I agree. I love LessWrong (and its surroundings), but i think it hasn’t yet lived to its promise. to me it seems the community/movement suffers somewhat from focusing on the wrong stuff and premature optimization.
it also seems that sequences suffer from the same halo effect as the author’s project (origin, which I’m not familiar with). it has been written more then 10 years ago, ending on a note that there’s still much to be discovered and improved about rationality—even with it’s release as a book Eliezer noted in the preface his mistakes with it. Since there seems to be agreement on the usefulness of a body of information everybody is expected to read (e.g “read the sequences”), I’d expect there would at least be work or thought on some sort a second version.
Just to be clear, since intentions sometimes don’t come through in text, I’m saying that out of love for the project, not spite. I’ve came across this site a bit more then a year ago and have read a ton of content here, i both love it and somewhat disappointed -
In short, I feel there’s still a level above ours.
I’d expect there would at least be work or thought on some sort a second version.
Note that the current version of R:AZ has been updated and is half-as-long as the original (with some additional edits in the works). There’s definitely effort in this direction, it’s just a lot of work.
Shorter definitely seems better. Ideally I think there’d be a version that was less than a hundred pages. Something as short and concise as possible. Do we really need to list every cognitive bias to explain rationality? How much is really necessary and how much can be cut?
It’s a nontrivial operation to figure out what stuff can be cut. The work isn’t just listing a bunch of facts, it’s weaving them in a compelling way that helps people integrate them. Trimming things down requires new ways of fitting them together.
(Basically I’m saying “yes, people are taking this seriously, and the reason the job isn’t done already is that it’s hard.”)
I agree. I love LessWrong (and its surroundings), but i think it hasn’t yet lived to its promise. to me it seems the community/movement suffers somewhat from focusing on the wrong stuff and premature optimization.
it also seems that sequences suffer from the same halo effect as the author’s project (origin, which I’m not familiar with). it has been written more then 10 years ago, ending on a note that there’s still much to be discovered and improved about rationality—even with it’s release as a book Eliezer noted in the preface his mistakes with it. Since there seems to be agreement on the usefulness of a body of information everybody is expected to read (e.g “read the sequences”), I’d expect there would at least be work or thought on some sort a second version.
Just to be clear, since intentions sometimes don’t come through in text, I’m saying that out of love for the project, not spite. I’ve came across this site a bit more then a year ago and have read a ton of content here, i both love it and somewhat disappointed -
In short, I feel there’s still a level above ours.
Note that the current version of R:AZ has been updated and is half-as-long as the original (with some additional edits in the works). There’s definitely effort in this direction, it’s just a lot of work.
Shorter definitely seems better. Ideally I think there’d be a version that was less than a hundred pages. Something as short and concise as possible. Do we really need to list every cognitive bias to explain rationality? How much is really necessary and how much can be cut?
It’s a nontrivial operation to figure out what stuff can be cut. The work isn’t just listing a bunch of facts, it’s weaving them in a compelling way that helps people integrate them. Trimming things down requires new ways of fitting them together.
(Basically I’m saying “yes, people are taking this seriously, and the reason the job isn’t done already is that it’s hard.”)