writing with them in mind helps make writing posts sharpen thinking. We have the distribution of potential readers that we actually have.
For sure! This is part of why the post took me over a year; I did in fact work hard to strike what I felt was a workable compromise between me-and-the-culture-I’d-like-us-to-have and the-culture-we-currently-have.
Some of what’s going on with my apologetic frustration above is, like, “Gosh, I’ve already worked real hard to bridge the gap/come substantially toward a compromise position, but of course you all don’t know that/can’t be expected to have seen any of that work, and thus to me it feels like there’s a real meta question about ‘did you go far enough/do an effective-enough job’ and it’s hard to make visceral to myself that y’all’s stance on that question is (probably) different than it would be if you had total extrospective access to my brain.”
I do not at all mean to criticize you deeply. this is a great post. I just want to be able to use it in conversations on discord where people are new to the concept with somewhat less difficulty. I linked it somewhere and got the immediate response “it opens with a quote from that one lady, close”, and another who was approximately like “geez that’s long, can you summarize”. Yes, I know you’d wish that the sanity waterline was higher than that; and you did do a great job building this ladder to dip into the sanity so the sanity can climb the ladder. I just wanted to have a link that would clearly signal “you don’t have to read the rest if you decide the intro isn’t worth it”. It’s a small edit, and your existing work into making the thing doesn’t make it impossible to change it further. honestly when I first posted my comment I thought I was being constructive and friendly.
I linked it somewhere and got the immediate response “it opens with a quote from that one lady, close”
Why in the world would we want to optimize for engagement with people like that…? Excluding those who react in such a way seems to me to be a good thing.
This is my sense as well, but this is in large part the core of the cultural disagreement, I think?
Like, back in the early 2000′s, there was a parkour community centered around a web forum, NCparkour.com. And there was a constant back-and-forth tension between:
a) have a big tent; bring in as many people as possible; gradually infect them with knowledge and discipline and the proper way of doing things
b) have standards; have boundaries; make clear what we’re here to do and do not be particularly welcoming or tolerant of people whose default way of being undermines that mission
My sense is that, if you’re an a-er, the above mentality seems like a CLEAR mistake, à la “why would you drive away someone who’s a mere two or three insights away from being a good and productive member of our culture??”
And if you’re a b-er, the above mentality is like, yep, two or three insights away from good is a vast and oft-insurmountable distance, people generally don’t change and even if they do we’re not going to be able to change them from the outside. Let’s not dilute our subculture by allowing in a bunch of “”voters”″ who don’t even understand what we’re trying to do, here (and will therefore ruin it).
My sense is that LessWrong has historically been closer to a than to b, though not so close to a that, as a b-er, I feel like it’s shooting itself in the foot. More like, just failing to be the shining city on the hill that it could be.
(Also, more of a side note, but: the quoted text is not from J.K. Rowling.)
(I like and have upvoted the above)
For sure! This is part of why the post took me over a year; I did in fact work hard to strike what I felt was a workable compromise between me-and-the-culture-I’d-like-us-to-have and the-culture-we-currently-have.
Some of what’s going on with my apologetic frustration above is, like, “Gosh, I’ve already worked real hard to bridge the gap/come substantially toward a compromise position, but of course you all don’t know that/can’t be expected to have seen any of that work, and thus to me it feels like there’s a real meta question about ‘did you go far enough/do an effective-enough job’ and it’s hard to make visceral to myself that y’all’s stance on that question is (probably) different than it would be if you had total extrospective access to my brain.”
I do not at all mean to criticize you deeply. this is a great post. I just want to be able to use it in conversations on discord where people are new to the concept with somewhat less difficulty. I linked it somewhere and got the immediate response “it opens with a quote from that one lady, close”, and another who was approximately like “geez that’s long, can you summarize”. Yes, I know you’d wish that the sanity waterline was higher than that; and you did do a great job building this ladder to dip into the sanity so the sanity can climb the ladder. I just wanted to have a link that would clearly signal “you don’t have to read the rest if you decide the intro isn’t worth it”. It’s a small edit, and your existing work into making the thing doesn’t make it impossible to change it further. honestly when I first posted my comment I thought I was being constructive and friendly.
Having read to this point in the thread, part of me wants this post to be called “Basics Of Intermediate Rationalist Discourse”.
Just copy paste the bullet points.
reasonable.
Why in the world would we want to optimize for engagement with people like that…? Excluding those who react in such a way seems to me to be a good thing.
This is my sense as well, but this is in large part the core of the cultural disagreement, I think?
Like, back in the early 2000′s, there was a parkour community centered around a web forum, NCparkour.com. And there was a constant back-and-forth tension between:
a) have a big tent; bring in as many people as possible; gradually infect them with knowledge and discipline and the proper way of doing things
b) have standards; have boundaries; make clear what we’re here to do and do not be particularly welcoming or tolerant of people whose default way of being undermines that mission
My sense is that, if you’re an a-er, the above mentality seems like a CLEAR mistake, à la “why would you drive away someone who’s a mere two or three insights away from being a good and productive member of our culture??”
And if you’re a b-er, the above mentality is like, yep, two or three insights away from good is a vast and oft-insurmountable distance, people generally don’t change and even if they do we’re not going to be able to change them from the outside. Let’s not dilute our subculture by allowing in a bunch of “”voters”″ who don’t even understand what we’re trying to do, here (and will therefore ruin it).
My sense is that LessWrong has historically been closer to a than to b, though not so close to a that, as a b-er, I feel like it’s shooting itself in the foot. More like, just failing to be the shining city on the hill that it could be.
(Also, more of a side note, but: the quoted text is not from J.K. Rowling.)