… but clearly open-minded enough to change your mind about a lot of stuff. What I mean is that I’ve told a lot of people about LessWrong, but I don’t think it really “changed” any of them, and almost no one continued to read more than one or two articles. So what do you think makes you different?
I read HPMOR and thought “if this stuff (meaning rationality) actually works, it’s powerful in a way that I haven’t seen before.” I remember thinking something like that at the time, but memory is fairly unreliable. I’ll have to dig through old journals to see if I mentioned it anywhere.
The sequences also had the advantage of being written in an entertaining way. Beyond that, I’m not sure what makes me any different. I’d like to think I’m special or have some trait that makes me more prone to rationality, but that’s purely self-serving. More likely it’s luck—reading it at the right time when I was in a headspace to absorb that kind of knowledge.
I read HPMOR. That got me interested in Lesswrong. The most I can say for pre-rationalist!me was that I was curious and a bit creative.
… but clearly open-minded enough to change your mind about a lot of stuff. What I mean is that I’ve told a lot of people about LessWrong, but I don’t think it really “changed” any of them, and almost no one continued to read more than one or two articles. So what do you think makes you different?
I read HPMOR and thought “if this stuff (meaning rationality) actually works, it’s powerful in a way that I haven’t seen before.” I remember thinking something like that at the time, but memory is fairly unreliable. I’ll have to dig through old journals to see if I mentioned it anywhere.
The sequences also had the advantage of being written in an entertaining way. Beyond that, I’m not sure what makes me any different. I’d like to think I’m special or have some trait that makes me more prone to rationality, but that’s purely self-serving. More likely it’s luck—reading it at the right time when I was in a headspace to absorb that kind of knowledge.