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LW: saying sorry to people might be good, actually
(www.lesswrong.com)
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this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2024
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Hurling ordure at the TREACLES, especially those closely related to LessWrong.
AI-Industrial-Complex grift is fine as long as it sufficiently relates to the AI doom from the TREACLES. (Though TechTakes may be more suitable.)
This is sneer club, not debate club. Unless it's amusing debate.
[Especially don't debate the race scientists, if any sneak in - we ban and delete them as unsuitable for the server.]
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Their mistake is not grokking contrition. An apology ought either to be contrite or to justify why contrition is impossible.
To be explicit, contrition is the part of an apology where the apologizing party promises to change something. Without contrition, apologies are worthless, since they do not amend any social contract.
What the author proposes instead is indeed "Machiavellian" and "hacking social APIs;" we should recognize it as a form of deceit or lie. They are clearly more interested in appearing to be decent than in improving society, and should be marked as confidence scammers.
And indeed, the other crucial piece is that... apologizing isn't a protocol with an expected reward function. I can just, not accept your apology. I can just, feel or "update my priors" howmever I like.
We apologize and care about these things because of shame. Which we have to regulate, in part through our actions and perspectives.
Why people feel the way they do and act the way do makes total sense when ~~one finally confronts your own vulnerabilities~~ sorry, builds an API and RL framework.
True, there's value. But I think if you try to measure that value, it disappears.
A good postmorterm puts the facts on the table, and leaves the team to evaluate options. I don't think any good postmorterm should have apologies or ask people to settle social conflicts directly. One of the best tools a postmorterm has is the "we're going to work around this problem by reducing the dependency on personal relationships."
Shame is a such an important concept, and something that I've felt - for a while now - that TREACLES/ARSECULTists get actively pushed away from feeling. It's like everyone in that group practices justifying every single action they make - longtermists with the wellbeing of infinite imagined people, utilitarians with magic math, rationalists with 10,000 word essays. "No, we didn't make a mistake, we did everything we could with the evidence we had, we have nothing to be sorry for."
Like no, you're not god, sometimes you just fuck up. And if you do fuck up and you want me to be able to care about you, I need to be able to sympathize with you by seeing that you actually care about your mistakes and their consequences like I would.
The original poster just can't fathom the idea of losing something as precious as social status, and needs the apology to somehow be beneficial to him, instead of - y'know - the person they're apologizing to. It's just too shameful to lower yourself to someone else like that, he needs to be gaining ground as well. So weird.