As for my thoughts on LW generally, I both like and dislike the site pretty severely.
On the one hand, I do think it has some major positives compared to basically every other site. In particular, I explicitly like the fact that politics is very discouraged here, which allows for much more productive conversations, and more generally I think the moderation system is quite great, and I especially like the fact that they try to keep the garden well-kept.
I also like the fact that they try to separate the concepts of disagreement and it’s a bad post/comment via the agree/disagree system, separating the role of karma and agree/disagree voting.
I also agree with a lot of lsusr’s “The Good” claims on LW.
If there’s one reason I stay on LW, it’s probably the quality of the conversation doesn’t get nearly as bad as the rest of the internet, and is quite great, and while LW is overvalued, useful insights can be extracted if you’re careful.
I mostly agree with TurnTrout and lsusr’s answers on what the problems are, with a sidenote of the fact that I suspect a lot of problems came from the influx of FiO readers into LW without any other grounding point. Niplav thankfully avoided this wave, and I buy that the empirical circles like Ryan Greenblatt’s social circle isn’t relying on fiction, but I’m worried that a lot of non-experts are so bad epistemically speaking that they ended up essentially writing fanfic on AI doom, and forget to check whether the assumptions actually hold in reality.
(Idea drawn from TurnTrout and JDP in the discord, they both realized the implications of a FiO influx way before I did.)
I suspect a lot of problems came from the influx of HPMOR and FiO readers into LW without any other grounding point. Niplav thankfully avoided this wave, and I buy that the empirical circles like Ryan Greenblatt’s social circle isn’t relying on fiction, but I’m worried that a lot of non-experts are so bad epistemically speaking that they ended up essentially writing fanfic on AI doom, and forget to check whether the assumptions actually hold in reality.
This seems unlikely to me, since HPMOR peaked in popularity nearly a decade ago.
I mean, it was published between 2010 and 2015, and it’s extremely rare for fanfiction (or other kinds of online serial fiction) to be more popular after completion than while it’s in progress. I followed it while it was in progress, and am in fact one of those people who found LessWrong through it. There was definitely an observable “wave” of popularity in both my in-person and online circles (which were not, at the time, connected to the rationality community at all); I think it probably peaked in 2012 or 2013.
As for my thoughts on LW generally, I both like and dislike the site pretty severely.
On the one hand, I do think it has some major positives compared to basically every other site. In particular, I explicitly like the fact that politics is very discouraged here, which allows for much more productive conversations, and more generally I think the moderation system is quite great, and I especially like the fact that they try to keep the garden well-kept.
I also like the fact that they try to separate the concepts of disagreement and it’s a bad post/comment via the agree/disagree system, separating the role of karma and agree/disagree voting.
I also agree with a lot of lsusr’s “The Good” claims on LW.
If there’s one reason I stay on LW, it’s probably the quality of the conversation doesn’t get nearly as bad as the rest of the internet, and is quite great, and while LW is overvalued, useful insights can be extracted if you’re careful.
I mostly agree with TurnTrout and lsusr’s answers on what the problems are, with a sidenote of the fact that I suspect a lot of problems came from the influx of FiO readers into LW without any other grounding point. Niplav thankfully avoided this wave, and I buy that the empirical circles like Ryan Greenblatt’s social circle isn’t relying on fiction, but I’m worried that a lot of non-experts are so bad epistemically speaking that they ended up essentially writing fanfic on AI doom, and forget to check whether the assumptions actually hold in reality.
(Idea drawn from TurnTrout and JDP in the discord, they both realized the implications of a FiO influx way before I did.)
This seems unlikely to me, since HPMOR peaked in popularity nearly a decade ago.
Where did you get that from, exactly? I’d be a little surprised if this was right.
I mean, it was published between 2010 and 2015, and it’s extremely rare for fanfiction (or other kinds of online serial fiction) to be more popular after completion than while it’s in progress. I followed it while it was in progress, and am in fact one of those people who found LessWrong through it. There was definitely an observable “wave” of popularity in both my in-person and online circles (which were not, at the time, connected to the rationality community at all); I think it probably peaked in 2012 or 2013.
Thanks for chiming in, I remember hearing that there was an influx of HPMOR readers fairly recently.
What does FiO stand for?
FiO?
Friendship is Optimal, a My Little Pony fan fiction about an AGI takeover (?) scenario. 39k words. (I don’t know the details, haven’t read it.)
Yep, I was talking about that fanfiction.