Most mainstream medicine professors don’t like alternative medicine. They still didn’t succeed in blocking the CAM program. The CAM people didn’t get their program by avoiding to antagonize mainstream medicine.
LessWrong is filled with a bunch very smart people and highly skilled people in their mid twenties. In one or two decades there a good chance that a fair number of those people are in positions of power. Maybe not enough power to get every university to teach all philosophy courses this way, but enough power to get a few university to make courses to teach philosophy that way.
In a decade Singularity University might be a bigger institution that opens a philosophy bachlor program that teaches philosophy according to the way Luke proposes.
Just because there no way to get such a philosophy program in the next five years, doesn’t mean that it’s an impossible long-term goal.
Trying to avoid to antagonize the establishment is a bad strategy when you to create bigger changes in society.
Trying to avoid to antagonize the establishment is a bad strategy when you to create bigger changes in society.
A better way to put this is “listen to your supporters, not your enemies.” When you want big changes, the establishment will often be your enemy, but it is rarely sensible to assume that they will be.
A better way to put this is “listen to your supporters, not your enemies.”
I don’t think so. In this case it’s more: “Say what you consider to be right, regardles of what other people say.” Don’t tone down your message because it might annoy the establishment. Don’t focus on saying what’s popular.
I don’t think lukeprog wrote the post because being anti-academic philosophy is hip on LessWrong. I don’t think that should be his main consideration when he decides how he writes his posts.
If you focus on saying stuff that might give you a tactical advantage in the moment instead of focusing on having a meaningful message, you are unlikely to say stuff with meaningful long-term impact.
I don’t think so. In this case it’s more: “Say what you consider to be right, regardles of what other people say.” Don’t tone down your message because it might annoy the establishment. Don’t focus on saying what’s popular.
By “a better way to put this” I was referring to the insight of the underlying strategic consideration; good advice rarely takes the form of “don’t take tactics into account, do what feels good.” If your supporters are the type to be fired up by anti-establishment talk, then fire up your supporters; if you would do better with supporters in the establishment, then don’t scare them away because you were harsher than you needed to be.
Compare “philosophers don’t have their act together, this is what it would look like if they did” with “we’re partnering with some professors to launch a MOOC on how to do philosophy from the LW perspective, starting with Pearl and Kahneman and focusing on how to dissolve questions.”
Georgetown University is a prestigious university. They “reformed” medicine education by introducing a new ‘Complementary and Alternative Medicine(CAM)’-program in 2003.
Most mainstream medicine professors don’t like alternative medicine. They still didn’t succeed in blocking the CAM program. The CAM people didn’t get their program by avoiding to antagonize mainstream medicine.
LessWrong is filled with a bunch very smart people and highly skilled people in their mid twenties. In one or two decades there a good chance that a fair number of those people are in positions of power. Maybe not enough power to get every university to teach all philosophy courses this way, but enough power to get a few university to make courses to teach philosophy that way.
In a decade Singularity University might be a bigger institution that opens a philosophy bachlor program that teaches philosophy according to the way Luke proposes.
Just because there no way to get such a philosophy program in the next five years, doesn’t mean that it’s an impossible long-term goal. Trying to avoid to antagonize the establishment is a bad strategy when you to create bigger changes in society.
A better way to put this is “listen to your supporters, not your enemies.” When you want big changes, the establishment will often be your enemy, but it is rarely sensible to assume that they will be.
I don’t think so. In this case it’s more: “Say what you consider to be right, regardles of what other people say.” Don’t tone down your message because it might annoy the establishment. Don’t focus on saying what’s popular.
I don’t think lukeprog wrote the post because being anti-academic philosophy is hip on LessWrong. I don’t think that should be his main consideration when he decides how he writes his posts.
If you focus on saying stuff that might give you a tactical advantage in the moment instead of focusing on having a meaningful message, you are unlikely to say stuff with meaningful long-term impact.
By “a better way to put this” I was referring to the insight of the underlying strategic consideration; good advice rarely takes the form of “don’t take tactics into account, do what feels good.” If your supporters are the type to be fired up by anti-establishment talk, then fire up your supporters; if you would do better with supporters in the establishment, then don’t scare them away because you were harsher than you needed to be.
Compare “philosophers don’t have their act together, this is what it would look like if they did” with “we’re partnering with some professors to launch a MOOC on how to do philosophy from the LW perspective, starting with Pearl and Kahneman and focusing on how to dissolve questions.”
Luke still could have said what he said with a whole lot more tact.