I don’t think asking people already on LW is a good technique for getting a title that will likely attract new people. We would likely reference terms that only make sense to those who have already read them (indeed a lot of the suggestions so far are rationalist shibboleths/applause lights/puns, which are fun for us but unhelpful). And we know al the evidence about how bad people in general are at simulating other very different minds unless they have particular expertise.
Very few people here likely have the relevant expertise in marketing. Have you considered asking an outside specialist? A good title and marketing can make an orders of magnitude difference in impact (with the obvious implications for spreading ideas better).
My guess is that asking LWers actually is a good way to generate title ideas, because we already know what the book is about; then Luke can go try a bunch of them on non-LWers and figure out which ones don’t turn off everyone else.
I think asking LessWrong is a great idea, because it makes us feel more involved and invested in the end product, and drums up interest in and anticipation for the project. The bad idea is taking LessWrongers’ responses seriously.
[Meta]
I don’t think asking people already on LW is a good technique for getting a title that will likely attract new people. We would likely reference terms that only make sense to those who have already read them (indeed a lot of the suggestions so far are rationalist shibboleths/applause lights/puns, which are fun for us but unhelpful). And we know al the evidence about how bad people in general are at simulating other very different minds unless they have particular expertise.
Very few people here likely have the relevant expertise in marketing. Have you considered asking an outside specialist? A good title and marketing can make an orders of magnitude difference in impact (with the obvious implications for spreading ideas better).
My guess is that asking LWers actually is a good way to generate title ideas, because we already know what the book is about; then Luke can go try a bunch of them on non-LWers and figure out which ones don’t turn off everyone else.
I think asking LessWrong is a great idea, because it makes us feel more involved and invested in the end product, and drums up interest in and anticipation for the project. The bad idea is taking LessWrongers’ responses seriously.