Yep. It doesn’t have to be anti-transhumanist, or anti-anything—it just needs to be more on topic, and less off topic. Here’s a suggestion list.
Note that I’ve been here three weeks, so (per Shirky’s A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy, which appears to have fallen offline—Google cache for the moment) have much less claim to the secret of making LW the social forum from Rationalist Heaven than those who’ve been here three years. So evaluate my words with a suitable quantity of salt. OTOH, it was basically in agreement with Yvain, the second-rated poster on the site and a transhumanist.
I find it very pleasing that I have been able to make quite strong criticisms (e.g.) of locally favoured memes and get upvoted, because I’ve taken the time to show my working, link my references and show my understanding of what I’m criticising. So the moderation system (“vote up what you want more of”) appears to work as advertised.
And I’ve found it personally very useful discipline in learning to think clearly as I write, instead of just spewing abuse at people for being stupid. Not that there’s no place for that sort of thing, just that this isn’t it and it’s not an effective way to convince someone they’re wrong.
Yep. It doesn’t have to be anti-transhumanist, or anti-anything—it just needs to be more on topic, and less off topic. Here’s a suggestion list.
Note that I’ve been here three weeks, so (per Shirky’s A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy, which appears to have fallen offline—Google cache for the moment) have much less claim to the secret of making LW the social forum from Rationalist Heaven than those who’ve been here three years. So evaluate my words with a suitable quantity of salt. OTOH, it was basically in agreement with Yvain, the second-rated poster on the site and a transhumanist.
I find it very pleasing that I have been able to make quite strong criticisms (e.g.) of locally favoured memes and get upvoted, because I’ve taken the time to show my working, link my references and show my understanding of what I’m criticising. So the moderation system (“vote up what you want more of”) appears to work as advertised.
And I’ve found it personally very useful discipline in learning to think clearly as I write, instead of just spewing abuse at people for being stupid. Not that there’s no place for that sort of thing, just that this isn’t it and it’s not an effective way to convince someone they’re wrong.