For full disclosure, I don’t consider myself very successful in real life either, and my ambitions are also much higher than where I am now. This is a phenomenon that my friends from the Vancouver rationalist meetup have remarked upon. My hypothesis for this is that Less Wrong selects for a portion of people who are looking to jump-start their productivity to a new level of lifestyle, but mostly selects for intelligent but complacent nerds who want to learn to think about arguments better, and like reading blogs. Such behavioral tendencies don’t lend themselves to getting out an armchair more often.
Mr. Bur, I don’t know if you’re addressing myself specifically, or generally the users reading this thread, but, like Mr. Kennaway, I agree wholeheartedly. I personally don’t feel extremely qualified to rewrite the core of Less Wrong canon, or whatever. I want to write about the stuff I know, and it will probably be a couple of months before I start attempting to generate high-quality posts, as in the interim I will need to study better the topics which I care about, and which I perceive to not have been thoroughly covered by a better post on Less Wrong before. I believe the best posts in Discussion in recent months have been based on specific topics, like Brienne Strohl’s exploration of memory techniques, or the posts discussing the complicated issues of human health, and nutrition. With fortuitous coincidence, Robin Hanson has recently captured well what I believe you’re getting at.
My prior comment got a fair number of upvotes for the hypothesis about why there was an exodus from Less Wrong of the first generation of the most prominent contributors to Less Wrong. However, going forward, my impression of how remaining users of Less Wrong frame the purpose of using it is a combination of Mr. Bur’s comment above, and this one.
My hypothesis for this is that Less Wrong selects for a portion of people who are looking to jump-start their productivity to a new level of lifestyle, but mostly selects for intelligent but complacent nerds who want to learn to think about arguments better, and like reading blogs.
Any blog selects for people who like reading blogs. :D
LW is about… let’s make it a simple slogan… improving your life through better thinking in a community.
Which is like your hypothesis, with the detail that those nerds want to experience a supportive environment. Specifically, an environment that will support them in correct thinking (as opposed to: “you just have to think positively, imagine a lot of success, and the universe will send it to you” or: “don’t think about it too much, join this get-rich-quickly scheme”), and in their clumsy attempts at improving the productivity (neither: “just be yourself, relax, learn to accept your situation”, nor: “too much talk and no action, either show me some amazing results right now or shut up”).
I want to write about the stuff I know … I will need to study better the topics which I care about
Same here. I would like to write about education in general, and math education specifically. But to make it better than just random opinions, random memories, and random links to “Scenes From The Battleground”, I need to read some more materials and gather information.
Upvoted. My thoughts:
For full disclosure, I don’t consider myself very successful in real life either, and my ambitions are also much higher than where I am now. This is a phenomenon that my friends from the Vancouver rationalist meetup have remarked upon. My hypothesis for this is that Less Wrong selects for a portion of people who are looking to jump-start their productivity to a new level of lifestyle, but mostly selects for intelligent but complacent nerds who want to learn to think about arguments better, and like reading blogs. Such behavioral tendencies don’t lend themselves to getting out an armchair more often.
Mr. Bur, I don’t know if you’re addressing myself specifically, or generally the users reading this thread, but, like Mr. Kennaway, I agree wholeheartedly. I personally don’t feel extremely qualified to rewrite the core of Less Wrong canon, or whatever. I want to write about the stuff I know, and it will probably be a couple of months before I start attempting to generate high-quality posts, as in the interim I will need to study better the topics which I care about, and which I perceive to not have been thoroughly covered by a better post on Less Wrong before. I believe the best posts in Discussion in recent months have been based on specific topics, like Brienne Strohl’s exploration of memory techniques, or the posts discussing the complicated issues of human health, and nutrition. With fortuitous coincidence, Robin Hanson has recently captured well what I believe you’re getting at.
My prior comment got a fair number of upvotes for the hypothesis about why there was an exodus from Less Wrong of the first generation of the most prominent contributors to Less Wrong. However, going forward, my impression of how remaining users of Less Wrong frame the purpose of using it is a combination of Mr. Bur’s comment above, and this one.
Note: edited for content, and grammar.
Any blog selects for people who like reading blogs. :D
LW is about… let’s make it a simple slogan… improving your life through better thinking in a community.
Which is like your hypothesis, with the detail that those nerds want to experience a supportive environment. Specifically, an environment that will support them in correct thinking (as opposed to: “you just have to think positively, imagine a lot of success, and the universe will send it to you” or: “don’t think about it too much, join this get-rich-quickly scheme”), and in their clumsy attempts at improving the productivity (neither: “just be yourself, relax, learn to accept your situation”, nor: “too much talk and no action, either show me some amazing results right now or shut up”).
Same here. I would like to write about education in general, and math education specifically. But to make it better than just random opinions, random memories, and random links to “Scenes From The Battleground”, I need to read some more materials and gather information.