I’m not an expert, but with this in mind it should be a rather simple matter to apply a few strategies so that LW shows up near the top of relevant search results. At the very least we could create wiki pages with titles like “How to Think Better” and “How to Figure Out What’s True” with links to relevant articles or sequences. The fact that rationality has little obvious commercial value should work in our favor by keeping competing content rather sparse.
Is rationality a common enough word that people would naturally jump to it when trying to figure out how to think better? I’m not sure how often I used it before Less Wrong, but I know that it is substantially more commonplace after reading the sequences.
Yes, sign out of Google or use a different browser where you’re not signed in, and you’ll see that Eliezer successfully took over the word ‘rationality’. Let this be a lesson about what is possible.
I’m not an expert, but with this in mind it should be a rather simple matter to apply a few strategies so that LW shows up near the top of relevant search results. At the very least we could create wiki pages with titles like “How to Think Better” and “How to Figure Out What’s True” with links to relevant articles or sequences. The fact that rationality has little obvious commercial value should work in our favor by keeping competing content rather sparse.
When I search for keyword: rationality, I get HPMoR for #2, yudkowsky.net for #5, and What Do We Mean By “Rationality”? for #7. Not sure how much my search history is affecting this.
Is rationality a common enough word that people would naturally jump to it when trying to figure out how to think better? I’m not sure how often I used it before Less Wrong, but I know that it is substantially more commonplace after reading the sequences.
You probably get this result because google has figured out it’s a better search-result for you.… because you’ve already gone to those pages before.
Not sure how many people outside of the web world realise this, but google does personalise search results based on your own personal search-habits.
People who have not yet been to any of these pages are much less likely to get the same set of search results as this.
Edit: lukeprog’s response (about two below here) below is how to see google for what it actually is like for a newbie.
I get exactly the same result.
Yes, sign out of Google or use a different browser where you’re not signed in, and you’ll see that Eliezer successfully took over the word ‘rationality’. Let this be a lesson about what is possible.
That’s a really good idea. Upvoted.