I declare Crocker’s Rules today

In the spirit of trying more things: the form at the end of this post operates by Crocker’s Rules. It’ll be live until late Wednesday night, so please submit Crockerish feedback before then!

Declaring yourself to be operating by “Crocker’s Rules” means that other people are allowed to optimize their messages for information, not for being nice to you. Crocker’s Rules means that you have accepted full responsibility for the operation of your own mind—if you’re offended, it’s your fault. Anyone is allowed to call you a moron and claim to be doing you a favor. (Which, in point of fact, they would be. One of the big problems with this culture is that everyone’s afraid to tell you you’re wrong, or they think they have to dance around it.) Two people using Crocker’s Rules should be able to communicate all relevant information in the minimum amount of time, without paraphrasing or social formatting.

If there’s anything you think I would benefit from knowing, and you wouldn’t ordinarily say it due to concerns of offense (or for other reasons), this is a good time. Do I wear overly strong cologne? Do I have an annoying voice? Am I an amazing and inspiring human being? Is my entire worldview fundamentally flawed? If you’re thinking of something, chances are I don’t know it and both of our lives would be improved if I did!

A note: one of the big problems with Crocker’s Rules is that people don’t take seriously the commitment not to be angry or offended. To mitigate this, the form below is anonymous, so if you’re still worried I’ll be offended, at least I won’t be offended at you. (If you want me to be able to follow up, you can still leave your name in the text.)

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