I once asked my AP English teacher why we spent so much time reading and analyzing fiction, and to my surprise, he couldn’t answer me. (In retrospect, he deserves a lot of credit for being willing to admit his ignorance.) He said he would think about it, so I waited a few months and asked again, and he still didn’t have an answer.
What I wouldn’t do to have Less Wrong available during my high school years… which makes me wonder, where are the teenage would-be rationalists hanging out today? There seem to be fewer of them here than I would have expected.
which makes me wonder, where are the teenage would-be rationalists hanging out today? There seem to be fewer of them here than I would have expected.
I think it’s plausible that the majority of teen LW readers stay silent, simply because they are more likely to be intimidated by the quality of the discussion, and more likely to think they cannot make a valuable comment.
At least, I’m a teenage reader and the above mentioned things describe my attitude. I suspect though that it applies to others too.
I think it’s plausible that the majority of teen LW readers stay silent, simply because they are more likely to be intimidated by the quality of the discussion, and more likely to think they cannot make a valuable comment.
I wonder if we should have a monthly social thread, where people can ask questions that don’t necessarily advance the state of the art of rationality, or just socialize and talk about their favorite books or music.
I’d like to have a full-on non-meta subreddit and/or subgroup-blog. I don’t understand Eliezer’s concern that this would pollute the quality of the site. Aggressive moderation will work and we can only hope that the site goes mainstream and attracts more eyeballs for the more important things we discuss here.
I think that the intimidation you describe is applicable to all age groups. My guess is that it takes time to filter into the transhumanist network from the mere smart geek area. On the other side of the coin, we have the fact that older folk don’t make as much use of the internet have less chance to find LW. Thus, we get mostly 20-somethings involved.
I think that the intimidation you describe is applicable to all age groups.
Yes; but “the shy do not learn”, so intimidation must be overcome. Of course this should not preclude the community from using accessible terminology when possible, or creating “entry points” for beginners.
The majority of people reading everything online stay silent, only a small percentage of people stop being lurkers. I wonder if that percentage is better or worse on Less Wrong. And I agree that Less Wrong is very intimidating to new posters.
I have a BA and MA in English Lit, and I can’t sincerely answer you. I know several of the standard answers—most of which are derived from and are designed to promote various literary theories and the associated coterie of career minded professors. I left Lit in large part because of those (non-) answers, and did my PhD in Rhetoric instead.
Painting with a very broad brush here, but mainly why people study lit groups into five areas.
Art for art’s sake-->new criticism, structuralism, deconstructuralism: those fields that see studying literature of value in itself for understanding how literature works.
Author worship-->few scholars still do this, but these see studying literature as valuable as a way to understand a great writer. A modern version is the “shrink crit” types who use literature to do armchair psychoanalysis of the author (too often using extremely outdated Freudian theory).
Reader worship-->reader response theory, mainly, though some accuse rhetoricians of doing this: these theories mainly look at what readers make of a text as being the meaning/value of that text (sometimes they argue that the author is nothing more than a first reader).
How a text works-->linguistics and literature, mainly. These critics study literature to understand how the artistry shapes and is shaped by the constraints of language.
What it means in context-->there’s two separate groups here. One is the social/cultural critics who build out of the class/race/gender studies (Marxist, Feminist, et al). The other are the “New Historicist” critics who study lit to see how it lends insight into it’s historical context and how the historical context lends insight into the text.
There’s a graph of this, but my ability to do ASCII art is … not up to the task. Basically, you draw 5 circles, one in the center, the other for at the cardinal points. In the center are the text focused people (art for art’s sake). To the left are the author focused types, to the right are the reader focused types. You can draw arrows from the author circle to the text circle and from the text circle to the reader circle, but that leads to a whole ’nother can of worms. Anyhow, above the text circle can either be the linguistics/language one or the history/culture one. The other goes below. (What gets put on top can be telling about the teacher’s biases.
And, of course, any literary critic worth their salt will immediately violate any of these groupings if that’s what makes the most sense to developing insight into the text/reading experience.
What I wouldn’t do to have Less Wrong available during my high school years… which makes me wonder, where are the teenage would-be rationalists hanging out today? There seem to be fewer of them here than I would have expected.
