I doubt there’s much to be done. I wouldn’t be surprised if MIRI shut down LessWrong soon. It’s something of a status drain because of the whole Roko thing and no one seems to use it anymore. Even the open threads seem to be losing steam.
We still get most of the former value from the SlateStarCodex, Gwern.net, and the tumblr scene. Even for rationality, I’m not sure LessWrong is needed now that we have CFAR.
I don’t think a shutdown is even remotely likely. LW is still the Schelling point for rationalist discussion; Roko-gate will follow us regardless; SSC/Gwern.net are personal blogs with discussion sections that are respectively unusable and nonexistent. CFAR is still an IRL thing, and almost all of MIRI/CFAR’s fans have come from the internet.
Agreed though that LW is slowly losing steam, though. Not sure what should be done about it.
Agreed though that LW is slowly losing steam, though. Not sure what should be done about it.
To have a website with content like the original Sequences, we need someone who (a) can produce enough great content, and (b) believes that producing content for a website is the best use of their time.
It already sounds like a paradox: the more rational and awesome a person is, the more likely it is that they can use their time much better than writing a blog.
Well, unless they use the blog to sell something...
I think Eliezer wrote the original Sequences pretty much to find people to cooperate with him at MIRI, and to make people more sympathetic and willing to send money to MIRI. Mission accomplished.
What would be the next mission (for someone else) which could be accomplished by writing interesting articles to LW?
If Less Wrong is, indeed, losing steam as a community (I wouldn’t have considered myself part of it until recently, and hadn’t kept up with it before then), there are options to deal with it.
First, we could create enjoyable media to be enjoyed by large quantities of people, with rationalistic principles, and link back to Less Wrong in it. HPMOR is already a thing, and certainly does well for its purpose of introducing people to and giving some basic instruction in applied rationality. However, as it’s over, the flow of people from the readership it generated has ceased.
Other media is a possibility. If people are interested in supporting Less Wrong and CFAR specifically, there could perhaps be a youtube channel made for it; maybe streaming live discussions and taking questions from the audience. Non-video means are also, obviously, possible. Webcomics are somewhat niche, but could drive readership if a high quality one was made. I’m loathe to suggest getting already-established content creators to read and support Less Wrong, partially because of my own reticence in such, and partially because of a host of problems that would come with that, as our community is somewhat insular, and though welcoming in our own way, Less Wrong often comes off to people as arrogant or elitist.
On that note, while I would not suggest lowering our standards for discourse, I think that in appealing to a larger community it’s necessary to realize that newer members of the community may not have the background necessary to take constructively the criticisms given. I’m not sure how to resolve this problem. Being told to “go and read such and such, then you’ll understand” comes off rudely. Perhaps some form of community primer link on the front page, regarding customs here? The about page is a little cluttered and not entirely helpful. That in addition to a marker next to someone’s name indicating they’re new to Less Wrong could do a lot to help. Furthermore, a section for the “younger” (in terms of account) posters with encouragement for the older ones to come in and help out may be of help.
Well, I could go on for a while longer, but I think that’s enough of a thought dump for now.
“It seems that, if you just present the correct information, five things happen,” he said. “One, students think they know it. Two, they don’t pay their utmost attention. Three, they don’t recognize that what was presented differs from what they were already thinking. Four, they don’t learn a thing. And five, perhaps most troublingly, they get more confident in the ideas they were thinking before.”
If the student feels confused by the video they are more likely to actually update.
The kind of informational videos that are popular aren’t useful for learning and vice versa.
I voted other. The reason I suggested nontextual formats is because I don’t believe that rationality can be taught solely through text, even if I personally prefer to learn that way. I have multiple friends who do not learn well at all in such a manner, but I believe that both of them would learn much more effectively from a video; I suspect this extends out to others, for whom the text dump nature of this site might be intimidating.
I’m not sure about webcomics or Youtube videos. LW is full of essays on abstract philosophical topics; if you don’t like reading, you’re probably not going to get much out of it. I think the biggest ways for people to help LW are:
Write quality posts. There are a bunch of suggestions in this FAQ question.
