Normal Optimism is Winnerism. Support whoever is winning, believe whatever gives you relative social power. Follow and amplify incentive gradients. Of course it’s healthy to want to win — and a fair critique of Weird Pessimists that they have an unhealthy resentment of success.
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But throwing all resources into a zero-sum conflict destroys the possibility of any future for humans.
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There’s a Normal Optimist thing that’s *just* being supportive and encouraging, without trying to take resources or status away from anybody else, and I think it’s mostly good, just unlikely to be very influential.
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Replying to @s_r_constantin
“We can't all be heroes because somebody has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by.”
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Replying to @KevinSimler @s_r_constantin
(Aaaand now the model of Sarah I have in my head is saying, “Yes but we can all TRY to be heroes... nobody actually has to clap.”)
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Replying to @KevinSimler
My four-quadrant model is mostly about recorded public discourse, not all behavior. Hence classifying Twitter accounts. Emotional support is very important but, say, hugging isn’t part of any quadrant. Or therapy. Even though they can make a literally life-or-death difference.
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Replying to @s_r_constantin @KevinSimler
Just want to make sure applauding isn't conflated with the general class of "supportive" love, care, or unglamorous work, which I think can be heroic.
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Replying to @s_r_constantin @KevinSimler
Applauding is basically about relative credit allocation. If you're doing credit allocation in a Normal Optimist style, it's not really about calling people's attention to a new thing to support, or about taking down an overrated thing,
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Replying to @s_r_constantin @KevinSimler
but adding your support to a known thing that already has a substantial support base. This can be valuable in some circumstances but only if it's not crowding out or silencing other information.
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Replying to @s_r_constantin @KevinSimler
Within a bounded zero-sum game, "may the best man win" is correct. It's fine and probably good to help the side you think is best. Increasing the fraction of the world that is a zero-sum game is bad though.
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This is the main reason that, for instance, I don't reblog already memetically fit posts even if I agree with them. Yes, I think concentration camps are bad. But I only found out about that once there was already a big media story. Adding my voice feels...uninformative.
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Replying to @s_r_constantin @KevinSimler
It's not really news that "Bay Area resident SarahC opposes imprisoning children over an unjust law." So saying-the-redundant feels like spamming. This could be wrong strategy on my part, though: I'm willing to be talked out of it.
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Replying to @s_r_constantin @KevinSimler
Strategically spending social capital to advance good but unpopular ideas at the risk of losing more capital than you spent is very Weird axis behavior
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