I think I agree with the general thrust of this, although I still think you’re underestimating the attractiveness of Sequences-like material to a certain type of teenager. When I was that age, I was reading political philosophy of about the same length and density and, er, somewhat lesser overall quality; the Sequences didn’t exist at the time, but if they had I expect they would have scratched that itch far more effectively. I am of course a sample space of one, but the survey results do seem to suggest that I’m not entirely wrong: we do skew awfully hard towards college-aged people and younger.
In any case, I’m not saying that reading the Sequences isn’t a good idea; if it wasn’t, I wouldn’t have stuck it out that far myself. I just don’t think it’s a particularly good thing to be targeting as part of the initiatory phase of someone’s communication with the LW community. Particularly the physical, person-to-person part of it, which is what I was mainly referring to.
I think I agree with the general thrust of this, although I still think you’re underestimating the attractiveness of Sequences-like material to a certain type of teenager. When I was that age, I was reading political philosophy of about the same length and density and, er, somewhat lesser overall quality; the Sequences didn’t exist at the time, but if they had I expect they would have scratched that itch far more effectively. I am of course a sample space of one, but the survey results do seem to suggest that I’m not entirely wrong: we do skew awfully hard towards college-aged people and younger.
In any case, I’m not saying that reading the Sequences isn’t a good idea; if it wasn’t, I wouldn’t have stuck it out that far myself. I just don’t think it’s a particularly good thing to be targeting as part of the initiatory phase of someone’s communication with the LW community. Particularly the physical, person-to-person part of it, which is what I was mainly referring to.