Yes, it’s rather odd to call a group of like minded people a cult because they enjoy and prefer each other’s company.
In grad school I used to be in a couple of email lists that I enjoyed because of the quality of the intellectual interaction and the topics discussed, one being Extropians in the 90s. I’d given that stuff up for a long time.
Got back into it a little a few years ago. I had been spending time at a forum or two, but was getting bored with them primarily because of the low quality of discussion. I don’t know how I happened on HPMOR, but I loved it, and so naturally came to the site to take a look. Seeing Jaynes, Pearl, and The Map is not the Territory served as good signaling to me of some intellectual taste around here.
I didn’t come here and get indoctrinated—I saw evidence of good intellectual taste and that gave me the motivation to give LW a serious look.
This is one suggestion I’d have for recruiting. Play up canonical authors more. Jaynes, Kahneman, and Pearl convey so much more information than bayesian analysis, cognitive biases, and causal analysis. None of those guys are the be all and end all of their respective fields, but identifying them plants a flag where we see value that can attract similarly minded people.
Yes, it’s rather odd to call a group of like minded people a cult because they enjoy and prefer each other’s company.
In grad school I used to be in a couple of email lists that I enjoyed because of the quality of the intellectual interaction and the topics discussed, one being Extropians in the 90s. I’d given that stuff up for a long time.
Got back into it a little a few years ago. I had been spending time at a forum or two, but was getting bored with them primarily because of the low quality of discussion. I don’t know how I happened on HPMOR, but I loved it, and so naturally came to the site to take a look. Seeing Jaynes, Pearl, and The Map is not the Territory served as good signaling to me of some intellectual taste around here.
I didn’t come here and get indoctrinated—I saw evidence of good intellectual taste and that gave me the motivation to give LW a serious look.
This is one suggestion I’d have for recruiting. Play up canonical authors more. Jaynes, Kahneman, and Pearl convey so much more information than bayesian analysis, cognitive biases, and causal analysis. None of those guys are the be all and end all of their respective fields, but identifying them plants a flag where we see value that can attract similarly minded people.