Conversation failing to evolve past the low-hanging fruit
People being reluctant to express thoughts that might make their account look stupid in a way that’s visible to the entire internet
Everyone can participate, and as the number of people involved in a conversation increases it becomes more and more difficult to track all positions
Even lurkers like me can attempt to participate, and it’s costly in terms of conversational effort to figure out what background knowledge someone is missing
Most topics that appear on LessWrong are suited for mental masturbation only, they offer no obvious course of action through which people can decide to care about said topics
There is way, way too much content (heck, I’ve only skimmed through the comments under this post)
Long-running conversations don’t tend to happen; therefore there is little incentive in delving deep into one topic, so people (well, me at least) end up engaging with more topics, but in a shallow manner; which in turn creates conditions where long-running conversations are less likely
Due to the way the platform is designed, the only real way to maintain a long-running conversation between persons A and B is if the pattern of response is ABABABAB..., so anyone not being confident at any point is a single point of failure
I also have a suggestion. After the discussion here inevitably fades, you could write another post in which you summarize the main takeaways and steelman a position or two that look valuable at that time. That might generate further discussion. Repeat. This way you could attempt to keep the flame of the conversation alive. But if you end up doing this, make sure to give the process a name, so that people realize that this is a Thing and that they are able to participate in this-Thing-specific ways.
Yeah those frames all make sense. And I like the idea of a follow up post summarizing the takeaways from the comment section, as well as giving the process a name.
Some frames worth considering:
Strong Prune, weak Babble among LessWrongers
Conversation failing to evolve past the low-hanging fruit
People being reluctant to express thoughts that might make their account look stupid in a way that’s visible to the entire internet
Everyone can participate, and as the number of people involved in a conversation increases it becomes more and more difficult to track all positions
Even lurkers like me can attempt to participate, and it’s costly in terms of conversational effort to figure out what background knowledge someone is missing
Most topics that appear on LessWrong are suited for mental masturbation only, they offer no obvious course of action through which people can decide to care about said topics
There is way, way too much content (heck, I’ve only skimmed through the comments under this post)
Long-running conversations don’t tend to happen; therefore there is little incentive in delving deep into one topic, so people (well, me at least) end up engaging with more topics, but in a shallow manner; which in turn creates conditions where long-running conversations are less likely
Due to the way the platform is designed, the only real way to maintain a long-running conversation between persons A and B is if the pattern of response is ABABABAB..., so anyone not being confident at any point is a single point of failure
I also have a suggestion. After the discussion here inevitably fades, you could write another post in which you summarize the main takeaways and steelman a position or two that look valuable at that time. That might generate further discussion. Repeat. This way you could attempt to keep the flame of the conversation alive. But if you end up doing this, make sure to give the process a name, so that people realize that this is a Thing and that they are able to participate in this-Thing-specific ways.
Yeah those frames all make sense. And I like the idea of a follow up post summarizing the takeaways from the comment section, as well as giving the process a name.