Some of us grew up and are a little more active on the site these days :)
Is it in our interest to identify as many of them as possible while they’re still relatively young? In the USA, “gifted” 7th graders are sometimes encouraged to take the SAT, and Duke sells their names and addresses to those offering “qualified educational opportunities.” In my opinion, that is probably the best available test of smartness for people of that age.
I once asked my AP English teacher why we spent so much time reading and analyzing fiction, and to my surprise, he couldn’t answer me. (In retrospect, he deserves a lot of credit for being willing to admit his ignorance.) He said he would think about it, so I waited a few months and asked again, and he still didn’t have an answer.
What I wouldn’t do to have Less Wrong available during my high school years… which makes me wonder, where are the teenage would-be rationalists hanging out today? There seem to be fewer of them here than I would have expected.
I think it’s plausible that the majority of teen LW readers stay silent, simply because they are more likely to be intimidated by the quality of the discussion, and more likely to think they cannot make a valuable comment.
At least, I’m a teenage reader and the above mentioned things describe my attitude. I suspect though that it applies to others too.
I wonder if we should have a monthly social thread, where people can ask questions that don’t necessarily advance the state of the art of rationality, or just socialize and talk about their favorite books or music.
I’d like to have a full-on non-meta subreddit and/or subgroup-blog. I don’t understand Eliezer’s concern that this would pollute the quality of the site. Aggressive moderation will work and we can only hope that the site goes mainstream and attracts more eyeballs for the more important things we discuss here.
I think that the intimidation you describe is applicable to all age groups. My guess is that it takes time to filter into the transhumanist network from the mere smart geek area. On the other side of the coin, we have the fact that older folk don’t make as much use of the internet have less chance to find LW. Thus, we get mostly 20-somethings involved.
Yes; but “the shy do not learn”, so intimidation must be overcome. Of course this should not preclude the community from using accessible terminology when possible, or creating “entry points” for beginners.
The majority of people reading everything online stay silent, only a small percentage of people stop being lurkers. I wonder if that percentage is better or worse on Less Wrong. And I agree that Less Wrong is very intimidating to new posters.
I have a BA and MA in English Lit, and I can’t sincerely answer you. I know several of the standard answers—most of which are derived from and are designed to promote various literary theories and the associated coterie of career minded professors. I left Lit in large part because of those (non-) answers, and did my PhD in Rhetoric instead.
Painting with a very broad brush here, but mainly why people study lit groups into five areas.
Art for art’s sake-->new criticism, structuralism, deconstructuralism: those fields that see studying literature of value in itself for understanding how literature works.
Author worship-->few scholars still do this, but these see studying literature as valuable as a way to understand a great writer. A modern version is the “shrink crit” types who use literature to do armchair psychoanalysis of the author (too often using extremely outdated Freudian theory).
Reader worship-->reader response theory, mainly, though some accuse rhetoricians of doing this: these theories mainly look at what readers make of a text as being the meaning/value of that text (sometimes they argue that the author is nothing more than a first reader).
How a text works-->linguistics and literature, mainly. These critics study literature to understand how the artistry shapes and is shaped by the constraints of language.
What it means in context-->there’s two separate groups here. One is the social/cultural critics who build out of the class/race/gender studies (Marxist, Feminist, et al). The other are the “New Historicist” critics who study lit to see how it lends insight into it’s historical context and how the historical context lends insight into the text.
There’s a graph of this, but my ability to do ASCII art is … not up to the task. Basically, you draw 5 circles, one in the center, the other for at the cardinal points. In the center are the text focused people (art for art’s sake). To the left are the author focused types, to the right are the reader focused types. You can draw arrows from the author circle to the text circle and from the text circle to the reader circle, but that leads to a whole ’nother can of worms. Anyhow, above the text circle can either be the linguistics/language one or the history/culture one. The other goes below. (What gets put on top can be telling about the teacher’s biases.
And, of course, any literary critic worth their salt will immediately violate any of these groupings if that’s what makes the most sense to developing insight into the text/reading experience.
I hope that helps.
Some of us grew up and are a little more active on the site these days :)
Where’s “here?”
Less Wrong
I think that teenage “would-be rationalists” exist in fairly small quantities, and those that exist are fairly unlikely to know about this site.
Is it in our interest to identify as many of them as possible while they’re still relatively young? In the USA, “gifted” 7th graders are sometimes encouraged to take the SAT, and Duke sells their names and addresses to those offering “qualified educational opportunities.” In my opinion, that is probably the best available test of smartness for people of that age.