Share Less Wrong posts with thoughtful people who will find them interesting. Think Facebook friends, your favorite subreddit, etc. Ideally people who are even smarter than you are.
Improving the about page is also high-leverage. I encourage you to suggest concrete changes or simply ignore the existing one and write an alternative about page from scratch so we can take the best ideas from each.
Certainly, writing high quality posts is essential for improving on what we already do well, but as I mentioned in a reply above, not everyone learns best—or at all effectively—that way. To be clear, I’m not suggesting we do any less of that, but I think that we may be limiting ourselves somewhat by producing only that style of content. I think that we would be able to get more people interested in Less Wrong by producing non-textual content as well.
I will note, however, that when I suggested webcomics, I wasn’t specifically intending a webcomic about Less Wrong (although one about biases in general could work quite well!) so much as one written by someone from Less Wrong, with a rationalist bent, to get people interested in it. Although, admittedly, going at it with that goal in mind may produce less effective content.
Regarding improving the about page, the main thing that jumped out to me is that there seem to be far too many hyperlinks. My view of the About page is that it should be for someone just coming into Less Wrong, from some link out there on the net, with no clue what it is. Therefore, there should be less example in the form of a list of links, and more explanation as to what Less Wrong’s function is, and what its community is like.
If someone wants to create a rationalist webcomic, Youtube channel, etc. I’m all for that.
I did the current About page. I put in a lot of links because I remembered someone saying that it seems like people tend to get in to Less Wrong when they read a particular article that really resonates with them, so I figured I would put in lots of links so that people might find one that would resonate. Also, when I come across a new blog that seems interesting, I often look over a bunch of posts trying to find the gems, and providing lots of links seems like it would facilitate this behavior.
What important info about LW’s function/community would you like to see on the about page?
Part of the reason it is losing steam is there is a small quantity of posters that post wayyyy too much using up everyone’s time and they hardly contribute anything. Too many contrarians.
We have a lot of regular haters that could use some toning down.
It’s true that Less Wrong has a reputation for crazy ideas. But as long as it has that reputation, we might as well continue posting crazy ideas here, since crazy ideas can be quite valuable. If LW was “rebooted” in some other form, and crazy ideas were discussed there, the new forum would probably acquire its own reputation for crazy ideas soon enough.
The great thing about LW is that it allows a smart, dedicated, unknown person to share their ideas with a bunch of smart people who will either explain why it’s wrong or change their actions based on it relatively quickly. Many of LW’s former major contributors have now independently acquired large audiences that pay attention to their ideas, so they don’t need LW anymore. But it’s very valuable to leave LW open in order to net new contributors like Nate Soares (who started out writing book reviews for LW and was recently promoted to be MIRI’s executive director). (Come to think of it, lukeprog was also “discovered” through Less Wrong as well… he went from atheist blogger to LW contributor to MIRI visiting fellow to MIRI director.)
Consider also infrequent bloggers. Kaj Sotala’s LW posts seem to get substantially more comments than the posts on his personal blog. Building and retaining an audience on an independent blog requires frequent posting, self-promotion, etc… we shouldn’t require this of people who have something important to say.
I recently joined this site after lurking for awhile. Are blog contributions of that sort are the primary purpose of Less Wrong?
It seems like it fulfills a niche that the avenues you listed do not: specifically, in the capacity of a community rather than an individual, academic, or professional endeavor.
There are applications of rational thought present in these threads that I don’t see gathered anywhere else. I’m sure I’m missing something here, but could viewing Less Wrong as a potential breeding ground for contributors of that kind be useful?
I realize it’s a difficult line to follow without facing the problems inherent to any community, especially one that preaches a Way.
I haven’t encountered the rationalist tumblr scene. Is such a community there?
Eh, it is just useful to have a generic discussion forum on the Internet with a high average IQ and a certain culture of epistemic sanity / trying to avoid at least the worst fallacies and biases. If out of the many ideas in the sequences, at least “tabooing” would get out into the wild so people on other forums would get more used to discussing actual things instead of labels and categories, it could become bearable out there. For example you can hardly have a sane discussion in economics.reddit.com because labels like capitalism and socialism being used as rallying flags.
