Noted! Also noted, at the risk of passing from “appropriately wary” to “inappropriately wary”: you didn’t actually say that you’re not planning to write a book that presents lesswrongers as weirdos to point and smile at. E.g., what you say is entirely compatible with something that begins “I’ve thought of myself as a rationalist all my life. Recently I discovered an interesting group of people on the internet who also call themselves rationalists. Join me as we take a journey down the rabbit-hole of how ‘rationality’ can lead to freezing your head, reading Harry Potter fanfiction, and running away from imaginary future basilisks.”
Again, maybe I’ve now passed from “appropriately wary” to “inappropriately wary”. But journalistic interest in the LW community in the past has usually consisted of finding some things that can be presented in a way that sounds weird and then presenting them in a way that sounds weird, and the Richlieu principle[1] means that this is pretty easy to do. I’d love to believe that This Time Is Different; maybe it is. But it doesn’t feel like a safe bet.
(I should maybe add that I expect a Jon Ronson book on Those Weird Internet Rationalists would be a lot of fun to read. But of course that’s the problem!)
[1] “Give me six lines written by the most honest of men, and I will find something in them with which to hang him.” Probably not actually said by Richlieu. More generally: if you take a person or, still more, a whole community, and look for any particular thing—weirdness, generosity, dishonesty, creepiness, brilliance, stupidity—in what they’ve said or written, it will probably not be difficult to find it, regardless of the actual nature of the person or community.
But journalistic interest in the LW community in the past has usually consisted of finding some things that can be presented in a way that sounds weird and then presenting them in a way that sounds weird
I read the NYT piece about the workshop yesterday, so I understand what you’re saying. But I should add that I’m less interested in community dynamics than I am in what happens when a person actively attempts to be more rational. So it’s the implementing of the rules that interests me the most… And the ripples that may ensue....
Noted! Also noted, at the risk of passing from “appropriately wary” to “inappropriately wary”: you didn’t actually say that you’re not planning to write a book that presents lesswrongers as weirdos to point and smile at. E.g., what you say is entirely compatible with something that begins “I’ve thought of myself as a rationalist all my life. Recently I discovered an interesting group of people on the internet who also call themselves rationalists. Join me as we take a journey down the rabbit-hole of how ‘rationality’ can lead to freezing your head, reading Harry Potter fanfiction, and running away from imaginary future basilisks.”
Again, maybe I’ve now passed from “appropriately wary” to “inappropriately wary”. But journalistic interest in the LW community in the past has usually consisted of finding some things that can be presented in a way that sounds weird and then presenting them in a way that sounds weird, and the Richlieu principle[1] means that this is pretty easy to do. I’d love to believe that This Time Is Different; maybe it is. But it doesn’t feel like a safe bet.
(I should maybe add that I expect a Jon Ronson book on Those Weird Internet Rationalists would be a lot of fun to read. But of course that’s the problem!)
[1] “Give me six lines written by the most honest of men, and I will find something in them with which to hang him.” Probably not actually said by Richlieu. More generally: if you take a person or, still more, a whole community, and look for any particular thing—weirdness, generosity, dishonesty, creepiness, brilliance, stupidity—in what they’ve said or written, it will probably not be difficult to find it, regardless of the actual nature of the person or community.
Tho there are exceptions worth applauding.
I read the NYT piece about the workshop yesterday, so I understand what you’re saying. But I should add that I’m less interested in community dynamics than I am in what happens when a person actively attempts to be more rational. So it’s the implementing of the rules that interests me the most… And the ripples that may ensue....