LW’s stated mission, IIRC, is roughly “accelerate intellectual progress on the important problems facing humanity”, and I think that’s a basically-accurate description of the value LessWrong provides. The primary utility of LessWrong is in cultural norms and a user base conducive to that mission.
For example, comment boxes on every frontpage post have these guidelines:
Aim to explain, not persuade
Try to offer concrete models and predictions
If you disagree, try getting curious about what your partner is thinking
Don’t be afraid to say ‘oops’ and change your mind
LessWrong’s primary utility is a culture which makes things like that part of a natural, typical communication style.
I would say that a core part of that culture is to generally try to stay on low simulacrum levels—talk literally and directly about our actual models of the world, and mostly not choose our words as moves in a social game. Insofar as simulacrum level 3 is a coordination strategy, that means certain kinds of coordination need to happen somewhere else besides LessWrong. And at current margins, that’s a very worthwhile tradeoff! By default, humans tend to turn every available communication channel into a coordination battleground, so there are few spaces out there which stay at low simulacrum levels, and the marginal value of such spaces is therefore quite high. Thus the value of LessWrong: it’s primarily a forum for intellectual progress, i.e. improving our own understanding, not a forum for political coordination.
While it’s true that simulacrum level 3 is a coordination strategy, I feel that we should be able to build a community that can coordinate while staying on simulacrum level 1. This means we’re allowed to say things like, “I publicly commit to following a system of norms where [something, e.g. using fraud for EA funding] is prohibited”. That is, replace “playing a game while pretending to talk about facts” to “playing a game while being very explicit about the rules and the moves”. Maybe Evan’s choice of language was suboptimal in some ways, but there needs to be some way to say it that doesn’t have to be banished to social media. Among other reasons, I don’t want to rely on social media for anything and personally I don’t use or follow social media at all (I don’t even have an account on anything except linkedin).
LW’s stated mission, IIRC, is roughly “accelerate intellectual progress on the important problems facing humanity”, and I think that’s a basically-accurate description of the value LessWrong provides. The primary utility of LessWrong is in cultural norms and a user base conducive to that mission.
For example, comment boxes on every frontpage post have these guidelines:
LessWrong’s primary utility is a culture which makes things like that part of a natural, typical communication style.
I would say that a core part of that culture is to generally try to stay on low simulacrum levels—talk literally and directly about our actual models of the world, and mostly not choose our words as moves in a social game. Insofar as simulacrum level 3 is a coordination strategy, that means certain kinds of coordination need to happen somewhere else besides LessWrong. And at current margins, that’s a very worthwhile tradeoff! By default, humans tend to turn every available communication channel into a coordination battleground, so there are few spaces out there which stay at low simulacrum levels, and the marginal value of such spaces is therefore quite high. Thus the value of LessWrong: it’s primarily a forum for intellectual progress, i.e. improving our own understanding, not a forum for political coordination.
While it’s true that simulacrum level 3 is a coordination strategy, I feel that we should be able to build a community that can coordinate while staying on simulacrum level 1. This means we’re allowed to say things like, “I publicly commit to following a system of norms where [something, e.g. using fraud for EA funding] is prohibited”. That is, replace “playing a game while pretending to talk about facts” to “playing a game while being very explicit about the rules and the moves”. Maybe Evan’s choice of language was suboptimal in some ways, but there needs to be some way to say it that doesn’t have to be banished to social media. Among other reasons, I don’t want to rely on social media for anything and personally I don’t use or follow social media at all (I don’t even have an account on anything except linkedin).