My complaint isn’t that the proposed meme-spreading techniques lack effectiveness. I agree that they’re likely to be effective. My complaint is that I avoid people and communities that use such techniques, so if LW starts using them, I’ll start avoiding LW.
My biggest concern is that simply spreading the memes will be counterproductive if they are not spread properly (partial understanding would be a huge concern). If everyone is just guessing the teacher’s password, we will have probably done more damage than good.
I too have reservations about this material. But, I suspect that your recoiling and mine might stem from the representativeness heuristic—that anything associated with religion or its propagation techniques is Dark. I have a lot of negative associations there, and I’m betting many here do. However, religion’s propagation techniques are unquestionably powerful, and we should be able to learn from them.
To counteract this bias somewhat, imagine having some system—I don’t know the details yet, and neither do you—that would easily introduce the core concepts of rationality to anyone interested, and would make it easy to adopt those personal practices that one found positive or useful. Would this be a good thing?
I think so, yes, and clearly so—if improved decision-making, easier willful action, and clearer analysis were already widespread, we’d all live with fewer of other people’s bad decisions. Certainly, the clarity I’ve learned here has helped me; I’m willing to bet it’d help others as well.
If spreading rationality—or, at least, making rationality more palatably available—is a good thing, then we should as a community figure out what works to do that. If certain specific meme-spreading techniques are Dark or noxious, then we should identify what’s wrong in them, and see if we can eliminate them without making the technique wholly ineffective.
So, can you identify what parts of those techniques are noxious to you?
The OP’s previous post
described a model of rationalist communities where you have “distillers” and “organizers” telling people to do stuff, some of which will be proselytizing. But I don’t like being told what to do or telling others what to do, especially if it’s proselytizing. So I would have no place in a such a community.
Also it seems to me that when a product needs to be resold by its consumers, like religion or Amway, that means the product probably isn’t any good. Imagine Steve Jobs using MLM to sell the iPhone! If Eliezer’s ideas about solving confusing problems actually helped, some of the many researchers who read LW would’ve found them useful and told us about it. And if the sequences were as useful in everyday life as they are well-written, a lot of people would have demonstrated that convincingly by now. In either case we would have an iPhone situation and would beat customers off with a stick, not struggle to attract them.
ETA: this comment is a joint reply to Vaniver, XFrequentist, fiddlemath and Davorak, because their questions were quite similar :-)
Okay, but also imagine Steve Jobs trying to sell the original iPod or iMac (before Apple’s huge rebound in popularity) with no TV ads, billboards, posters, product placements, press releases, slogans, over-hyped conferences, or presence in retail stores; just a website with a bunch of extremely long articles explaining what’s great about Apple products.
In our case the task is simpler because the articles themselves are the product. Perhaps another reason for our disagreement is that I think new ideas should spread by their own merit, not through people explicitly trying to convert other people. The LW worldview is based on the ideas of many people (Daniel Kahneman, Hugh Everett, E.T. Jaynes, Judea Pearl, Robin Hanson...), neither of whom ever tried to build communities of laymen for the express purpose of spreading their ideas in MLM style. It makes me cringe to even imagine this.
Actually, I agree with you. I only meant to point out that without some kind of deliberate promotion even really good ideas can be overlooked, but there are ways to do that without acting like Mormon missionaries.
But I don’t like being told what to do or telling others what to do, especially if it’s proselytizing. So I would have no place in a such a community.
What community organizational structure are you comfortable with? What tradeoffs will you accept between organizational structure and goal satisfaction?
Also it seems to me that when a product needs to be resold by its consumers, like religion or Amway, that means the product probably isn’t any good.
Does rationalists telling other people about rationality make rationality worse?
If Eliezer’s ideas about solving confusing problems actually helped, some of the many researchers who read LW would’ve found them useful and told us about it. And if the sequences were as useful in everyday life as they are well-written, a lot of people would have demonstrated that convincingly by now.
It seems to me, though, that the Mormon style of proselytizing is learning about prospective buyers, figuring out how to make their lives better, and then helping implement that. The benefit of that system is you have a knowledgeable person finding the highest-value tip for potential customers, which gets a lot more customers than having your catalog available at the public library and letting them find what suits them best. The question is not whether or not the tip is effective, but who pays to find that out.
What community organizational structure are you comfortable with? What tradeoffs will you accept between organizational structure and goal satisfaction?
I don’t have any goals that would be well served by joining an authoritarian volunteer community. All my goals are well served by my job or my informal social network.
I don’t have any goals that would be well served by joining an authoritarian volunteer community. All my goals are well served by my job or my informal social network.
Everything cousin_it says in this thread assume I said it as well.
All my goals are well served by my job or my informal social network.
Then why are you here at all? Or is LW included in the latter? (It’s actually at the ‘formal group’ end of my social experience, but I may be more abnormal than I think...)
Yeah, LW is included in the latter. As far as I can tell, it doesn’t yet require me to tell others what to do or be told what to do :-) For me it’s a place to hang out with smart people and talk about interesting things, like an intellectual nightclub.
I would think there is some fruitful discussion to be had about which of these techniques are considered valuable, and which would be potentially alienating. Are you objecting to ideas such as “using brief summaries to sell the ideas” as well as to the idea of rationalist communities organized that way?
