“Ravenclaws are smart, we should be more like that” seems like a reasonable if very lossy summary of the whole rationalist project. If there was a useful book on how to be smarter and how to use my intellect more effectively, I would read that book. If a useful book on how to be hardworking and how to effectively benefit from teamwork were written, I would probably also read that book. (I know of and have read several of each of those books actually, though how useful they are varies.)
Writing a book of Hufflepuff and stopping there seems like it would miss the point however. While the natural form of “How to be a Ravenclaw” is as a book to be consumed by lone smart scholars, the natural form of “How to be a Hufflepuff” is probably as a community- it’s the best way to learn that skillset, the best way for those who are naturally good at the skillset to teach it, and the end goal of the skillset. (C’mon Ravenclaws, admit it- our end goal is usually to have more books ;) )
the natural form of “How to be a Hufflepuff” is probably as a community- it’s the best way to learn that skillset, the best way for those who are naturally good at the skillset to teach it, and the end goal of the skillset.
+1 to this. The whole point of writing blog posts that muse on the nature of having good communities is to have it actually bottom-out at some point in practice. Which means going into the world and actually trying to make our communities better.
“Ravenclaw wanted to have better communities, so they wrote a book about it and other Ravenclaws all separately read the book, and nothing further happened” sounds like such a probable way for this to fail that it’d be almost as funny as it would be sad. I assume Raemon has foreseen this possibility and has some plan to counteract this. To be clear, writing a book (or a series of blog posts) is a good way to get an idea across to Ravenclawish people, and emotional/mythic calls to action like this seem like a good piece of that plan.
As a datapoint, at the end of reading this post I was feeling inspired and positive about the project. That doesn’t seem to have bottomed out into any useful actions, but I’m pretty geographically isolated, and I did spend some time thinking of virtual community-focused actions that might be helpful.
Then again, “read a book about community, which prompted introspective thought about abstract community building plans” also sounds like a stereotypical Ravenclaw action. Darn.
Edit: I’m not saying Ravenclaw tendencies are a bad thing or that we want to diminish those values. Those values are some of my favourite things about this community. I am saying (while attempting to be humorous) that writing and abstractly thinking about how to Hufflepuff might be sort of like trying to mix lots of shades of blue in order to get green. Sometimes you need yellow as a primary source, and can’t engineer it out of blue.
“Ravenclaw wanted to have better communities, so they wrote a book about it and other Ravenclaws all separately read the book, and nothing further happened” sounds like such a probable way for this to fail that it’d be almost as funny as it would be sad. I assume Raemon has foreseen this possibility and has some plan to counteract this.
Part of the plan seems to be “Get people together for an unconference to talk”.
Our community does seem to have enough pull to Ravenclaw Together that CFAR workshops are a thing and everyone ends up moving the the Bay (or New York). Though that does seem like a pretty strong failure mode. And as Raemon mentioned below, there is the unconference in the works.
Also, if posts about how to change your thinking can sway the way so many of us conduct ourselves, posts about changing the ways we act and feel could surely make enough headway with a significant enough portion of the community.
Side note: your last few bits did shed light on why it may be important to emphasize Hufflepuff work ethic among Ravenclaws :P
Our community does seem to have enough pull to Ravenclaw Together that CFAR workshops are a thing and everyone ends up moving the the Bay (or New York).
CFAR does teach skills about emotional awareness like Focusing. If the skill that’s to be developed is “”Effortful attention to your own emotions and the emotions of others” CFAR helps.
This was a reminder that I forgot to include the link to the Unconference at the end. (added now).
If you’re geographically isolated, good next actions might include putting out a call to see if there’s interest in a meetup in your area. (I’d suggest very different things for people who don’t have an existing community that the sort of stuff Project Hufflepuff is trying to do—Project Hufflepuff is more of set of possible actions for communities that have hit a baseline “bunch of people exist who are interacting with each other”
Hrm, you’re right. We clearly need to come up with an aesthetic modification for smartphones that makes them at least as cool as undetectable extension pouches.
“Ravenclaws are smart, we should be more like that” seems like a reasonable if very lossy summary of the whole rationalist project. If there was a useful book on how to be smarter and how to use my intellect more effectively, I would read that book. If a useful book on how to be hardworking and how to effectively benefit from teamwork were written, I would probably also read that book. (I know of and have read several of each of those books actually, though how useful they are varies.)
Writing a book of Hufflepuff and stopping there seems like it would miss the point however. While the natural form of “How to be a Ravenclaw” is as a book to be consumed by lone smart scholars, the natural form of “How to be a Hufflepuff” is probably as a community- it’s the best way to learn that skillset, the best way for those who are naturally good at the skillset to teach it, and the end goal of the skillset. (C’mon Ravenclaws, admit it- our end goal is usually to have more books ;) )
+1 to this. The whole point of writing blog posts that muse on the nature of having good communities is to have it actually bottom-out at some point in practice. Which means going into the world and actually trying to make our communities better.
“Ravenclaw wanted to have better communities, so they wrote a book about it and other Ravenclaws all separately read the book, and nothing further happened” sounds like such a probable way for this to fail that it’d be almost as funny as it would be sad. I assume Raemon has foreseen this possibility and has some plan to counteract this. To be clear, writing a book (or a series of blog posts) is a good way to get an idea across to Ravenclawish people, and emotional/mythic calls to action like this seem like a good piece of that plan.
As a datapoint, at the end of reading this post I was feeling inspired and positive about the project. That doesn’t seem to have bottomed out into any useful actions, but I’m pretty geographically isolated, and I did spend some time thinking of virtual community-focused actions that might be helpful.
Then again, “read a book about community, which prompted introspective thought about abstract community building plans” also sounds like a stereotypical Ravenclaw action. Darn.
Edit: I’m not saying Ravenclaw tendencies are a bad thing or that we want to diminish those values. Those values are some of my favourite things about this community. I am saying (while attempting to be humorous) that writing and abstractly thinking about how to Hufflepuff might be sort of like trying to mix lots of shades of blue in order to get green. Sometimes you need yellow as a primary source, and can’t engineer it out of blue.
Part of the plan seems to be “Get people together for an unconference to talk”.
Our community does seem to have enough pull to Ravenclaw Together that CFAR workshops are a thing and everyone ends up moving the the Bay (or New York). Though that does seem like a pretty strong failure mode. And as Raemon mentioned below, there is the unconference in the works.
Also, if posts about how to change your thinking can sway the way so many of us conduct ourselves, posts about changing the ways we act and feel could surely make enough headway with a significant enough portion of the community.
Side note: your last few bits did shed light on why it may be important to emphasize Hufflepuff work ethic among Ravenclaws :P
CFAR does teach skills about emotional awareness like Focusing. If the skill that’s to be developed is “”Effortful attention to your own emotions and the emotions of others” CFAR helps.
This was a reminder that I forgot to include the link to the Unconference at the end. (added now).
If you’re geographically isolated, good next actions might include putting out a call to see if there’s interest in a meetup in your area. (I’d suggest very different things for people who don’t have an existing community that the sort of stuff Project Hufflepuff is trying to do—Project Hufflepuff is more of set of possible actions for communities that have hit a baseline “bunch of people exist who are interacting with each other”
The internet and kindle have really screwed with the Ravenclaw aesthetic. (It’s a good thing HPMoR is set in 1991)
Tony Stark is where that aesthetic is now, for better or for worse.
Hrm, you’re right. We clearly need to come up with an aesthetic modification for smartphones that makes them at least as cool as undetectable extension pouches.