If you want to convince averagely-rational people of something, be a living example of it working. Use that blog like the Internet native you are. Kill the Buddha and write your own understanding of it—you don’t own the material until you could teach it, after all. You can expect people who know you to listen to you personally, because they know you. Give success stories—think of them as worked examples rather than anecdotes, if that helps.
Attract, don’t push—EY didn’t do a sales push for OB/LW.
(This is what I meant when I said I didn’t understand your idea of publicity, and I still don’t understand why I had to dredge for three months for your video rather than you doing the obvious and publicising it on your increasingly dusty blog or even in the same place where you publicised the talk. But this comment indicates you do in fact have an interest in spreading these ideas, rather than a cunning plan I don’t understand that involves not doing so.)
Handing your friends a book full of interesting memes doesn’t work, because people don’t take advice in general, and they particularly don’t take advice by reference—handing them a book is expecting them to convince themselves of your arguments for you.
It does work well enough in some examples, which is why people with a particularly compelling memetic infection wake you up far too early on a Saturday morning wanting to give you a book. But doing this to your friends is, I suspect, more likely to lead to them categorising you with the people waking them up far too early on a Saturday morning, thus losing both you and the book valuable reputation points.
(That said, knocking on doors and giving free books on rationality to strangers strikes me as an amusing idea. Though not amusing enough to do it myself.)
It is heuristically justifiable not to take on others’ meme infections lightly, and even to avoid doing so. Western culture is made of the most virulent obtainable memes, and they’re usually selling toothpaste or car insurance. Beliefs should pay rent in one’s head; an apparently infectious meme, producing the “convert” effect in its host, is one to avoid more than less infectious ones. Being a living success story is a very convincing counterargument. Worked for EY.
Ya got me there. I haven’t watched it. (Watching video? Painful. Must read transcript.) And that is indeed a good reason. (Though one of the reasons I ask is that blog.ciphergoth.org ends on an unresolved note, looking like something untoward has happened to you.) Hope the rest of the comment is useful.
If you want to convince averagely-rational people of something, be a living example of it working. Use that blog like the Internet native you are. Kill the Buddha and write your own understanding of it—you don’t own the material until you could teach it, after all. You can expect people who know you to listen to you personally, because they know you. Give success stories—think of them as worked examples rather than anecdotes, if that helps.
Attract, don’t push—EY didn’t do a sales push for OB/LW.
(This is what I meant when I said I didn’t understand your idea of publicity, and I still don’t understand why I had to dredge for three months for your video rather than you doing the obvious and publicising it on your increasingly dusty blog or even in the same place where you publicised the talk. But this comment indicates you do in fact have an interest in spreading these ideas, rather than a cunning plan I don’t understand that involves not doing so.)
Handing your friends a book full of interesting memes doesn’t work, because people don’t take advice in general, and they particularly don’t take advice by reference—handing them a book is expecting them to convince themselves of your arguments for you.
It does work well enough in some examples, which is why people with a particularly compelling memetic infection wake you up far too early on a Saturday morning wanting to give you a book. But doing this to your friends is, I suspect, more likely to lead to them categorising you with the people waking them up far too early on a Saturday morning, thus losing both you and the book valuable reputation points.
(That said, knocking on doors and giving free books on rationality to strangers strikes me as an amusing idea. Though not amusing enough to do it myself.)
It is heuristically justifiable not to take on others’ meme infections lightly, and even to avoid doing so. Western culture is made of the most virulent obtainable memes, and they’re usually selling toothpaste or car insurance. Beliefs should pay rent in one’s head; an apparently infectious meme, producing the “convert” effect in its host, is one to avoid more than less infectious ones. Being a living success story is a very convincing counterargument. Worked for EY.
Er, have you watched the video? I haven’t publicized it because I basically want to redo it from the top.
Ya got me there. I haven’t watched it. (Watching video? Painful. Must read transcript.) And that is indeed a good reason. (Though one of the reasons I ask is that blog.ciphergoth.org ends on an unresolved note, looking like something untoward has happened to you.) Hope the rest of the comment is useful.