because you think it will help with self-improvement.