My name’s Normal Anomaly, and I’m paranoid about giving away personal information on the Internet. Also, I don’t like to have any assumptions made about me (though this is likely the last place to worry about that), so I’d rather go without a gender, race, etc. Apologies for the lack of much personal data. I can say that my major interest is biology, although I am not yet anything resembling an expert. I eventually hope to work in life extension research. I’m an Asperger’s Syndrome Sci Fi-loving nerd, which is apparently the norm here.
I used to have religious/spiritual beliefs, though I was also a fan of science and was not a member of an organized religion. I believed it was important to be rational and that I had evidence for my beliefs, but I was rationalizing and refusing to look at the hard questions. A couple years ago, I was exposed to atheism and rationalism and have since been trying to make myself more reasonable/less insane. I found LW through Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality a few months ago, and have been lurking and reading the sequences. I’m still scared of posting on here because it’s the first discussion forum where I have known myself to be intellectually outclassed.
I chose the name Normal Anomaly because in my everyday meatspace life I feel different from (read: superior to) everyone around me, but on LW I feel like an ordinary mortal trying to keep up with people talking over my head. Hopefully I’ve lurked long enough to at least speak the language, and I won’t be an annoyance when I comment. I want to socialize with people superior to me; unfortunately for me, they tend to want the same.
In the time I’ve been lurking, I’ve started seriously considering cryonics and will probably sign up unless something else changes my mind. I think it’s pretty likely that an AGI will be developed eventually, and if it ever is it definitely needs to be Friendly, but I have no idea when other than that I hope it’s in my lifetime, which I want to end only of my own choosing and possibly never.
I’m still scared of posting on here because it’s the first discussion forum where I have known myself to be intellectually outclassed.
I have found that some of the time you can make up for a (perceived) lack of intellect with a little work, and this is true (from my own experience) here on LessWrong: when about to comment on an issue, it pays big dividends to use the search feature to check for something related in previous posts with which you can refine, change, or bolster your position. Of the many times I have done it, twice I caught myself in grievous and totally embarrassing errors!
For what it’s worth, commenting on LW is so far from normal conversation and normal internet use that most intellects haven’t developed methods for it; they have to grind through mostly the same processes as everyone else—and nobody can actually tell if it took you five seconds or five minutes to type your reply. My own replies might be left in the comment box for hours, to be reread with a fresh mind later and changed entirely.
For what it’s worth, commenting on LW is so far from normal conversation and normal internet use that most intellects haven’t developed methods for it
This is interesting—LW seems to be pretty natural for me. I think the only way my posting here is different from anywhere else is that my sentences might be more complex.
On the other hand, once I had a choice, I’ve spent most of my social life in sf fandom, where the way I write isn’t wildly abnormal, I think.
Anyone who’s reading this, do you think what’s wanted at LW is very different from what’s wanted in other venues?
Anyone who’s reading this, do you think what’s wanted at LW is very different from what’s wanted in other venues?
Yes. I get the sense that here you are expected to at least try for rigor.
In other venues—it’s totally ok to randomly riff on a topic without actually having thought deeply about either the consequences, or whether or not there’s any probability of your idea actually having any basis in reality.
LW is substantially higher-level than most (all?) forums that I’ve been to, including private ones and real name only ones. The standard of discourse just seems better here in general.
Wow, that is interesting … conditional on more people feeling this way (LW is natural), I might just have focused my intellect on rhetoric and nonreasonable convincing to the point that following LW’s guidelines is difficult, and then committed the typical mind fallacy and assumed everyone had too.
Actually, I’ve come to notice that rhetoric and other so-called Dark Arts are still worth their weight in gold on LW, except when the harder subjects (math and logic) are at hand.
But LessWrong commenters definitely have plenty of psychological levers, and the demographic uniformity only makes them more effective. For a simple example, I guesstimate that, in just about any comment, a passing mention of how smart LessWrongers are is worth on average 3 or 4 extra karma points—and this is about as old as tricks can get.
