The sequences are bigger than two copies of Lord Of The Rings. Expecting all new readers to study a million words of philosophy before proceeding strikes me as unrealistic.
Not necessarily expect them to read all of it, but the sequences are an excellent way to hook new readers. Plus, even reading some of it is probably the most efficient way to raise the sanity waterline.
The sequence articles have so many links to other articles that it’s impossible for me to read one without spawning five distantly related ones from different topics or sequences. Even if I wanted to be linear… (has no control when it comes to links)
Vote this comment up if you’re in favor of emphasizing nonlinear reading methods.
The sequences are bigger than two copies of Lord Of The Rings. Expecting all new readers to study a million words of philosophy before proceeding strikes me as unrealistic.
Not necessarily expect them to read all of it, but the sequences are an excellent way to hook new readers. Plus, even reading some of it is probably the most efficient way to raise the sanity waterline.
Is there evidence for this? As far as I can tell, the only way to hook new readers that’s made “excellent” is HPMOR.
Excellent in that I would suspect a large proportion of people who started reading Less Wrong did so from reading at least part of the sequences.
I do not have evidence for this, and it might be wrong, but I would be surprised if it were.
The sequence articles have so many links to other articles that it’s impossible for me to read one without spawning five distantly related ones from different topics or sequences. Even if I wanted to be linear… (has no control when it comes to links)
Which makes reading them awesome. But patchwork-y