One possible approach is to go meta and write about what you wanted to read but couldn’t find… that is, the summary of “what is currently being done in the rationalist community”. There is at least one person who would like to read such article: you! And the chance is, you are not alone.
(This is analogical to a classical advice for wannabe entrepreneurs: make stuff that you wanted to buy but you couldn’t find it on the market. It means you have identified a real issue, and chance is there are other people in a situation similar to yours, i.e. your potential future customers.)
Making the complete summary at once could be difficult, so you could write it as a series of articles. Make research about who is doing what, and when you have enough material for an article, write it. Maybe one article about organizations such as MIRI and CFAR, another article about local meetups, next article about podcasts… dunno, is there anything else? Probably yes.
Problem is, being a newcomer is a disadvantage at doing such research: you start from the position of having less knowledge than your future readers, so you much work twice as hard to get ahead of them. (You wouldn’t want to write an equivalent of: “Hey guys, have you heard that there is an organization called MIRI trying to prevent an artificial intelligence from killing us all? Weird, huh?”) But if you approach the topic diligently, study the available material, perhaps ask a few questions, and find volunteers to review the draft of your article… it can be done.
>>> You wouldn’t want to write an equivalent of: “Hey guys, …
Well, what would be the problem in that?
The only problem in writing something redundant (here or anywhere) would be that I might lose credit from some readers (worst case also from readers of their responses) and they might respond in a way that might frustrate and / or disencourage me.
But since we are all debugged here (are you?), this wouldnt happen, so whats the big deal? :-)
This is a website anyone can join. Some people participate here for years; some came yesterday; plus anything in between. So even the “most obvious” information may be valuable for those who joined yesterday (assuming it is correct). But of course, the larger audience finds it valuable, the better.
an interesting experiment … see the reactions … provokative
Uhm, please don’t. (Or get ready to be downvoted; that is a rational response to having one’s time wasted by provocations, isn’t it?)
>>> Seems like you are looking for an excuse to create your own website.
Wow! I didn’t see that one comin’...
I rather expected someone “accusing” me of looking for an excuse NOT to create my own website. :-)
I know I dont need to ask for permission.
But knowing whats going on might help not to write redundant stuff or simply help me focus on the right stuff etc.
One possible approach is to go meta and write about what you wanted to read but couldn’t find… that is, the summary of “what is currently being done in the rationalist community”. There is at least one person who would like to read such article: you! And the chance is, you are not alone.
(This is analogical to a classical advice for wannabe entrepreneurs: make stuff that you wanted to buy but you couldn’t find it on the market. It means you have identified a real issue, and chance is there are other people in a situation similar to yours, i.e. your potential future customers.)
Making the complete summary at once could be difficult, so you could write it as a series of articles. Make research about who is doing what, and when you have enough material for an article, write it. Maybe one article about organizations such as MIRI and CFAR, another article about local meetups, next article about podcasts… dunno, is there anything else? Probably yes.
Problem is, being a newcomer is a disadvantage at doing such research: you start from the position of having less knowledge than your future readers, so you much work twice as hard to get ahead of them. (You wouldn’t want to write an equivalent of: “Hey guys, have you heard that there is an organization called MIRI trying to prevent an artificial intelligence from killing us all? Weird, huh?”) But if you approach the topic diligently, study the available material, perhaps ask a few questions, and find volunteers to review the draft of your article… it can be done.
OK, so I will focus to theory here on LW.
>>> You wouldn’t want to write an equivalent of: “Hey guys, …
Well, what would be the problem in that?
The only problem in writing something redundant (here or anywhere) would be that I might lose credit from some readers (worst case also from readers of their responses) and they might respond in a way that might frustrate and / or disencourage me.
But since we are all debugged here (are you?), this wouldnt happen, so whats the big deal? :-)
Obvious things are handy. It’s hard to know when someone has a small hole in their knowledge.
Please be more concrete.
I anticipate ordinary folks to have nothing but holes in hardly any knowledge.
It might be an interesting experiment making such a post (ie. the above motivated but naive, newbie “Hey guys, …” kinda post) and see the reactions.
As provokative as that may be, it might reveal how debugged fellow rationalist really are...
Possibly related to Elo’s comment: On saying the obvious
This is a website anyone can join. Some people participate here for years; some came yesterday; plus anything in between. So even the “most obvious” information may be valuable for those who joined yesterday (assuming it is correct). But of course, the larger audience finds it valuable, the better.
Uhm, please don’t. (Or get ready to be downvoted; that is a rational response to having one’s time wasted by provocations, isn’t it?)