Contra “inform, not persuade”, I remember reading Luke Muehlhauser’s old post Rhetoric for the Good:
The topics of rationality and existential risk reduction need their own Richard Dawkins. Their own Darwin. Their own Voltaire.
Rhetoric moves minds.
Students and masochists aside, people read only what is exciting. So: Want to make an impact? Be exciting. You must be heard before you can turn heads in the right direction.
My sense is that Eliezer also consciously wrote persuasively as well; as a young LW lurker a decade ago it was that persuasiveness that kept me coming back.
I’m hence somewhat surprised to see “an explicit goal of this forum is that we are asked to write to inform, not to persuade” quite highly upvoted and agreed with. I wonder what changed, or whether my initial perception was just wrong to begin with.
Contra “inform, not persuade”, I remember reading Luke Muehlhauser’s old post Rhetoric for the Good:
My sense is that Eliezer also consciously wrote persuasively as well; as a young LW lurker a decade ago it was that persuasiveness that kept me coming back.
I’m hence somewhat surprised to see “an explicit goal of this forum is that we are asked to write to inform, not to persuade” quite highly upvoted and agreed with. I wonder what changed, or whether my initial perception was just wrong to begin with.
I think you’re talking about outward-facing writing. I mean stuff meant to recruit new rationalists, not stuff directed at rationalists.
Also, there’s no conflict between being exciting and writing to inform.