Lately I’ve made some posts that were not very popular, to say the least. Yet, they were helpful for me. Because I was able to get some ideas that were stuck in my head out on “paper”, get some feedback on them, and the mostly successfully forget them.
What made those ideas different, and I think part of the reason for downvotes, was as ChristianKl put it: “LessWrong is largely about rational debate. This means that when you make a suggestion, you should provide arguments.”
Well, sometimes I don’t have the time nor the patience to write a 10 page essay with footnotes. Sometimes I just want to throw something out there and see if it sticks in any way with anyone. I bet you do too!
So, I propose a new kind of comment thread. Here, you are welcome to comment with any idea that’s been floating around your head. You don’t need to justify it. It doesn’t have to be “rational.” It doesn’t even need to make sense to you personally. (If you have trouble querying your mind for ideas of this sort, let me know.)
I accept the very low signal to noise ratio this will create. But sometimes noise is exactly what you need to shake your brain up a bit.
If this works well, I’ll create a thread like this every week. I’m also going to ask that if you don’t like this idea, please downvote the post, but not the comments. Be gentle with the commenters and don’t downvote them unless it’s an actively harmful idea.
Unjustified ideas comment thread
Lately I’ve made some posts that were not very popular, to say the least. Yet, they were helpful for me. Because I was able to get some ideas that were stuck in my head out on “paper”, get some feedback on them, and the mostly successfully forget them.
What made those ideas different, and I think part of the reason for downvotes, was as ChristianKl put it: “LessWrong is largely about rational debate. This means that when you make a suggestion, you should provide arguments.”
Well, sometimes I don’t have the time nor the patience to write a 10 page essay with footnotes. Sometimes I just want to throw something out there and see if it sticks in any way with anyone. I bet you do too!
So, I propose a new kind of comment thread. Here, you are welcome to comment with any idea that’s been floating around your head. You don’t need to justify it. It doesn’t have to be “rational.” It doesn’t even need to make sense to you personally. (If you have trouble querying your mind for ideas of this sort, let me know.)
I accept the very low signal to noise ratio this will create. But sometimes noise is exactly what you need to shake your brain up a bit.
If this works well, I’ll create a thread like this every week. I’m also going to ask that if you don’t like this idea, please downvote the post, but not the comments. Be gentle with the commenters and don’t downvote them unless it’s an actively harmful idea.