Anyone who’s reading this, do you think what’s wanted at LW is very different from what’s wanted in other venues?
I haven’t noticed, but this is the first online community I’ve belonged to. I’m used to writing fiction, which may affect the way I post here, but if it does I don’t notice it affecting it. Commenting feels natural. I don’t try to make my sentences complex; if anything, I try to make them as simple as they can be to still convey my point. And at the very least, my comments and posts aren’t drastically downvoted.
LW feels fairly normal to me as well. It is different than my experience of (most) other forums, but that’s because I adjust myself to be more explicit on other forums about things that I feel should be taken for granted, including all of common sense data, a materialistic worldview, and minor inferential steps. This lets me get to the point rather easily here without having to worry (as much) about being misunderstood.
Are you talking about the level of rationality, about the expected level (or types) of knowledge, or the grammar and sentence structure?
For obvious reasons, the level of rationality expected here is far higher than (AFAIK) anywhere else on the internet.
The expected knowledge at LW...is probably middling to above average for me. More relevantly, much more knowledge of science, and in particular the sciences that contribute to rationality (or, more realistically, the ones touched on in the sequences), which tend to be fairly ‘hard’. I’ve found a much higher knowledge of, e.g. history, classical philosophy, politics/political science, and other ‘softer’ disciplines is expected elsewhere.
As for grammar, I’d say that LW is middling to below average, though this may be availability bias: LW is much larger than most of the other internet communities I belong to, so it could have a higher number of errors while still having a better average level of grammar.
The expected knowledge at LW...is probably middling to above average for me. More relevantly, much more knowledge of science, and in particular the sciences that contribute to rationality (or, more realistically, the ones touched on in the sequences), which tend to be fairly ‘hard’. I’ve found a much higher knowledge of, e.g. history, classical philosophy, politics/political science, and other ‘softer’ disciplines is expected elsewhere.
I presume you are averaging over a high-sophistication sample of the internet, not the internet at large.
This is the first forum on the Internet I’ve been a member of, but the standards of rigor and precision of language expected here are the same as the ones my friends and I expect in our conversations.
Also, I don’t like to have any assumptions made about me (though this is likely the last place to worry about that), so I’d rather go without a gender, race, etc.
FYI, this had a “don’t think of a pink elephant” effect on me. I immediately made guesses about your gender, race and age. I’m betting I’m not the only one. Sorry!
Anyway welcome! Sounds like you’ll fit right in. Don’t be too scared to comment, especially if it is just to ask a question (I don’t recall ever seeing a non-sarcastic question downvoted).
I don’t doubt you, but this is an area where I, and other auties, seem likely to be less well calibrated—we tend to encounter discrimination often enough that it can come to seem like a normal part of interacting with people, rather than something that we should avoid doing. Being made aware of it when that’s the case is then likely to be useful to those of us who’d like to recalibrate ourselves.
Er. For example, it is really hard to communicate here without being totally literal! And people don’t get my jokes!:-)
I wasn’t complaining. I was trying to point out that the risk of being discriminated against for having Aspergers Syndrome here was very low given the high number of autism spectrum commenters here and the general climate of the site. I thought I was making a humorous point about the uniqueness of Less Wrong, like “We’re so different from the rest of the internet; we discriminate against neurotypicals! Take that rest of the world!” while also sort of engaging in collective self-mockery “Less Wrong is a really autistic place.”
I really hope the upvotes are from people who chuckled, and not sympathy for an oppressed minority (in any case I’m like a 26 on the Baron-Cohen quiz).
I did chuckle, actually, but that’s not mutually exclusive with it being a true statement that I haven’t previously noticed the truth of. It’s better to check than to assume, per my values. :)
I really hope the upvotes are from people who chuckled, and not sympathy for an oppressed minority (in any case I’m like a 26 on the Baron-Cohen quiz).
I upvoted due to chuckling, because it contains a nugget of truth.
