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.
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...