Also, I felt the need to post a link to this post on some social networks and describe it thus:
“And so it begins. The NYC folks have taken a significant step in bringing the LW community to a whole new level of real-world Awesomeness and Win. Expect great things to grow out of such developments.”
One thing I am slightly concerned about is having this be someone’s first introduction to Less Wrong. I did spend a while trying to write this in such a way that it wouldn’t be too ridiculous sounding to a newcomer. I actually set a pretty high bar for myself—I wanted my mother to be able to read this.
But I don’t think I succeeded at that quite yet. At first I tried to explain why the things we believe aren’t so ridiculous, and then I realized there’s a good reason Eliezer took 2 years and a quarter-million pages to do so. So I went ahead and left that section more directly targeted to the Less Wrong audience.
Which is to say, I think this is a good thing to link to, but it also might be a good idea to include some kind of disclaimer about it being for people already familiar with Less Wrong. I don’t really know. Depends on who’s on your social network.
Yeah, I had similar thoughts actually. But I did end up thinking that this was good enough to link in a somewhat off-handed manner.
Though of course, mostly I just wanted to get myself on the public record, calling this a great success in the making at such a somewhat early stage, so that I look good when future generations look back a few thousand years from now :D
One thing I am slightly concerned about is having this be someone’s first introduction to Less Wrong.
It has caught some attention beyond our little corner of the internet in the nearby blogosphere, but it’s not Razib’s first run in with LessWrong and he wasn’t creeped out by it or anything.
Over at Less Wrong there is a discussion on the Winter Solstice celebration. It being Less Wrong there’s a great deal of introspective analysis. That’s fine. When I was younger I did the “Solstice” celebration thing, though today at this age I think that if you live in the United States you should just own or disown Christmas. If you look into the history of this specific celebration it becomes clear that it isn’t so clearly specifically Christian in origin. The reality is that really just reflects the cosmopolitan materialism of the West of our day. Most people have reservations about the materialism, but there’s obviously some social and personal utility in the holiday.
Interesting find. I was curious if any of the commenters ended up reading the article and saying anything. All I found was this:
This is probably bad of me, but reading the whole LW post and comments made me laugh quite a bit. I know they aren’t NTs, but they’re otherwise smart enough to realize they come across as having a massive tone of unwarranted self-importance, right?
Also I get jollies off a group of rationalists creating a premise off one of the most messed up science fiction writers in the world was seeing things with crystal clarity rather than being an emotionally disturbed racist autodidact shut-in who wrote fiction that reflected that fact.
I think this person would have approximately the same reaction to most of our stuff, not just a particularly grandiose ritual article, but this does cement my opinion that this piece shouldn’t have been promoted. I’m not sure who to contact, I just sent a request to Eliezer but I’m sure we have more full-time moderators.
If we only ever promoted articles appropriate for those first running into LW, many of those promoted in the past shoudln’t have been. That’s far too harsh a standard to enforce. Not to mention it would make promoted articles a rather dull read (advanced rationality material is out the window and only a small fraction of intro posts would remain).
I don’t think it was a mistake for it to be promoted in the sense of it clearly being something most of the community enjoyed and many people only read promoted articles. In many respects I think LW is basically better at accruing those who already happen to share our peculiar memes and shibboleths rather transforming people.
Which may or may not be a good thing, but it certainly isn’t something that is much altered by this article.
Also, I felt the need to post a link to this post on some social networks and describe it thus:
“And so it begins. The NYC folks have taken a significant step in bringing the LW community to a whole new level of real-world Awesomeness and Win. Expect great things to grow out of such developments.”
One thing I am slightly concerned about is having this be someone’s first introduction to Less Wrong. I did spend a while trying to write this in such a way that it wouldn’t be too ridiculous sounding to a newcomer. I actually set a pretty high bar for myself—I wanted my mother to be able to read this.
But I don’t think I succeeded at that quite yet. At first I tried to explain why the things we believe aren’t so ridiculous, and then I realized there’s a good reason Eliezer took 2 years and a quarter-million pages to do so. So I went ahead and left that section more directly targeted to the Less Wrong audience.
Which is to say, I think this is a good thing to link to, but it also might be a good idea to include some kind of disclaimer about it being for people already familiar with Less Wrong. I don’t really know. Depends on who’s on your social network.
Yeah, I had similar thoughts actually. But I did end up thinking that this was good enough to link in a somewhat off-handed manner.
Though of course, mostly I just wanted to get myself on the public record, calling this a great success in the making at such a somewhat early stage, so that I look good when future generations look back a few thousand years from now :D
Long ago, far away, ever so long ago… Aleksei_Riikonen said that this was a pretty awesome idea.
Damn, my plan is backfiring. I will be remembered as an arrogant schmuck who was slightly funny in an unintended way.
Serves me right.
I actually assumed I was riffing off the joke exactly the way you intended. Didn’t mean to poke fun.
Yeah, I just thought I’d improve on your riff a bit, and add the part that pokes fun at me :)
It has caught some attention beyond our little corner of the internet in the nearby blogosphere, but it’s not Razib’s first run in with LessWrong and he wasn’t creeped out by it or anything.
Interesting find. I was curious if any of the commenters ended up reading the article and saying anything. All I found was this:
I think this person would have approximately the same reaction to most of our stuff, not just a particularly grandiose ritual article, but this does cement my opinion that this piece shouldn’t have been promoted. I’m not sure who to contact, I just sent a request to Eliezer but I’m sure we have more full-time moderators.
If we only ever promoted articles appropriate for those first running into LW, many of those promoted in the past shoudln’t have been. That’s far too harsh a standard to enforce. Not to mention it would make promoted articles a rather dull read (advanced rationality material is out the window and only a small fraction of intro posts would remain).
I don’t think it was a mistake for it to be promoted in the sense of it clearly being something most of the community enjoyed and many people only read promoted articles. In many respects I think LW is basically better at accruing those who already happen to share our peculiar memes and shibboleths rather transforming people.
Which may or may not be a good thing, but it certainly isn’t something that is much altered by this article.