Would it be fair to characterize most of your complaints as roughly “Less Wrong focuses too much on truth seeking and too little on instrumental rationality—actually achieving material success”?
In that case, I’m afraid your goals and the goals of many people here may simply be different. The common definition of rationality here is “systematic winning”. However, this definition is very fuzzy because winning is goal dependent. Whether you are “winning” is dependent on what your goals and values are.
Can’t speak for anyone else, but the reason why I am here is because I like polite but vigorous discussion. Its nice to be able to discuss topics with people on the internet in a way that does not drive me crazy. People here are usually open to new ideas, respectful, yet also uncompromising in the force of their arguments. Such an environment is much more helpful to me in learning about the world than the adversarial nature of most forum discussions. My goal in reading LessWrong is mostly finding likeminded people who I can talk to, share ideas with, learn form and disagree with, all without any bad feelings. That is a rare thing.
If your goal is achieving material success there are certainly very general tools and skills you can learn like getting over procrastination, managing your emotional state, or changing your value system to achieve your goals. CFAR is probably a better resource than Lesswrong for learning about these tools (but I’ve never actually been to a workshop). However, there is no general way to achieve success that is specific enough to be useful to one person’s goals. No one resource can possibly provide that. There are heuristics like “Find someone who is as successful as you would like to be and is willing to help you on your path; if necessary harass them enough so that they help you”. Which I would advocate for medicine or “Find someone who is both very high status and willing to help lesser beings and get them to be your mentor” which I would tentatively advocate for graduate school (my sample size is small though). But I don’t know of a general path.
Note that opinions differ on this topic, e.g. someone recently referred to LW as a “signaling and self-help cesspit” and got upvoted. Personally, I like seeing self-help stuff and I would encourage you to be the change you want to see :)
It’s in the works. I’ve got a few ideas, but right now I’m running them by family and friends. I have some ambitious goals but I’ll probably start small. I would like to see some big changes happen in the world, and I don’t think that working in the most straightforward way towards the Singularity is the only way to bring them about.
Would it be fair to characterize most of your complaints as roughly “Less Wrong focuses too much on truth seeking and too little on instrumental rationality—actually achieving material success”?
I agree with that.
In that case, I’m afraid your goals and the goals of many people here may simply be different. The common definition of rationality here is “systematic winning”. However, this definition is very fuzzy because winning is goal dependent. Whether you are “winning” is dependent on what your goals and values are.
Can’t speak for anyone else, but the reason why I am here is because I like polite but vigorous discussion. Its nice to be able to discuss topics with people on the internet in a way that does not drive me crazy. People here are usually open to new ideas, respectful, yet also uncompromising in the force of their arguments. Such an environment is much more helpful to me in learning about the world than the adversarial nature of most forum discussions. My goal in reading LessWrong is mostly finding likeminded people who I can talk to, share ideas with, learn form and disagree with, all without any bad feelings. That is a rare thing.
If your goal is achieving material success there are certainly very general tools and skills you can learn like getting over procrastination, managing your emotional state, or changing your value system to achieve your goals. CFAR is probably a better resource than Lesswrong for learning about these tools (but I’ve never actually been to a workshop). However, there is no general way to achieve success that is specific enough to be useful to one person’s goals. No one resource can possibly provide that. There are heuristics like “Find someone who is as successful as you would like to be and is willing to help you on your path; if necessary harass them enough so that they help you”. Which I would advocate for medicine or “Find someone who is both very high status and willing to help lesser beings and get them to be your mentor” which I would tentatively advocate for graduate school (my sample size is small though). But I don’t know of a general path.
See this post and Anna Salamon’s (partial) response.
Those posts are 4 years old and 2 years older than CFAR. I do think that LW could and should do better with instrumental rationality.
Note that opinions differ on this topic, e.g. someone recently referred to LW as a “signaling and self-help cesspit” and got upvoted. Personally, I like seeing self-help stuff and I would encourage you to be the change you want to see :)
I saw a LOT of this, as well as some good/useful stuff.
It’s in the works. I’ve got a few ideas, but right now I’m running them by family and friends. I have some ambitious goals but I’ll probably start small. I would like to see some big changes happen in the world, and I don’t think that working in the most straightforward way towards the Singularity is the only way to bring them about.
When you’re ready to share these ideas, please let me know how I can help.
Thank you very much for the offer. I should have a post up in over a week and under a month.
Interesting links. Looks like this discussion has happened before.