It’s not clear why Yudkowsky or Scott would want to come back and post here, I guess. The current incentives don’t really encourage them to post. LW has a decreasing readership, and engagement on their own platforms (FB and SSC) is likely higher.
Also, I think there’s additional baggage associated with the LW name, and this is likely a turnoff for, say, some of Scott’s readers.
Plus, I don’t Yudkowsky / Scott coming back is exactly the goal at this point. I think tristanm said it well when he pointed out that:
“[Also,] it seems that they very best content creators spend some time writing and making information freely available, detailing their goals and so on, and then eventually go off to pursue those goals more concretely, and the content creation on the site goes down.”
At this point, I think that there’s additional real-work that’s important outside of just writing new articles. While it’s certainly often instrumental to work on things like communication and staying publicly transparent, I think that merely asking them to come back is pushing on the wrong side of the causal chain. It feels a little like cargo culting, I think.
Yeah, some processes may not be reversible. For someone who doesn’t have a blog yet, posting on LW is simpler than setting up their own blog and discussion. But once they have their own blog and discussion ready and working, there is no longer a reason to post on LW. To attract LW readers, it is enough to post a link here.
I believe that a network independent bloggers [0] who are not tied to a single forum centered on discussing E.Y.’s writing would be an improvement: Intellectually more versatile and thus healthy; can avoid echo-chamber effects. I wasn’t active on LW at the time pf peak activity, but I’ve understood that one of the objectives of LW was that “rationality” (whatever is meant by the word) would spread outside a single corner of the internet.
However, the problem is finding all those interesting, rationality-adjacent bloggers: if there’s no any central place where you can find those people and their contributions, it’s not a network: it’s just random unfindable people.
[0] Or FB / etc writers, but I have preference for public, open web.
It’s not clear why Yudkowsky or Scott would want to come back and post here, I guess. The current incentives don’t really encourage them to post. LW has a decreasing readership, and engagement on their own platforms (FB and SSC) is likely higher.
Also, I think there’s additional baggage associated with the LW name, and this is likely a turnoff for, say, some of Scott’s readers.
Plus, I don’t Yudkowsky / Scott coming back is exactly the goal at this point. I think tristanm said it well when he pointed out that:
At this point, I think that there’s additional real-work that’s important outside of just writing new articles. While it’s certainly often instrumental to work on things like communication and staying publicly transparent, I think that merely asking them to come back is pushing on the wrong side of the causal chain. It feels a little like cargo culting, I think.
Yeah, some processes may not be reversible. For someone who doesn’t have a blog yet, posting on LW is simpler than setting up their own blog and discussion. But once they have their own blog and discussion ready and working, there is no longer a reason to post on LW. To attract LW readers, it is enough to post a link here.
That doesn’t sound like me! That’s tristanm.
These days I think our problem is not enough people willing to disregard practicality and focus on interesting writing :-)
My bad! Edited!
I believe that a network independent bloggers [0] who are not tied to a single forum centered on discussing E.Y.’s writing would be an improvement: Intellectually more versatile and thus healthy; can avoid echo-chamber effects. I wasn’t active on LW at the time pf peak activity, but I’ve understood that one of the objectives of LW was that “rationality” (whatever is meant by the word) would spread outside a single corner of the internet.
However, the problem is finding all those interesting, rationality-adjacent bloggers: if there’s no any central place where you can find those people and their contributions, it’s not a network: it’s just random unfindable people.
[0] Or FB / etc writers, but I have preference for public, open web.
The LW List of Blogs might be a good place to start. Zvi also has a nice post where he mentions his blogroll / invites others to post.