I don’t believe that neurotypicals are oppressed here, but I can certainly see that NTs would feel marginalised in the same way that auts can feel marginalised in normal social scenes.
I probably go below 26 on the baron-cohen test sometimes (I normally lie at 31, but recent bout of depression has had me at ~38) but if so, I’ve never taken it at such a time (well, I wouldn’t expect to, I’d be too busy socialising)
That’s an interesting choice to not give personal information. Do you find that people tend to jump to conclusions about you? Do you usually tell them that you aren’t giving them that information?
I don’t really know how to deal with multiple replies without making six different comments and clogging the thread, so I’m responding to everyone upthread of me in reverse order.
Nancy: I lurk on a lot more sites than I comment, so I don’t really have the experience to answer those questions. This is the first site I’ve joined where people give away as much info as they do.
Jack: I’m sorry you’re discriminated against and I’ll try not to do it. Also, like I said, I rarely get on forums, so I didn’t know about the “don’t think of a pink elephant effect”. I’m glad you pointed it out.
Carinthium: I’m happy with my Asperger’s; I wouldn’t give up the good parts to get rid of the bad parts. I’ve never encountered discrimination on that score, so it didn’t really occur to me. Besides, it’s the sort of thing that will probably be visible in my comments.
Shokwave: Thanks for the reassurance. I do find the conversation here unique, in content and in tone.
Alicorn: I like e for the subject case, en for the object, and es for possessive, but I don’t use them in meatspace or other forums as much as in my thoughts because it confuses people. I’ll probably use them here. What do you think?
Alicorn: I like e for the subject case, en for the object, and es for possessive, but I don’t use them in meatspace or other forums as much as in my thoughts because it confuses people. I’ll probably use them here. What do you think?
I’ll use those pronouns for you if you prefer them. When I’m picking gender-neutral pronouns on my own I usually use some combination of Spivak and singular “they”.
Welcome! One thing you can easily do without being a super-genius is spread more accurate ideas about cryonics. I get a lot of mileage out of Google Alerts and Yahoo Answers for this purpose. I still don’t have arrangements myself, but I certainly plan to.
My name’s Normal Anomaly, and I’m paranoid about giving away personal information on the Internet. Also, I don’t like to have any assumptions made about me (though this is likely the last place to worry about that), so I’d rather go without a gender, race, etc. Apologies for the lack of much personal data. I can say that my major interest is biology, although I am not yet anything resembling an expert. I eventually hope to work in life extension research. I’m an Asperger’s Syndrome Sci Fi-loving nerd, which is apparently the norm here.
I used to have religious/spiritual beliefs, though I was also a fan of science and was not a member of an organized religion. I believed it was important to be rational and that I had evidence for my beliefs, but I was rationalizing and refusing to look at the hard questions. A couple years ago, I was exposed to atheism and rationalism and have since been trying to make myself more reasonable/less insane. I found LW through Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality a few months ago, and have been lurking and reading the sequences. I’m still scared of posting on here because it’s the first discussion forum where I have known myself to be intellectually outclassed.
I chose the name Normal Anomaly because in my everyday meatspace life I feel different from (read: superior to) everyone around me, but on LW I feel like an ordinary mortal trying to keep up with people talking over my head. Hopefully I’ve lurked long enough to at least speak the language, and I won’t be an annoyance when I comment. I want to socialize with people superior to me; unfortunately for me, they tend to want the same.
In the time I’ve been lurking, I’ve started seriously considering cryonics and will probably sign up unless something else changes my mind. I think it’s pretty likely that an AGI will be developed eventually, and if it ever is it definitely needs to be Friendly, but I have no idea when other than that I hope it’s in my lifetime, which I want to end only of my own choosing and possibly never.
I have found that some of the time you can make up for a (perceived) lack of intellect with a little work, and this is true (from my own experience) here on LessWrong: when about to comment on an issue, it pays big dividends to use the search feature to check for something related in previous posts with which you can refine, change, or bolster your position. Of the many times I have done it, twice I caught myself in grievous and totally embarrassing errors!
