I am not a major Less Wrong participant, but I suspect that there are many lurkers or mostly-lurkers in the same position as me, so I want to make this point:
I read Less Wrong on “fun time”. And if it were less shiny, I would not read it at all. Yet reading has led me to reevaluate my goals and actions: it has led to a small amount of self improvement, not initially intended by me, as a side effect.
So by all means, make it more effective for you! But also keep in mind its effect on lurkers attracted by the shininess.
If you buy a couch to sit on and watch TV, there’s nothing wrong with that. You might even see a sports program on TV that motivates you to go jogging. Just don’t buy the couch in order to further your goal of physical fitness. Or claim that couch-buyers are a community of people committed to becoming more fit, because they sometimes watch sports shows and sometimes get outside.
Couch-buyers are a community of people who sit around—even if they watch sports programs. Real runners buy jogging shoes, sweat headbands, GPS route trackers, pedometers, stopwatches...
I am not a major Less Wrong participant, but I suspect that there are many lurkers or mostly-lurkers in the same position as me, so I want to make this point:
I read Less Wrong on “fun time”. And if it were less shiny, I would not read it at all. Yet reading has led me to reevaluate my goals and actions: it has led to a small amount of self improvement, not initially intended by me, as a side effect.
So by all means, make it more effective for you! But also keep in mind its effect on lurkers attracted by the shininess.
If you buy a couch to sit on and watch TV, there’s nothing wrong with that. You might even see a sports program on TV that motivates you to go jogging. Just don’t buy the couch in order to further your goal of physical fitness. Or claim that couch-buyers are a community of people committed to becoming more fit, because they sometimes watch sports shows and sometimes get outside.
Couch-buyers are a community of people who sit around—even if they watch sports programs. Real runners buy jogging shoes, sweat headbands, GPS route trackers, pedometers, stopwatches...