people were donating. We started getting donations right away, via Paypal. We even got congratulatory notes saying how the appeal had finally gotten them to start moving. (...) But none of those donors posted their agreement to the mailing list. Not one. So far as any of those donors knew, they were alone. And when they tuned in the next day, they discovered not thanks, but arguments for why they shouldn’t have donated. The criticisms, the justifications for not donating—only those were displayed proudly in the open.
Maybe we are doing a similar thing here, only instead of “donating / not donating”, the choice is “doing / not doing”. People are doing stuff—in private. (At least sometimes we have a bragging thread. For individuals.) Publicly—we complain that LessWrong is dying, or that LessWrong is all procrastination and no action. And then we upvote the complaints for the courage, or perhaps hoping that it will make someone else do something.
I guess what I would like to see here is something like the bragging threads… but for groups of rationalists. Perhaps with posts instead of comments, although comments are still better than nothing. Do something awesome; post the results and what you learned. Doesn’t have to be rationality in general, or AI, or quantum physics; it could be anything you care about, as long as you are willing to use your reason while doing it. It could be even learning together, or solving Project Euler together. Something you decide to do, and kinda precommit to publish your achievements and/or failures.
(Technically, organizing local meetups is also a project LessWrongers do in groups, so at least this kind of taskforces already provably exists.)
It seems to me like if you want to start a task force, start a task force. No rebranding needed.
This strikes me as close to right. LW might be a good place, though not the only good place, to announce starting a task force. If you attract people who are willing and able to do the work, then LW might or might not turn out to be a good place for primary discussion of what the task force is doing.
It seems to me like if you want to start a task force, start a task force. No rebranding needed.
Unless “officially” encouraged by LW, people may be doing it away from LW, so it may not be visibly displayed here.
Somewhat related: “Why Our Kind Can’t Cooperate”:
Maybe we are doing a similar thing here, only instead of “donating / not donating”, the choice is “doing / not doing”. People are doing stuff—in private. (At least sometimes we have a bragging thread. For individuals.) Publicly—we complain that LessWrong is dying, or that LessWrong is all procrastination and no action. And then we upvote the complaints for the courage, or perhaps hoping that it will make someone else do something.
I guess what I would like to see here is something like the bragging threads… but for groups of rationalists. Perhaps with posts instead of comments, although comments are still better than nothing. Do something awesome; post the results and what you learned. Doesn’t have to be rationality in general, or AI, or quantum physics; it could be anything you care about, as long as you are willing to use your reason while doing it. It could be even learning together, or solving Project Euler together. Something you decide to do, and kinda precommit to publish your achievements and/or failures.
(Technically, organizing local meetups is also a project LessWrongers do in groups, so at least this kind of taskforces already provably exists.)
This strikes me as close to right. LW might be a good place, though not the only good place, to announce starting a task force. If you attract people who are willing and able to do the work, then LW might or might not turn out to be a good place for primary discussion of what the task force is doing.