I doubt there’s much to be done. I wouldn’t be surprised if MIRI shut down LessWrong soon. It’s something of a status drain because of the whole Roko thing and no one seems to use it anymore. Even the open threads seem to be losing steam.
We still get most of the former value from the SlateStarCodex, Gwern.net, and the tumblr scene. Even for rationality, I’m not sure LessWrong is needed now that we have CFAR.
I don’t think a shutdown is even remotely likely. LW is still the Schelling point for rationalist discussion; Roko-gate will follow us regardless; SSC/Gwern.net are personal blogs with discussion sections that are respectively unusable and nonexistent. CFAR is still an IRL thing, and almost all of MIRI/CFAR’s fans have come from the internet.
Agreed though that LW is slowly losing steam, though. Not sure what should be done about it.
To have a website with content like the original Sequences, we need someone who (a) can produce enough great content, and (b) believes that producing content for a website is the best use of their time.
It already sounds like a paradox: the more rational and awesome a person is, the more likely it is that they can use their time much better than writing a blog.
Well, unless they use the blog to sell something...
I think Eliezer wrote the original Sequences pretty much to find people to cooperate with him at MIRI, and to make people more sympathetic and willing to send money to MIRI. Mission accomplished.
What would be the next mission (for someone else) which could be accomplished by writing interesting articles to LW?
If Less Wrong is, indeed, losing steam as a community (I wouldn’t have considered myself part of it until recently, and hadn’t kept up with it before then), there are options to deal with it.
First, we could create enjoyable media to be enjoyed by large quantities of people, with rationalistic principles, and link back to Less Wrong in it. HPMOR is already a thing, and certainly does well for its purpose of introducing people to and giving some basic instruction in applied rationality. However, as it’s over, the flow of people from the readership it generated has ceased.
Other media is a possibility. If people are interested in supporting Less Wrong and CFAR specifically, there could perhaps be a youtube channel made for it; maybe streaming live discussions and taking questions from the audience. Non-video means are also, obviously, possible. Webcomics are somewhat niche, but could drive readership if a high quality one was made. I’m loathe to suggest getting already-established content creators to read and support Less Wrong, partially because of my own reticence in such, and partially because of a host of problems that would come with that, as our community is somewhat insular, and though welcoming in our own way, Less Wrong often comes off to people as arrogant or elitist.
On that note, while I would not suggest lowering our standards for discourse, I think that in appealing to a larger community it’s necessary to realize that newer members of the community may not have the background necessary to take constructively the criticisms given. I’m not sure how to resolve this problem. Being told to “go and read such and such, then you’ll understand” comes off rudely. Perhaps some form of community primer link on the front page, regarding customs here? The about page is a little cluttered and not entirely helpful. That in addition to a marker next to someone’s name indicating they’re new to Less Wrong could do a lot to help. Furthermore, a section for the “younger” (in terms of account) posters with encouragement for the older ones to come in and help out may be of help.
Well, I could go on for a while longer, but I think that’s enough of a thought dump for now.
Your attitude to informational videos is: [pollid:979]
There’s some research that suggests that videos that actually help people to learn aren’t pleasant to watch. http://chronicle.com/article/Confuse-Students-to-Help-Them/148385/
If the student feels confused by the video they are more likely to actually update.
The kind of informational videos that are popular aren’t useful for learning and vice versa.
I voted other. The reason I suggested nontextual formats is because I don’t believe that rationality can be taught solely through text, even if I personally prefer to learn that way. I have multiple friends who do not learn well at all in such a manner, but I believe that both of them would learn much more effectively from a video; I suspect this extends out to others, for whom the text dump nature of this site might be intimidating.
I’m not sure about webcomics or Youtube videos. LW is full of essays on abstract philosophical topics; if you don’t like reading, you’re probably not going to get much out of it. I think the biggest ways for people to help LW are:
Write quality posts. There are a bunch of suggestions in this FAQ question.
Share Less Wrong posts with thoughtful people who will find them interesting. Think Facebook friends, your favorite subreddit, etc. Ideally people who are even smarter than you are.
