I think EY is a self-important wanker, and SIAI is a society for self-important wanking, but I enjoy LW quite a lot. (and if you see LW as anything more than entertainment, you’re doing it wrong)
And lukeprog is entirely wrong about LW being mainstream—there are parts of LWian beliefs that are “mainstream”, but a lot of them are anything but. Cryonics, AI foomism, weird decision theories etc. - that’s all extremely far from the mainstream, and also very wrong.
Bayesian fundamentalism is also non-mainstream. Yes, Bayes rule is all neat, but it isn’t the answer to universe and everything.
I can see why this comment has been downvoted, but in context the comment is in a thread asking what people think of LW. In that context, it doesn’t seem like a good idea to downvote such comments. Requests for honest assessment should be treated well.
I agree that LW can be entertaining. However, if you always treat everything here as a big joke, you will miss opportunities to learn a few things (if that sort of thing is important to you).
Entertaining doesn’t mean it’s a joke. Mythbusters is entertainment, documentaries are entertainment, Wikipedia is (usually) entertainment. Humans learn mostly for fun of it—just like all young mammals (except adult humans do so as well).
If you claim that LW has some serious practical value, in terms of instrumental rationality—then I agree that its utility is greater than zero, but I could easily point you towards places online where you can learn instrumental rationality far better than here. And I’m always first to upvote such posts when they occur (like those about GiveWell for example, they’re not terribly common).
If you claim that LW Solves Serious Problems And Is The Only Hope For Humanity, then unfortunately you’ve fallen for some serious crackpottery.
I don’t deny many people here are smart and interesting.
If you could point me to some things on LW I should definitely learn (and for some reasons more serious than entertainment), I’d definitely like to see that.
I think EY is a self-important wanker, and SIAI is a society for self-important wanking, but I enjoy LW quite a lot. (and if you see LW as anything more than entertainment, you’re doing it wrong)
And lukeprog is entirely wrong about LW being mainstream—there are parts of LWian beliefs that are “mainstream”, but a lot of them are anything but. Cryonics, AI foomism, weird decision theories etc. - that’s all extremely far from the mainstream, and also very wrong.
Bayesian fundamentalism is also non-mainstream. Yes, Bayes rule is all neat, but it isn’t the answer to universe and everything.
I can see why this comment has been downvoted, but in context the comment is in a thread asking what people think of LW. In that context, it doesn’t seem like a good idea to downvote such comments. Requests for honest assessment should be treated well.
I agree that LW can be entertaining. However, if you always treat everything here as a big joke, you will miss opportunities to learn a few things (if that sort of thing is important to you).
Entertaining doesn’t mean it’s a joke. Mythbusters is entertainment, documentaries are entertainment, Wikipedia is (usually) entertainment. Humans learn mostly for fun of it—just like all young mammals (except adult humans do so as well).
If you claim that LW has some serious practical value, in terms of instrumental rationality—then I agree that its utility is greater than zero, but I could easily point you towards places online where you can learn instrumental rationality far better than here. And I’m always first to upvote such posts when they occur (like those about GiveWell for example, they’re not terribly common).
If you claim that LW Solves Serious Problems And Is The Only Hope For Humanity, then unfortunately you’ve fallen for some serious crackpottery.
No, I merely mean that some bright/knowledgeable people occasionally post here. Learning is not always fun, or for fun.
I don’t deny many people here are smart and interesting.
If you could point me to some things on LW I should definitely learn (and for some reasons more serious than entertainment), I’d definitely like to see that.