I’d agree that I don’t want to be part of such a rationalist community, but the idea of using brevity to help market seems useful.
What techniques/methodologies do you use to divide techniques you approve of and those you disapprove? Stepping through this process with one of the techniques in the OP’s post would clear up much of why you would leave lesswrong if they became prominent.
My complaint isn’t that the proposed meme-spreading techniques lack effectiveness. I agree that they’re likely to be effective. My complaint is that I avoid people and communities that use such techniques, so if LW starts using them, I’ll start avoiding LW.
My biggest concern is that simply spreading the memes will be counterproductive if they are not spread properly (partial understanding would be a huge concern). If everyone is just guessing the teacher’s password, we will have probably done more damage than good.
I too have reservations about this material. But, I suspect that your recoiling and mine might stem from the representativeness heuristic—that anything associated with religion or its propagation techniques is Dark. I have a lot of negative associations there, and I’m betting many here do. However, religion’s propagation techniques are unquestionably powerful, and we should be able to learn from them.
To counteract this bias somewhat, imagine having some system—I don’t know the details yet, and neither do you—that would easily introduce the core concepts of rationality to anyone interested, and would make it easy to adopt those personal practices that one found positive or useful. Would this be a good thing?
I think so, yes, and clearly so—if improved decision-making, easier willful action, and clearer analysis were already widespread, we’d all live with fewer of other people’s bad decisions. Certainly, the clarity I’ve learned here has helped me; I’m willing to bet it’d help others as well.
If spreading rationality—or, at least, making rationality more palatably available—is a good thing, then we should as a community figure out what works to do that. If certain specific meme-spreading techniques are Dark or noxious, then we should identify what’s wrong in them, and see if we can eliminate them without making the technique wholly ineffective.
So, can you identify what parts of those techniques are noxious to you?
The OP’s previous post described a model of rationalist communities where you have “distillers” and “organizers” telling people to do stuff, some of which will be proselytizing. But I don’t like being told what to do or telling others what to do, especially if it’s proselytizing. So I would have no place in a such a community.
Also it seems to me that when a product needs to be resold by its consumers, like religion or Amway, that means the product probably isn’t any good. Imagine Steve Jobs using MLM to sell the iPhone! If Eliezer’s ideas about solving confusing problems actually helped, some of the many researchers who read LW would’ve found them useful and told us about it. And if the sequences were as useful in everyday life as they are well-written, a lot of people would have demonstrated that convincingly by now. In either case we would have an iPhone situation and would beat customers off with a stick, not struggle to attract them.
ETA: this comment is a joint reply to Vaniver, XFrequentist, fiddlemath and Davorak, because their questions were quite similar :-)
Okay, but also imagine Steve Jobs trying to sell the original iPod or iMac (before Apple’s huge rebound in popularity) with no TV ads, billboards, posters, product placements, press releases, slogans, over-hyped conferences, or presence in retail stores; just a website with a bunch of extremely long articles explaining what’s great about Apple products.
In our case the task is simpler because the articles themselves are the product. Perhaps another reason for our disagreement is that I think new ideas should spread by their own merit, not through people explicitly trying to convert other people. The LW worldview is based on the ideas of many people (Daniel Kahneman, Hugh Everett, E.T. Jaynes, Judea Pearl, Robin Hanson...), neither of whom ever tried to build communities of laymen for the express purpose of spreading their ideas in MLM style. It makes me cringe to even imagine this.
Actually, I agree with you. I only meant to point out that without some kind of deliberate promotion even really good ideas can be overlooked, but there are ways to do that without acting like Mormon missionaries.
This is very similar to how Magic: the Gathering gets spread; most players learned how to play from someone else.
What community organizational structure are you comfortable with? What tradeoffs will you accept between organizational structure and goal satisfaction?
Does rationalists telling other people about rationality make rationality worse?
It seems to me, though, that the Mormon style of proselytizing is learning about prospective buyers, figuring out how to make their lives better, and then helping implement that. The benefit of that system is you have a knowledgeable person finding the highest-value tip for potential customers, which gets a lot more customers than having your catalog available at the public library and letting them find what suits them best. The question is not whether or not the tip is effective, but who pays to find that out.
I don’t have any goals that would be well served by joining an authoritarian volunteer community. All my goals are well served by my job or my informal social network.
Everything cousin_it says in this thread assume I said it as well.
Then why are you here at all? Or is LW included in the latter? (It’s actually at the ‘formal group’ end of my social experience, but I may be more abnormal than I think...)
Yeah, LW is included in the latter. As far as I can tell, it doesn’t yet require me to tell others what to do or be told what to do :-) For me it’s a place to hang out with smart people and talk about interesting things, like an intellectual nightclub.
One that doesn’t have bouncers at the door to prevent guys coming in unless they bring chicks with them, to keep the balance...
I would think there is some fruitful discussion to be had about which of these techniques are considered valuable, and which would be potentially alienating. Are you objecting to ideas such as “using brief summaries to sell the ideas” as well as to the idea of rationalist communities organized that way?
I’d agree that I don’t want to be part of such a rationalist community, but the idea of using brevity to help market seems useful.
Which specific techniques do you dislike?
What techniques/methodologies do you use to divide techniques you approve of and those you disapprove? Stepping through this process with one of the techniques in the OP’s post would clear up much of why you would leave lesswrong if they became prominent.