Improving the about page is also high-leverage. I encourage you to suggest concrete changes or simply ignore the existing one and write an alternative about page from scratch so we can take the best ideas from each.
Certainly, writing high quality posts is essential for improving on what we already do well, but as I mentioned in a reply above, not everyone learns best—or at all effectively—that way. To be clear, I’m not suggesting we do any less of that, but I think that we may be limiting ourselves somewhat by producing only that style of content. I think that we would be able to get more people interested in Less Wrong by producing non-textual content as well.
I will note, however, that when I suggested webcomics, I wasn’t specifically intending a webcomic about Less Wrong (although one about biases in general could work quite well!) so much as one written by someone from Less Wrong, with a rationalist bent, to get people interested in it. Although, admittedly, going at it with that goal in mind may produce less effective content.
Regarding improving the about page, the main thing that jumped out to me is that there seem to be far too many hyperlinks. My view of the About page is that it should be for someone just coming into Less Wrong, from some link out there on the net, with no clue what it is. Therefore, there should be less example in the form of a list of links, and more explanation as to what Less Wrong’s function is, and what its community is like.
If someone wants to create a rationalist webcomic, Youtube channel, etc. I’m all for that.
I did the current About page. I put in a lot of links because I remembered someone saying that it seems like people tend to get in to Less Wrong when they read a particular article that really resonates with them, so I figured I would put in lots of links so that people might find one that would resonate. Also, when I come across a new blog that seems interesting, I often look over a bunch of posts trying to find the gems, and providing lots of links seems like it would facilitate this behavior.
What important info about LW’s function/community would you like to see on the about page?
Part of the reason it is losing steam is there is a small quantity of posters that post wayyyy too much using up everyone’s time and they hardly contribute anything. Too many contrarians.
We have a lot of regular haters that could use some toning down.
It’s true that Less Wrong has a reputation for crazy ideas. But as long as it has that reputation, we might as well continue posting crazy ideas here, since crazy ideas can be quite valuable. If LW was “rebooted” in some other form, and crazy ideas were discussed there, the new forum would probably acquire its own reputation for crazy ideas soon enough.
The great thing about LW is that it allows a smart, dedicated, unknown person to share their ideas with a bunch of smart people who will either explain why it’s wrong or change their actions based on it relatively quickly. Many of LW’s former major contributors have now independently acquired large audiences that pay attention to their ideas, so they don’t need LW anymore. But it’s very valuable to leave LW open in order to net new contributors like Nate Soares (who started out writing book reviews for LW and was recently promoted to be MIRI’s executive director). (Come to think of it, lukeprog was also “discovered” through Less Wrong as well… he went from atheist blogger to LW contributor to MIRI visiting fellow to MIRI director.)
Consider also infrequent bloggers. Kaj Sotala’s LW posts seem to get substantially more comments than the posts on his personal blog. Building and retaining an audience on an independent blog requires frequent posting, self-promotion, etc… we shouldn’t require this of people who have something important to say.
I recently joined this site after lurking for awhile. Are blog contributions of that sort are the primary purpose of Less Wrong?
It seems like it fulfills a niche that the avenues you listed do not: specifically, in the capacity of a community rather than an individual, academic, or professional endeavor.
There are applications of rational thought present in these threads that I don’t see gathered anywhere else. I’m sure I’m missing something here, but could viewing Less Wrong as a potential breeding ground for contributors of that kind be useful?
I realize it’s a difficult line to follow without facing the problems inherent to any community, especially one that preaches a Way.
I haven’t encountered the rationalist tumblr scene. Is such a community there?
Eh, it is just useful to have a generic discussion forum on the Internet with a high average IQ and a certain culture of epistemic sanity / trying to avoid at least the worst fallacies and biases. If out of the many ideas in the sequences, at least “tabooing” would get out into the wild so people on other forums would get more used to discussing actual things instead of labels and categories, it could become bearable out there. For example you can hardly have a sane discussion in economics.reddit.com because labels like capitalism and socialism being used as rallying flags.