I would like to see some targeted efforts to make the Sequences and other rationality materials available to less aspirational, curious or intellectual audiences.
Rationality fiction reaches out to curious audiences. Intellectual audiences may stumble upon rationality material while researching their respective fields of interest. Aspirants to rationality may stumble upon it while looking to better themselves and those around them.
Many ordinary people can benefit from the concepts here. And they will likely find their way to it, should their be an evident benefit to them, by contact with the the above classes of people who are in direct contact with first generation rationality materials produced here. I can see this at my local LW group, where it was hard to find someone who actually read LessWrong, based on my one visit. Though, it may be an artifact of the way the group was marketed in the past outside of the community.
Those who find learning difficult and distasteful can also benefit from rationality materials. So, I would like to start a discussion of suggestions by which material here could be adapted for use by a broader audience. I’ll start us of by introducing the existing evidence on the subject of evidence-based teaching. This is easy, because a gentleman by the name of firstname Hattie synthesised 800 meta-analyses in education to figure that entire field out.
Using his own example, I will share a small mnemonic that future posters may like to keep in mind to keep things more accessible to those less cognitively flexible. It may be easier to take this approach, of consciously adopting writing styles that pander to the lowest common denominator, without reducing the sophistication of the content, than to restyle past discussions and sequences for that purpose.
Have a look at the postings by Gleb Tsipursky who has been deeply involved in exactly such an enterprise: trying to bring rationality to much more widespread (“ordinary”) audiences through a nonprofit organisation “Intentional Insights”.
It is a controversial goal, and he’s certainly faced criticism here on LW for the approach he takes. But very close to the main ideas expressed in your comment.
(I am not affiliated with Gleb or Intentional Insights, just thought it was relevant enough to mention in this context)
I would like to see some targeted efforts to make the Sequences and other rationality materials available to less aspirational, curious or intellectual audiences.
Rationality fiction reaches out to curious audiences. Intellectual audiences may stumble upon rationality material while researching their respective fields of interest. Aspirants to rationality may stumble upon it while looking to better themselves and those around them.
Many ordinary people can benefit from the concepts here. And they will likely find their way to it, should their be an evident benefit to them, by contact with the the above classes of people who are in direct contact with first generation rationality materials produced here. I can see this at my local LW group, where it was hard to find someone who actually read LessWrong, based on my one visit. Though, it may be an artifact of the way the group was marketed in the past outside of the community.
Those who find learning difficult and distasteful can also benefit from rationality materials. So, I would like to start a discussion of suggestions by which material here could be adapted for use by a broader audience. I’ll start us of by introducing the existing evidence on the subject of evidence-based teaching. This is easy, because a gentleman by the name of firstname Hattie synthesised 800 meta-analyses in education to figure that entire field out.
Using his own example, I will share a small mnemonic that future posters may like to keep in mind to keep things more accessible to those less cognitively flexible. It may be easier to take this approach, of consciously adopting writing styles that pander to the lowest common denominator, without reducing the sophistication of the content, than to restyle past discussions and sequences for that purpose.
Have a look at the postings by Gleb Tsipursky who has been deeply involved in exactly such an enterprise: trying to bring rationality to much more widespread (“ordinary”) audiences through a nonprofit organisation “Intentional Insights”.
It is a controversial goal, and he’s certainly faced criticism here on LW for the approach he takes. But very close to the main ideas expressed in your comment.
(I am not affiliated with Gleb or Intentional Insights, just thought it was relevant enough to mention in this context)
Why read him over any basic textbook on the subject?
Most of the basic education textbooks aren’t nearly as thorough.