People who solve the problem, move on. People who can’s solve the problem keep talking about it endlessly. Therefore the discussions about solving problems are dominated by people who have no clue what they are doing (because everyone else has already moved on).
The same applies to self-help groups. People who actually got their life together have no time for those.
Rational people do not comment on Less Wrong. (Unless it serves a specific purpose, e.g. advertising their product.)
EDIT:
The last paragraph was a half-joke, but the serious part is the following:
for Eliezer, Less Wrong was a tool to get followers, collaborators, and funding
for people who work in AI Safety, Less Wrong is a place to post about their research, get useful feedback, and maybe get more citations because it makes their research more visible
for people who are new to Less Wrong, it is a place to learn a new way of thinking… but after a few months, it stops serving this purpose, so they either find a new purpose, or stay purposeless, or leave
for people like me, Less Wrong is mostly a way to procrastinate—but procrastination is not rational
I have had this experience several times in my life; I come across clear enough evidence that settles for me an issue I had seen long disputed. At that point my choice is to either go back and try to persuade disputants, or to continue on to explore the new issues that this settlement raises. As Eliezer implicitly advises, after a short detour to tell a few disputants, I have usually chosen this second route. This is one explanation for the existence of settled but still disputed issues; people who learn the answer leave the conversation.
People who solve the problem, move on. People who can’s solve the problem keep talking about it endlessly. Therefore the discussions about solving problems are dominated by people who have no clue what they are doing (because everyone else has already moved on).
The same applies to self-help groups. People who actually got their life together have no time for those.
Rational people do not comment on Less Wrong. (Unless it serves a specific purpose, e.g. advertising their product.)
EDIT:
The last paragraph was a half-joke, but the serious part is the following:
for Eliezer, Less Wrong was a tool to get followers, collaborators, and funding
for people who work in AI Safety, Less Wrong is a place to post about their research, get useful feedback, and maybe get more citations because it makes their research more visible
for people who are new to Less Wrong, it is a place to learn a new way of thinking… but after a few months, it stops serving this purpose, so they either find a new purpose, or stay purposeless, or leave
for people like me, Less Wrong is mostly a way to procrastinate—but procrastination is not rational
See also this old Robin Hanson comment: