I simultaneously want to agree and disagree with your post. I, too, find LW useful for the reasons you laid out. I get a lot of value from posts the posts that teach question dissolving, righting wrong questions, holding off on proposing solutions, etc. I can take these skills and apply them to real world situations.
On the other hand, I’m not at the level where I can reliably apply these tools to the most important decisions I face in my life. There are some situations/choice that I need help from others to solve; I need help applying the instrumental rationality I learned from the aforementioned posts. I feel that posts on how to apply instrumental rationality can be germane to LW discourse. When I have done them, they have been very helpful. I’ve also gotten positive feedback from others.
Right now, I’m visually imagining of linear spectrum of possible LW posts. On the left end, there is the type of post you talked about, such as Yvain’s diseased thinking. On the right end, there’s completely unsuitable posts for LW. Porn, politics, etc. Between these two ends there is a vast span of posts that are germane to varying degrees.
Obviously (?), those on the right side of the spectrum I don’t want to see at all on LW. Like you say, there’s the whole wide internet to use. We need to help a well kept garden.
Maybe the “rational toothpaste thread” is only 60% appropriate for LW. (That’s more or less a number I pulled out the air based on my feelings.) It’s somewhere on the left side of the spectrum, but close to the center. I wouldn’t want to see numerous posts like that all the time, but I don’t mind seeing a few in discussion every once in a while.
More appropriate to LW is a post about applying instrumental rationality to choosing a major, college, or career. I’d say these questions fall between the left end of the spectrum and the “rational toothpaste” type threads. Unlike toothpaste, these are very important questions that are harder to solve than what toothpaste to buy. I would actually like to see a bit more of these.
So all that said, I think your criteria is too strict for my tastes. Yes, LW should definitely have a focus on learning epistemic/instrumental rationality. But I’d also like to posts on applying rationality to important topics. I think both can compliment each other nicely, and both are useful.
Edit: Just to be clear, the criteria I’m refering to is this:
LessWrong posts [...] can talk about other things too, but the question should always be “What can X teach us about rationality?” and not “What can rationality teach us about X?”
I simultaneously want to agree and disagree with your post. I, too, find LW useful for the reasons you laid out. I get a lot of value from posts the posts that teach question dissolving, righting wrong questions, holding off on proposing solutions, etc. I can take these skills and apply them to real world situations.
On the other hand, I’m not at the level where I can reliably apply these tools to the most important decisions I face in my life. There are some situations/choice that I need help from others to solve; I need help applying the instrumental rationality I learned from the aforementioned posts. I feel that posts on how to apply instrumental rationality can be germane to LW discourse. When I have done them, they have been very helpful. I’ve also gotten positive feedback from others.
Right now, I’m visually imagining of linear spectrum of possible LW posts. On the left end, there is the type of post you talked about, such as Yvain’s diseased thinking. On the right end, there’s completely unsuitable posts for LW. Porn, politics, etc. Between these two ends there is a vast span of posts that are germane to varying degrees.
Obviously (?), those on the right side of the spectrum I don’t want to see at all on LW. Like you say, there’s the whole wide internet to use. We need to help a well kept garden.
Maybe the “rational toothpaste thread” is only 60% appropriate for LW. (That’s more or less a number I pulled out the air based on my feelings.) It’s somewhere on the left side of the spectrum, but close to the center. I wouldn’t want to see numerous posts like that all the time, but I don’t mind seeing a few in discussion every once in a while.
More appropriate to LW is a post about applying instrumental rationality to choosing a major, college, or career. I’d say these questions fall between the left end of the spectrum and the “rational toothpaste” type threads. Unlike toothpaste, these are very important questions that are harder to solve than what toothpaste to buy. I would actually like to see a bit more of these.
So all that said, I think your criteria is too strict for my tastes. Yes, LW should definitely have a focus on learning epistemic/instrumental rationality. But I’d also like to posts on applying rationality to important topics. I think both can compliment each other nicely, and both are useful.
Edit: Just to be clear, the criteria I’m refering to is this: