“I think communities form because people discover they share a desire”
I agree with this, but would add that it’s possible for people to share a desire with a community but not want to join it because there are aspects of the community that they don’t like.
“Is there something they want to do which would be better served by having a rationality community that suits them better than the communities they’ve got already?”
That’s something I’d like to know. But I think it’s important for the rationality community to attempt to serve these kinds of people both because these people are important for the goals of the rationality community and because they will probably have useful ideas to contribute. If the rationality community is largely made up of programmers, mathematicians, and philosophers, it’s going to be difficult for it to solve some of the world’s most important problems.
Perhaps we have different goals in mind for lesswrong 2.0. I’m thinking of it as a place to further thinking on rationality and existential risk, where the contributors are anyone who both cares about those goals and is able to make a good contribution. But you might have a more specific goal: a place to further thinking on rationality and existential risk, but targeted specifically at the current rationality community so as to make better use of the capable people within it. If you had the second goal in mind then you’d care less about appealing to audiences outside of the community.
I’m fond of LW (or at least its descendants). I’m somewhat weird myself, and more tolerant of weirdness than many.
It has taken me years and some effort to get a no doubt incomplete understanding of people who are repulsed by weirdness.
From my point of view, you are proposing to destroy something I like which has been somewhat useful in the hopes of creating a community which might not happen.
The community you imagine might be a very good thing. It may have to be created by the people who will be in it. Maybe you could start the survey process?
I’m hoping that the LW 2.0 software will be open source. The world needs more good discussion venues.
“From my point of view, you are proposing to destroy something I like which has been somewhat useful in the hopes of creating a community which might not happen.”
I think a good argument against my position is that projects need to focus quite narrowly, and it makes sense to focus on the existing community given that it’s also already produced good stuff.
Hopefully that’s the justification that the project leaders have in mind, rather than them focusing on the current rationality community because they think that there aren’t many people outside of it who could make valuable contributions.
“I think communities form because people discover they share a desire”
I agree with this, but would add that it’s possible for people to share a desire with a community but not want to join it because there are aspects of the community that they don’t like.
“Is there something they want to do which would be better served by having a rationality community that suits them better than the communities they’ve got already?”
That’s something I’d like to know. But I think it’s important for the rationality community to attempt to serve these kinds of people both because these people are important for the goals of the rationality community and because they will probably have useful ideas to contribute. If the rationality community is largely made up of programmers, mathematicians, and philosophers, it’s going to be difficult for it to solve some of the world’s most important problems.
Perhaps we have different goals in mind for lesswrong 2.0. I’m thinking of it as a place to further thinking on rationality and existential risk, where the contributors are anyone who both cares about those goals and is able to make a good contribution. But you might have a more specific goal: a place to further thinking on rationality and existential risk, but targeted specifically at the current rationality community so as to make better use of the capable people within it. If you had the second goal in mind then you’d care less about appealing to audiences outside of the community.
I’m fond of LW (or at least its descendants). I’m somewhat weird myself, and more tolerant of weirdness than many.
It has taken me years and some effort to get a no doubt incomplete understanding of people who are repulsed by weirdness.
From my point of view, you are proposing to destroy something I like which has been somewhat useful in the hopes of creating a community which might not happen.
The community you imagine might be a very good thing. It may have to be created by the people who will be in it. Maybe you could start the survey process?
I’m hoping that the LW 2.0 software will be open source. The world needs more good discussion venues.
“From my point of view, you are proposing to destroy something I like which has been somewhat useful in the hopes of creating a community which might not happen.”
I think a good argument against my position is that projects need to focus quite narrowly, and it makes sense to focus on the existing community given that it’s also already produced good stuff.
Hopefully that’s the justification that the project leaders have in mind, rather than them focusing on the current rationality community because they think that there aren’t many people outside of it who could make valuable contributions.