Is Less Wrong discouraging less nerdy people from participating?
Why, yes. Yes it is.
You say that like it’s a bad thing. But just wait ’till the references to Heinlein and Tolkien are replaced by long discussions about Beyonce and the Super Bowl on Less Wrong. Then, see how you like it.
Seriously, how much of a single, unified purpose does Less Wrong actually serve? I know SIAI has its mission, and the masthead asserts that this forum is devoted to “reforming the art of human rationality.” I’m not sure exactly of how these two goals complement each other, or how this forum’s contribution to either or both is measured. Personally, I like this forum on a day-to-day basis mostly because it’s fun, although I find myself increasingly influenced by its worldview all the time.
You say that like it’s a bad thing. But just wait ’till the references to Heinlein and Tolkien are replaced by long discussions about Beyonce and the Super Bowl on Less Wrong. Then, see how you like it.
No one is advocating that we throw in sports and celebrity references. The point was that the large number of references to nerd topics could be a problem. See the difference?
(In any event other comments here especially ata’s comment have reduced my concern.)
No one is advocating that we throw in sports and celebrity references.
I am. Why shouldn’t we?
Admittedly, almost no one who is attracted by discussion of sports and celebrity meets community standards for rationality, most of us would find it difficult to include such references, and it would increase the willpower required to read LW for some people, but these do not mean that we are currently at the optimum level of sport and celebrity references. Given that we’re all a bunch of nerds with a huge grudge against mainstream tastes, it seems quite likely that we’re under investing in sports/celebrity references-I’m quite certain that there are concepts that we discuss which would benefit from comparison to sports/celebrities. Also, though we won’t attract people to LW via sports/celebrity references, that doesn’t mean that we couldn’t raise the sanity waterline outside of LW by creating rationality related material in language that appeals to non-nerds.
it seems quite likely that we’re under investing in sports/celebrity references-I’m quite certain that there are concepts that we discuss which would benefit from comparison to sports/celebrities.
But to grasp those concepts we’d need to actually learn a lot of mostly-useless, occasionally-relevant facts.
When an LW post says Gandalf should have brought Frodo to Rivendell as soon as he suspected he had the One Ring, the whole point of using that example is that readers understand it. If the post had to explain who Gandalf was, there would be no benefit in mentioning Gandalf at all. If the post instead talked about a pop culture reference that most readers wouldn’t get, the post’s value would be lower.
Yes, but at the cost of making it less accessible to the average person. Yes, given that there are very few people who will click with LW who don’t have our community’s cultural knowledge, we should bias (across all posts, comments) toward sf/fantasy/science/tech/whatever, but there are other factors in play, which mean that the current mix is too far away from the mainstream. Given that we enjoy our culture, we should expect that we overuse it, approve of it out of proportion to its worth, even given that our enjoyment of it is a reason to use it, approve of it.
I understand that. I’m not saying that using mainstream references is wrong. But it does require the existing readers and posters to give some personal utility from using LW in exchange for the (impersonal) benefit of LW achieving its goals better.
Admittedly, almost no one who is attracted by discussion of sports and celebrity meets community standards for rationality, most of us would find it difficult to include such references
I don’t know … there are plenty of references to people in comments in the style of celebrity fawning, just that they are niche celebrities instead of mainstream ones.
See this summary of rationality quotes—has fantasy author Terry Pratchett really said more rational quotable things than Einstein, Darwin, Descartes, Dennett, Jaynes, Aristotle and Sagan? Or is it just that people like him more?
Well, sort the same list [by karma votes] instead of number of quotes, and Pratchett moves up from 4th to 2nd.
That seems like either evidence that Pratchett and his fictional worlds have more relevance to rationality than the opening post wants to accept, or evidence that Pratchett is treated as a bit of a celebrity around here and your suggestion that people find it hard to throw in celebrity references isn’t quite right, it’s throwing in the right kind of celebrity references for people who celebrate vastly different properties in people which is hard.
has fantasy author Terry Pratchett really said more rational quotable things than Einstein, Darwin, Descartes, Dennett, Jaynes, Aristotle and Sagan?
Yes (emphasis mine). As an author, especially an author of humorous novels, Terry Pratchett has much stronger pressures to generate text which humans find aesthetically pleasing than famous scientists, who can count on prestige to carry their words to the world.
I don’t know … there are plenty of references to people in comments in the style of celebrity fawning, just that they are niche celebrities instead of mainstream ones.
Every single one of the names you mention are community celebrities, and yes, we fawn on our chosen ones. However, when I say that we should include more celebrity references, I don’t mean we should fawn on celebrities more (neither the community’s or mainstream), I mean that we should be more willing to talk about contemporary gossip, give examples about very widely known people, etc. I know it sounds strange to suggest the former, but I think that having topics which we can use when attempting to interact with normal folk on a non-intellectual level can only help us evangelize, break down stereotypes around rationality, and actually interact with normal people, which I’m told can be intrinsically rewarding. The latter just helps reduce pointless inferential gaps created by culture, not knowledge (for similar reasons, we should avoid the accumulation of jargon).
