I agree, and you’re pointing pretty directly at what hurt LessWrong as a community in and of itself: too high standards made the space feel unsafe for anyone wanting to discuss ideas not within a narrow band of things everyone in the community agreed were worth talking about. Only having discussion and only allowing upvotes seems to have helped a lot here, but that’s beside your larger point.
I don’t know about online, but we have some pretty strong communities in person. In particular, the friend networks in the Bay Area and New York are reasonably strong and resemble the sort of community you get with a small religious order that is embedded in a larger community. That we are all pretty different seems fine and even desirable even if that means all that unifies some of us is a very vague connection of “read a few of the same things”.
But those few things in common are important to us, and so they bind us.
If you are looking for how to connect more with people and building your friend network, I suggest the following:
attend events like a CFAR workshop or EA global
get to know some people there and friend them on facebook (most of us are connected online via facebook)
maintain the online connections
visit people in person when you can (if you can pay for a flight and food, you can use these friends to string together crash space to avoid paying for hotels because even if they can’t host you they probably know someone who can)
and if you really want to get deep in the community, move to one of the hubs (Bay Area or New York)
I agree, and you’re pointing pretty directly at what hurt LessWrong as a community in and of itself: too high standards made the space feel unsafe for anyone wanting to discuss ideas not within a narrow band of things everyone in the community agreed were worth talking about. Only having discussion and only allowing upvotes seems to have helped a lot here, but that’s beside your larger point.
I don’t know about online, but we have some pretty strong communities in person. In particular, the friend networks in the Bay Area and New York are reasonably strong and resemble the sort of community you get with a small religious order that is embedded in a larger community. That we are all pretty different seems fine and even desirable even if that means all that unifies some of us is a very vague connection of “read a few of the same things”.
But those few things in common are important to us, and so they bind us.
If you are looking for how to connect more with people and building your friend network, I suggest the following:
attend events like a CFAR workshop or EA global
get to know some people there and friend them on facebook (most of us are connected online via facebook)
maintain the online connections
visit people in person when you can (if you can pay for a flight and food, you can use these friends to string together crash space to avoid paying for hotels because even if they can’t host you they probably know someone who can)
and if you really want to get deep in the community, move to one of the hubs (Bay Area or New York)
In the US Seatle also has a striving community.
In Europe, Berlin has a decent community. It’s not as strong as the US communities but it has multiple regular events.