I’ve had similar ideas, but am closer to your current thinking than (I think) paulfchristiano is. Your enthusiasm is nice, and I want you to be successful, but the devil’s in the details.
Whether people see such an organization working
Yes, but making an organization work is actually really really hard.
And I don’t see much in this post addressing those challenges beyond pointing out that they do in fact need to be addressed. Your “People Stuff”, “Welcome”, “Think”, and “Act” Sections seem to be where the meat of how this organization would actually function, and I see almost no development of the ideas of how it actually works.
Like, no object-level analysis about how you do “people stuff” or how the organization would “act”. Unpacking a bit of your thinking on quotes like:
I would see us reaching out to altruistic individuals and organizations; finding people who are confused, who need help or who are still looking for the right approach. The idea is not to turn them all into rationalists, but rather to use our own rational skills to help and guide them.
would also benefit the article greatly. Are we only trying to help other altruists because that’s easier? Because there are more of them? Or because making people identify as rationalists isn’t the best marginal use of our time with regards to world saving?
Whether they see it as fundamentally different from anything which currently exists
Not really, it seems like what we want is in some ways this, but more effective, more ambitious, and with higher impact. With a bit of community thrown in?
Whether they would want to be a part of it.
Yes. It would be awesome if what (I think) you’re aiming for got working.
and I see almost no development of the ideas of how it actually works
OK—fair point. I haven’t yet addressed how I see the organization being run, as I was planning on waiting until I had some people to organize—I can see now how that thinking was in error. I’ll address it soon.
Or because making people identify as rationalists isn’t the best marginal use of our time
No—making people identify as rationalists is not a good marginal use of time. I want to make people behave as rationalists.
To address your point: learning rationality is a big investment for people, and for most people I believe there are low hanging fruit (i.e. just think about this one thing in this particular way, and you’ll be a lot more effective). In other words, I want to expose people to rationality as a set of tricks for getting what they want, rather than a grand overarching ideology.
This approach may not work though. We may be able to achieve better results by working largely within rationalist subculture. But I think we need to try and find out.
I’ve had similar ideas, but am closer to your current thinking than (I think) paulfchristiano is. Your enthusiasm is nice, and I want you to be successful, but the devil’s in the details.
Yes, but making an organization work is actually really really hard.
And I don’t see much in this post addressing those challenges beyond pointing out that they do in fact need to be addressed. Your “People Stuff”, “Welcome”, “Think”, and “Act” Sections seem to be where the meat of how this organization would actually function, and I see almost no development of the ideas of how it actually works.
Like, no object-level analysis about how you do “people stuff” or how the organization would “act”. Unpacking a bit of your thinking on quotes like:
would also benefit the article greatly. Are we only trying to help other altruists because that’s easier? Because there are more of them? Or because making people identify as rationalists isn’t the best marginal use of our time with regards to world saving?
Not really, it seems like what we want is in some ways this, but more effective, more ambitious, and with higher impact. With a bit of community thrown in?
Yes. It would be awesome if what (I think) you’re aiming for got working.
OK—fair point. I haven’t yet addressed how I see the organization being run, as I was planning on waiting until I had some people to organize—I can see now how that thinking was in error. I’ll address it soon.
No—making people identify as rationalists is not a good marginal use of time. I want to make people behave as rationalists.
To address your point: learning rationality is a big investment for people, and for most people I believe there are low hanging fruit (i.e. just think about this one thing in this particular way, and you’ll be a lot more effective). In other words, I want to expose people to rationality as a set of tricks for getting what they want, rather than a grand overarching ideology.
This approach may not work though. We may be able to achieve better results by working largely within rationalist subculture. But I think we need to try and find out.