less about the application of rationality to various different everyday life skills (which usually end up being bad self-help)
Which is an objection to all of the posts about akrasia, social skills, and so forth, not to applying rationality to figure out whether particular scientific claims are likely to be true.
I agree the comment seems somewhat off-topic, but I’m glad it was posted here anyway only because I’m new and was considering posting things similar to what you say is discouraged. But I would like to ask, is the consensus that the topic itself is discouraged, or that if you are to post on that topic, the bar should be set much higher? If anyone has advice on what you guys want to see, or not see, here, it would be appreciated.
There have been a bunch of posts on self-help related topics (akrasia, social skills, etc.), and some of them have been very well received, so if that’s the topic that you’re referring to then it could fit in fine. Yvain was just giving his own views, not setting official LW policy (and he’s clarified his views with another comment here).
If you want feedback on whether people would be interested in your post, you could give a two sentence summary of it, either here or in the open thread.
There’s no real limit on what you can get away with if you can clear a high enough bar. For example, here’s an article about discovering the sunken city of Atlantis.
That’s not what Yvain said. He called for:
Which is an objection to all of the posts about akrasia, social skills, and so forth, not to applying rationality to figure out whether particular scientific claims are likely to be true.
I agree the comment seems somewhat off-topic, but I’m glad it was posted here anyway only because I’m new and was considering posting things similar to what you say is discouraged. But I would like to ask, is the consensus that the topic itself is discouraged, or that if you are to post on that topic, the bar should be set much higher? If anyone has advice on what you guys want to see, or not see, here, it would be appreciated.
There have been a bunch of posts on self-help related topics (akrasia, social skills, etc.), and some of them have been very well received, so if that’s the topic that you’re referring to then it could fit in fine. Yvain was just giving his own views, not setting official LW policy (and he’s clarified his views with another comment here).
If you want feedback on whether people would be interested in your post, you could give a two sentence summary of it, either here or in the open thread.
There’s no real limit on what you can get away with if you can clear a high enough bar. For example, here’s an article about discovering the sunken city of Atlantis.