For what it’s worth, commenting on LW is so far from normal conversation and normal internet use that most intellects haven’t developed methods for it; they have to grind through mostly the same processes as everyone else—and nobody can actually tell if it took you five seconds or five minutes to type your reply. My own replies might be left in the comment box for hours, to be reread with a fresh mind later and changed entirely.
tl;dr Don’t be afraid to comment!
This is interesting—LW seems to be pretty natural for me. I think the only way my posting here is different from anywhere else is that my sentences might be more complex.
On the other hand, once I had a choice, I’ve spent most of my social life in sf fandom, where the way I write isn’t wildly abnormal, I think.
Anyone who’s reading this, do you think what’s wanted at LW is very different from what’s wanted in other venues?
I find writing on LW pretty ‘normal’, on par with some other forums or blog comments (though with possibly less background hostility and flamewars).
I suspect the ban on discussing politics does more to increase the quality of discourse here than the posts on cognitive bias.
Yes. I get the sense that here you are expected to at least try for rigor.
In other venues—it’s totally ok to randomly riff on a topic without actually having thought deeply about either the consequences, or whether or not there’s any probability of your idea actually having any basis in reality.
LW is substantially higher-level than most (all?) forums that I’ve been to, including private ones and real name only ones. The standard of discourse just seems better here in general.
Wow, that is interesting … conditional on more people feeling this way (LW is natural), I might just have focused my intellect on rhetoric and nonreasonable convincing to the point that following LW’s guidelines is difficult, and then committed the typical mind fallacy and assumed everyone had too.
Actually, I’ve come to notice that rhetoric and other so-called Dark Arts are still worth their weight in gold on LW, except when the harder subjects (math and logic) are at hand.
But LessWrong commenters definitely have plenty of psychological levers, and the demographic uniformity only makes them more effective. For a simple example, I guesstimate that, in just about any comment, a passing mention of how smart LessWrongers are is worth on average 3 or 4 extra karma points—and this is about as old as tricks can get.
But LessWrongers are really smart.
That is a true but banal observation that shouldn’t be worth karma. Of course, so was this response. And so forth.
Of course, LessWrongers are smarter than most people, but what’s really striking is the willingness to update. And the modesty.
Yup, our only flaw is modesty.
I’ve noticed that karma points accrue for witty quips too.
I haven’t noticed, but this is the first online community I’ve belonged to. I’m used to writing fiction, which may affect the way I post here, but if it does I don’t notice it affecting it. Commenting feels natural. I don’t try to make my sentences complex; if anything, I try to make them as simple as they can be to still convey my point. And at the very least, my comments and posts aren’t drastically downvoted.
LW feels fairly normal to me as well. It is different than my experience of (most) other forums, but that’s because I adjust myself to be more explicit on other forums about things that I feel should be taken for granted, including all of common sense data, a materialistic worldview, and minor inferential steps. This lets me get to the point rather easily here without having to worry (as much) about being misunderstood.
Are you talking about the level of rationality, about the expected level (or types) of knowledge, or the grammar and sentence structure?
For obvious reasons, the level of rationality expected here is far higher than (AFAIK) anywhere else on the internet.
The expected knowledge at LW...is probably middling to above average for me. More relevantly, much more knowledge of science, and in particular the sciences that contribute to rationality (or, more realistically, the ones touched on in the sequences), which tend to be fairly ‘hard’. I’ve found a much higher knowledge of, e.g. history, classical philosophy, politics/political science, and other ‘softer’ disciplines is expected elsewhere.
As for grammar, I’d say that LW is middling to below average, though this may be availability bias: LW is much larger than most of the other internet communities I belong to, so it could have a higher number of errors while still having a better average level of grammar.
YouTube, from it’s size, probably has comments closer to “average”.
I presume you are averaging over a high-sophistication sample of the internet, not the internet at large.
