Was rereading a bunch of early 2010s LW recently, prompted by getting a reply on one of my old comments, and its definitely weird. But the flavor of weird feels different somehow? A lot more earnest and direct, and with people more willing to make silly jokes and tangents.
There were also more top level posts along the lines of “Here’s this new rationality technique I’ve been trying, what do people think?” It feels less, high context, I guess? A lot of current discussion is people immersed in some wider meta debate with long established sides and real world stakes to it.
I imagine that kind of posting wouldn’t work particularly well these days given that the environment around it has changed.
Oh, the type of weirdness has definitely changed a lot. But I’m just contending that the level of deviancy is a lot lower these days.
You go to a LW meetup now and there’s a lot of wealthy, well-scrubbed/dressed AI researchers (they even lift) and academics and executives and bright-eyed Stanford undergrads sniffing for an internship or YC application fodder. One famous wealthy guy is manic, because he’s hypomanic & bipolar is overrepresented among entrepreneurs; don’t worry, he’ll be fine, until after the meetup when he disappears for a few months. Nobody can really talk about what they do, so you make small talk about what you can. (Have you heard that Trump might increase the SALT deduction? Big [RSU sale tax savings] if true!)
You go to a LW meetup c. 2010 and if you are sniffing anywhere, you’ll notice a bit of a smell, perhaps from that one dude who looks like he just got out of a prison hunger strike and dresses like Asian Kurt Godel while the other sus dude looks like he just got out of prison period (and about 10:1 odds he did serve a stint). The manic-looking guy is manic because he has slept about 6 hours in the past week trying to make the Uberman polyphasic sleep schedule work; don’t worry, he’ll be fine after he crashes and sleeps for 16 hours next week. The crazy homeless-looking dude over in the corner really is homeless and a bit crazy, not some billionaire (and will jump in front of a train in a few years), while the guy on the other side of the room in a huddle is the actual cult leader everyone accuses Eliezer of being (and the guy next to him just might be Satoshi Nakamoto), and so on and so forth. (You bond over your shared experiences nearly being expelled from school by Zero Tolerance policies, possibly involving explosives, and ordering drugs off Silk Road 1.)
I’m not saying it’s good or bad (arguably it’s good, if AI timelines are short, there is negative value to screwing around with all the stuff we used to), but pound for pound, LWers were a lot weirder back then.
Come to LessWrong Community Weekend in Europe, we still have ‘weird’ people around.
I don’t know how we stack up to the pre-MoR crowd and I’ve never seen anyone who looked like they just got out of prison, but it’s definitely not a bunch of people talking about normal politics or trying to make career connections.
Was rereading a bunch of early 2010s LW recently, prompted by getting a reply on one of my old comments, and its definitely weird. But the flavor of weird feels different somehow? A lot more earnest and direct, and with people more willing to make silly jokes and tangents.
There were also more top level posts along the lines of “Here’s this new rationality technique I’ve been trying, what do people think?” It feels less, high context, I guess? A lot of current discussion is people immersed in some wider meta debate with long established sides and real world stakes to it.
I imagine that kind of posting wouldn’t work particularly well these days given that the environment around it has changed.
Oh, the type of weirdness has definitely changed a lot. But I’m just contending that the level of deviancy is a lot lower these days.
You go to a LW meetup now and there’s a lot of wealthy, well-scrubbed/dressed AI researchers (they even lift) and academics and executives and bright-eyed Stanford undergrads sniffing for an internship or YC application fodder. One famous wealthy guy is manic, because he’s hypomanic & bipolar is overrepresented among entrepreneurs; don’t worry, he’ll be fine, until after the meetup when he disappears for a few months. Nobody can really talk about what they do, so you make small talk about what you can. (Have you heard that Trump might increase the SALT deduction? Big [RSU sale tax savings] if true!)
You go to a LW meetup c. 2010 and if you are sniffing anywhere, you’ll notice a bit of a smell, perhaps from that one dude who looks like he just got out of a prison hunger strike and dresses like Asian Kurt Godel while the other sus dude looks like he just got out of prison period (and about 10:1 odds he did serve a stint). The manic-looking guy is manic because he has slept about 6 hours in the past week trying to make the Uberman polyphasic sleep schedule work; don’t worry, he’ll be fine after he crashes and sleeps for 16 hours next week. The crazy homeless-looking dude over in the corner really is homeless and a bit crazy, not some billionaire (and will jump in front of a train in a few years), while the guy on the other side of the room in a huddle is the actual cult leader everyone accuses Eliezer of being (and the guy next to him just might be Satoshi Nakamoto), and so on and so forth. (You bond over your shared experiences nearly being expelled from school by Zero Tolerance policies, possibly involving explosives, and ordering drugs off Silk Road 1.)
I’m not saying it’s good or bad (arguably it’s good, if AI timelines are short, there is negative value to screwing around with all the stuff we used to), but pound for pound, LWers were a lot weirder back then.
Come to LessWrong Community Weekend in Europe, we still have ‘weird’ people around.
I don’t know how we stack up to the pre-MoR crowd and I’ve never seen anyone who looked like they just got out of prison, but it’s definitely not a bunch of people talking about normal politics or trying to make career connections.