You, sir, are a true inspiration! I cannot yet claim to have a post with as much negative karma as this one, but it is the sum of my hopes and dreams that one day I might surpass it!
And indeed, if I may be so bold, I think there is much I might be able to improve upon here! “I am hopping on a mountain, falling down because I am so juicy” is clearly much too poetic, meaningful, and remarkable to be a part of truly the worst possible LessWrong post!
Maybe a post full of Lorem Ipsum could work , or perhaps a full reposting of A Pickle For the Knowing Ones. Both seem somehow lacking.
I do not yet have an answer as to what the worst possible post looks like. How does one even define it? I suppose their are multiple measures—most negative karma being one, fewest aggregate number of votes (and thus lowest level of engagement) may be another.
But both of these, in a way, would be a success—they would have achieved what their author set out to achieve. Is that not what it means to be successful? Is success not always constituted in the fulfilling of some intended objective? I say, the worst possible LessWrong post would have to have the very opposite effect desired by its writer, and illicit the very opposite response. Therefore, assuming some level of competency on the part of the author, they would have to be in some respect self-effacing. A system full of contradictions must hold together long enough to produce a blog post.
I can only dream, one day, of being that system.
For now, perhaps I should concentrate on a smaller, more attainable goal—the worst ever LessWrong comment, perhaps?
The goal of writing the worst LessWrong post is to set the standard by which you will measure yourself in the future. You want to use it as a tool to stop handicapping your own thought processes by constantly questioning yourself: “Is this really good enough?”, “Should I write about this?”, “Would anyone care?” Asking these questions is not necessarily a problem, in fact, they are probably good questions to consider. But in my experience, there is a self-deprecating way that you can ask these questions, which will just be demotivating, which I think is better to avoid.
The point of this post is to argue that you should lower your standards and just push out some posts when you start out writing. Nothing makes you better at writing than writing a lot. Don’t worry about the quality of your posts too much in the beginning. Putting out many posts is more important. And there is some merit in them being bad because once you start to measure yourself against your past self, it will be easy to see how you improved and count that as a success.
You, sir, are a true inspiration! I cannot yet claim to have a post with as much negative karma as this one, but it is the sum of my hopes and dreams that one day I might surpass it!
And indeed, if I may be so bold, I think there is much I might be able to improve upon here! “I am hopping on a mountain, falling down because I am so juicy” is clearly much too poetic, meaningful, and remarkable to be a part of truly the worst possible LessWrong post!
Maybe a post full of Lorem Ipsum could work , or perhaps a full reposting of A Pickle For the Knowing Ones. Both seem somehow lacking.
I do not yet have an answer as to what the worst possible post looks like. How does one even define it? I suppose their are multiple measures—most negative karma being one, fewest aggregate number of votes (and thus lowest level of engagement) may be another.
But both of these, in a way, would be a success—they would have achieved what their author set out to achieve. Is that not what it means to be successful? Is success not always constituted in the fulfilling of some intended objective? I say, the worst possible LessWrong post would have to have the very opposite effect desired by its writer, and illicit the very opposite response. Therefore, assuming some level of competency on the part of the author, they would have to be in some respect self-effacing. A system full of contradictions must hold together long enough to produce a blog post.
I can only dream, one day, of being that system.
For now, perhaps I should concentrate on a smaller, more attainable goal—the worst ever LessWrong comment, perhaps?
The goal of writing the worst LessWrong post is to set the standard by which you will measure yourself in the future. You want to use it as a tool to stop handicapping your own thought processes by constantly questioning yourself: “Is this really good enough?”, “Should I write about this?”, “Would anyone care?” Asking these questions is not necessarily a problem, in fact, they are probably good questions to consider. But in my experience, there is a self-deprecating way that you can ask these questions, which will just be demotivating, which I think is better to avoid.
The point of this post is to argue that you should lower your standards and just push out some posts when you start out writing. Nothing makes you better at writing than writing a lot. Don’t worry about the quality of your posts too much in the beginning. Putting out many posts is more important. And there is some merit in them being bad because once you start to measure yourself against your past self, it will be easy to see how you improved and count that as a success.