This is the first forum on the Internet I’ve been a member of, but the standards of rigor and precision of language expected here are the same as the ones my friends and I expect in our conversations.
Do you have a preferred set of gender-neutral pronouns?
FYI, this had a “don’t think of a pink elephant” effect on me. I immediately made guesses about your gender, race and age. I’m betting I’m not the only one. Sorry!
Anyway welcome! Sounds like you’ll fit right in. Don’t be too scared to comment, especially if it is just to ask a question (I don’t recall ever seeing a non-sarcastic question downvoted).
Mightn’t you be discriminated against for having Aspergers Syndrome? There is presumably some risk of such even here.
I sometimes feel discriminated against here for not being autistic enough.
Can you, or others, give some examples of this?
I don’t doubt you, but this is an area where I, and other auties, seem likely to be less well calibrated—we tend to encounter discrimination often enough that it can come to seem like a normal part of interacting with people, rather than something that we should avoid doing. Being made aware of it when that’s the case is then likely to be useful to those of us who’d like to recalibrate ourselves.
Er. For example, it is really hard to communicate here without being totally literal! And people don’t get my jokes!:-)
I wasn’t complaining. I was trying to point out that the risk of being discriminated against for having Aspergers Syndrome here was very low given the high number of autism spectrum commenters here and the general climate of the site. I thought I was making a humorous point about the uniqueness of Less Wrong, like “We’re so different from the rest of the internet; we discriminate against neurotypicals! Take that rest of the world!” while also sort of engaging in collective self-mockery “Less Wrong is a really autistic place.”
I really hope the upvotes are from people who chuckled, and not sympathy for an oppressed minority (in any case I’m like a 26 on the Baron-Cohen quiz).
Sorry if I alarmed anyone. *Facepalm
I did chuckle, actually, but that’s not mutually exclusive with it being a true statement that I haven’t previously noticed the truth of. It’s better to check than to assume, per my values. :)
I upvoted due to chuckling, because it contains a nugget of truth.
I don’t believe that neurotypicals are oppressed here, but I can certainly see that NTs would feel marginalised in the same way that auts can feel marginalised in normal social scenes.
I probably go below 26 on the baron-cohen test sometimes (I normally lie at 31, but recent bout of depression has had me at ~38) but if so, I’ve never taken it at such a time (well, I wouldn’t expect to, I’d be too busy socialising)
I got that you may have been making a joke, but I wasn’t sure how much truth was behind it. Now that I know it was a joke, I do find it funny.
That’s an interesting choice to not give personal information. Do you find that people tend to jump to conclusions about you? Do you usually tell them that you aren’t giving them that information?
I don’t really know how to deal with multiple replies without making six different comments and clogging the thread, so I’m responding to everyone upthread of me in reverse order.
Nancy: I lurk on a lot more sites than I comment, so I don’t really have the experience to answer those questions. This is the first site I’ve joined where people give away as much info as they do.
Jack: I’m sorry you’re discriminated against and I’ll try not to do it. Also, like I said, I rarely get on forums, so I didn’t know about the “don’t think of a pink elephant effect”. I’m glad you pointed it out.
Carinthium: I’m happy with my Asperger’s; I wouldn’t give up the good parts to get rid of the bad parts. I’ve never encountered discrimination on that score, so it didn’t really occur to me. Besides, it’s the sort of thing that will probably be visible in my comments.
Shokwave: Thanks for the reassurance. I do find the conversation here unique, in content and in tone.
Alicorn: I like e for the subject case, en for the object, and es for possessive, but I don’t use them in meatspace or other forums as much as in my thoughts because it confuses people. I’ll probably use them here. What do you think?
I’ll use those pronouns for you if you prefer them. When I’m picking gender-neutral pronouns on my own I usually use some combination of Spivak and singular “they”.
Welcome! One thing you can easily do without being a super-genius is spread more accurate ideas about cryonics. I get a lot of mileage out of Google Alerts and Yahoo Answers for this purpose. I still don’t have arrangements myself, but I certainly plan to.