And as soon as a comment has one reply, people stop thinking about it as an entity in its own right.
Yeah, I know the feeling. Or when a comment or two below an article drag the whole discussion in a completely different direction. But as you say, it’s “just like any other forum”. How could this be prevented? Replying before reading other comments has a high risk of repeating what someone else said. Having the discipline to read the original comment again and try to see it with fresh eyes is difficult.
Instead of being about rationality, such posts seem to be about “random topic 101”?
There are topics that Eliezer described pretty well. Not saying that useful stuff cannot be added, but the lowest hanging fruit has been probably already picked. But there are also areas that Eliezer did not describe althogh he considered them important. Quoting from Go Forth and Create the Art!:
defeating akrasia and coordinating groups (...) And then there’s training, teaching, verification, and becoming a proper experimental science based on that. And if you generalize a bit further, then building the Art could also be taken to include issues like developing better introductory literature, developing better slogans for public relations, establishing common cause with other Enlightenment subtasks, analyzing and addressing the gender imbalance problem...
Some of these things were addressed. There are about dozen articles on procrastination, and have the Less Wrong Study Hall. CFAR is working on the rationality curriculum, although I would like to see much more visible output.
I think we are quite weak at developing the introductory literature, and public relations in general. I don’t feel we have much to offer to a mildly interested outsider to make them more interested. A link to Sequences e-book and… what is the next step? Telling them to come here and procrastinate reading the debates we have here? I don’t know myself what is the next step other than “invent your own project, possibly with cooperation of other people you found through LW”.
I feel that a fully mature rationalist community would offer the newbie rationalists some more guidance. So here is the opportunity for those who want to see the community grow: to find out what kind of guidance it would be, and to provide it. Are we going to find smart people and teach them math? Teach existing scientists how to understand and use p-values properly? Or organize Procrastinators Anonymous meetups? Make a website debunking frequent irrational claims? Support startups in exchange for a pledge to donate to MIRI?
Why on Earth should I immediately give you my life story?
I’m pretty sure that’s supposed to be a conversational starter. Feel free to keep any secrets you want.
Yeah, I know the feeling. Or when a comment or two below an article drag the whole discussion in a completely different direction. But as you say, it’s “just like any other forum”. How could this be prevented? Replying before reading other comments has a high risk of repeating what someone else said. Having the discipline to read the original comment again and try to see it with fresh eyes is difficult.
There are topics that Eliezer described pretty well. Not saying that useful stuff cannot be added, but the lowest hanging fruit has been probably already picked. But there are also areas that Eliezer did not describe althogh he considered them important. Quoting from Go Forth and Create the Art!:
Some of these things were addressed. There are about dozen articles on procrastination, and have the Less Wrong Study Hall. CFAR is working on the rationality curriculum, although I would like to see much more visible output.
I think we are quite weak at developing the introductory literature, and public relations in general. I don’t feel we have much to offer to a mildly interested outsider to make them more interested. A link to Sequences e-book and… what is the next step? Telling them to come here and procrastinate reading the debates we have here? I don’t know myself what is the next step other than “invent your own project, possibly with cooperation of other people you found through LW”.
I feel that a fully mature rationalist community would offer the newbie rationalists some more guidance. So here is the opportunity for those who want to see the community grow: to find out what kind of guidance it would be, and to provide it. Are we going to find smart people and teach them math? Teach existing scientists how to understand and use p-values properly? Or organize Procrastinators Anonymous meetups? Make a website debunking frequent irrational claims? Support startups in exchange for a pledge to donate to MIRI?
I’m pretty sure that’s supposed to be a conversational starter. Feel free to keep any secrets you want.