This is good and bad, but LessWrong’s advantage is in being different, not comfortable.
Personally: If LessWrong is not comfortable for me to post on, I won’t post. And, in fact, my post volume has decreased somewhat because of that. That’s just how my brain is wired, it seems.
I have a lot of thoughts about a lot of things but my post history reveals that I’m like you and a lot like the people this post is geared towards; I don’t share my thoughts because I never have much of an idea how to back them up. Worse though, I can’t even follow this post’s advice, as I mostly have no idea how I come up with any of the things I do, either; I’ve never bothered to pay attention to the process. :/
I think a norm of “somewhat comfortable by default; solicit maximally frank feedback with an end-of-post request” might be good? It may be easier to say “please be harsher on my claims” than “please be courteous with me.”
Oh yeah, I mean I don’t love the discomfort! I just feel like it’s more efficacious for me to just thicken my skin than to hope LW’s basic social dynamic improves notably. Like, when I look back at the tone of discussion when the site was livelier 10 years ago, it’s the same tone on the individual posts. It just comes off differently because of how many posts there are. Here, you get one person’s comment and it’s the whole reaction you experience. Then, there was a sort of averaging thing that I think made it feel less harsh, even though it was the same basic material. If that makes any sense at all :D
Personally: If LessWrong is not comfortable for me to post on, I won’t post. And, in fact, my post volume has decreased somewhat because of that. That’s just how my brain is wired, it seems.
I have a lot of thoughts about a lot of things but my post history reveals that I’m like you and a lot like the people this post is geared towards; I don’t share my thoughts because I never have much of an idea how to back them up. Worse though, I can’t even follow this post’s advice, as I mostly have no idea how I come up with any of the things I do, either; I’ve never bothered to pay attention to the process. :/
Secret secondary goal of this post: get people to pay attention to the process-which-generates their ideas/beliefs/etc.
Yeah, I’m only speaking for myself here :)
I think a norm of “somewhat comfortable by default; solicit maximally frank feedback with an end-of-post request” might be good? It may be easier to say “please be harsher on my claims” than “please be courteous with me.”
Oh yeah, I mean I don’t love the discomfort! I just feel like it’s more efficacious for me to just thicken my skin than to hope LW’s basic social dynamic improves notably. Like, when I look back at the tone of discussion when the site was livelier 10 years ago, it’s the same tone on the individual posts. It just comes off differently because of how many posts there are. Here, you get one person’s comment and it’s the whole reaction you experience. Then, there was a sort of averaging thing that I think made it feel less harsh, even though it was the same basic material. If that makes any sense at all :D