Seriously, how much of a single, unified purpose does Less Wrong actually serve? I’m not sure exactly of how these two goals complement each other, or how this forum’s contribution to either or both is measured.
Eliezer has written a coupleof posts mentioning how LW helps the SIAI’s mission. As for the other way around, donating to the SIAI has been framed in terms of maximizing marginal expected utility before, which would make it an application of instrumental rationality.
Why, yes. Yes it is.
You say that like it’s a bad thing. But just wait ’till the references to Heinlein and Tolkien are replaced by long discussions about Beyonce and the Super Bowl on Less Wrong. Then, see how you like it.
Seriously, how much of a single, unified purpose does Less Wrong actually serve? I know SIAI has its mission, and the masthead asserts that this forum is devoted to “reforming the art of human rationality.” I’m not sure exactly of how these two goals complement each other, or how this forum’s contribution to either or both is measured. Personally, I like this forum on a day-to-day basis mostly because it’s fun, although I find myself increasingly influenced by its worldview all the time.
No one is advocating that we throw in sports and celebrity references. The point was that the large number of references to nerd topics could be a problem. See the difference?
(In any event other comments here especially ata’s comment have reduced my concern.)
I am. Why shouldn’t we?
Admittedly, almost no one who is attracted by discussion of sports and celebrity meets community standards for rationality, most of us would find it difficult to include such references, and it would increase the willpower required to read LW for some people, but these do not mean that we are currently at the optimum level of sport and celebrity references. Given that we’re all a bunch of nerds with a huge grudge against mainstream tastes, it seems quite likely that we’re under investing in sports/celebrity references-I’m quite certain that there are concepts that we discuss which would benefit from comparison to sports/celebrities. Also, though we won’t attract people to LW via sports/celebrity references, that doesn’t mean that we couldn’t raise the sanity waterline outside of LW by creating rationality related material in language that appeals to non-nerds.
But to grasp those concepts we’d need to actually learn a lot of mostly-useless, occasionally-relevant facts.
When an LW post says Gandalf should have brought Frodo to Rivendell as soon as he suspected he had the One Ring, the whole point of using that example is that readers understand it. If the post had to explain who Gandalf was, there would be no benefit in mentioning Gandalf at all. If the post instead talked about a pop culture reference that most readers wouldn’t get, the post’s value would be lower.
Yes, but at the cost of making it less accessible to the average person. Yes, given that there are very few people who will click with LW who don’t have our community’s cultural knowledge, we should bias (across all posts, comments) toward sf/fantasy/science/tech/whatever, but there are other factors in play, which mean that the current mix is too far away from the mainstream. Given that we enjoy our culture, we should expect that we overuse it, approve of it out of proportion to its worth, even given that our enjoyment of it is a reason to use it, approve of it.
I understand that. I’m not saying that using mainstream references is wrong. But it does require the existing readers and posters to give some personal utility from using LW in exchange for the (impersonal) benefit of LW achieving its goals better.
Well, sure. And I’m sure the community would appreciate suggestions on how to make doing so less expensive/more possible.
I don’t know … there are plenty of references to people in comments in the style of celebrity fawning, just that they are niche celebrities instead of mainstream ones.
See this summary of rationality quotes—has fantasy author Terry Pratchett really said more rational quotable things than Einstein, Darwin, Descartes, Dennett, Jaynes, Aristotle and Sagan? Or is it just that people like him more?
Well, sort the same list [by karma votes] instead of number of quotes, and Pratchett moves up from 4th to 2nd.
That seems like either evidence that Pratchett and his fictional worlds have more relevance to rationality than the opening post wants to accept, or evidence that Pratchett is treated as a bit of a celebrity around here and your suggestion that people find it hard to throw in celebrity references isn’t quite right, it’s throwing in the right kind of celebrity references for people who celebrate vastly different properties in people which is hard.
I don’t think the issue is Pratchett’s rationality so much as his quotability.
Yes (emphasis mine). As an author, especially an author of humorous novels, Terry Pratchett has much stronger pressures to generate text which humans find aesthetically pleasing than famous scientists, who can count on prestige to carry their words to the world.
Every single one of the names you mention are community celebrities, and yes, we fawn on our chosen ones. However, when I say that we should include more celebrity references, I don’t mean we should fawn on celebrities more (neither the community’s or mainstream), I mean that we should be more willing to talk about contemporary gossip, give examples about very widely known people, etc. I know it sounds strange to suggest the former, but I think that having topics which we can use when attempting to interact with normal folk on a non-intellectual level can only help us evangelize, break down stereotypes around rationality, and actually interact with normal people, which I’m told can be intrinsically rewarding. The latter just helps reduce pointless inferential gaps created by culture, not knowledge (for similar reasons, we should avoid the accumulation of jargon).
Eliezer has written a couple of posts mentioning how LW helps the SIAI’s mission. As for the other way around, donating to the SIAI has been framed in terms of maximizing marginal expected utility before, which would make it an application of instrumental rationality.
Exactly!