We have neither the numbers, the organizational skill, nor the social skills to be good at this. There is a joke that organizing libertarians is like herding cats and the same principle seems to be partly true here for the same reason: Lw draws a lot of smart contrarian people. Unless there is a technological way to conquer the world, say the Singularity, but that demands an entirely different organizational strategy, namely channeling all efforts into FAI.
calcsam
Karma: 570
Not feasible. Let’s aim for a more modest goal, say, better PR and functional communities.
Moreover, not this community’s comparative advantage. Why do we think we’d be any better than anyone else at running the world? And why wouldn’t we be subject to free-riders, power-seekers, and rationalists-of-fortune if we started winning?
This thread illustrates my point.
Oh, that makes sense. I guess we were just using the same word to refer to different things ^.^
the latter requires a lot more effort from the inductee
I object here. I can’t comment on all religions, but here are the things we would ask people to do, mandatory if they wanted to join the LDS church:
No premarital/extramarital sex (one woman we helped work through a really messy divorce to a man she was separated from and marry her boyfriend who she was living with.)
No porn
No tea/coffee (and everyone in India is addicted to this)
No alcohol
No smoking
Give tithing, ie, 10% of your income
Resolve any job time conflicts so you can come to church on Sundays
...and more, but the other ones weren’t mandatory, and some like treating wives as equals, were more difficult to enforce.
The whole reason I’m writing this series is that I believe LessWrong is providing them with value, and I want it to continue doing so. However, if it doesn’t grow it will be unable to do so. People have made the comment in regard to specific tactics I suggested that they would cause the group to stop adding value, which I think is a legitimate counterargument. Do you have a specific argument here you would like to outline?
Being this suspicious of the motives of people who come to your group is not a great way to encourage growth, either.
That was my parents’ reaction, too (at Tortuga). My father is a molecular biology professor.
Shannon Friedman helps host the Tortuga meetups, and she is married to patrissimo.
This could be true, but I don’t think so. In my experience, church size is much more strongly influenced by other factors, like how leadership draws the boundary lines between church units, and which geographic area people who are already current members decide to move into. That said, you have the perfect test.
Story resolution: Arandur and I will discuss the Book of Mormon together with an atheist columnist friend of mine, practicing Examining Your Belief’s Real Weak Points, Crisis of Faith, etc, etc. Problem solved.
I think a lot of learning comes in the assignments here...I have vivid memories of friends pulling all-nighters every night to finish their assignments for this class.
I thought he was on blog-reading hiatus?
Unrelated to the current question but for the sociological record, I would like to point out that there are three Mormons on this blog (me, JohnF, and Arandur), none of us no each other in real life, and I detect no active, believing members of any other religion on LessWrong. (Swimmer963 doesn’t believe so she doesn’t count.)
If you want to compromise, read Alma 32 verses 21-46, 2 Nephi 2, Alma 7, Alma 42, and Moroni 10. They are probably the most interesting chapters from an intellectual perspective, and total about 8 pages of a 520-page book.
Active listening: specifically, the restating part; when someone expresses something, replying, “So you’re feeling X because of Y.” The act of doing this puts you in their shoes because you’re trying to put their emotions in your words.
Get it. Thanks. Good question.
Confused, could you elaborate?
Solution: use large N by watching for recurring patterns in oneself, instead of trying to say too much about any particular data point.
Someone of equal or greater ability who can clearly explain their judgments.
Editors in a formal journalistic setting carry responsibility; if something is difficult to understand, wrong, or badly worded they’re on the hook. Whereas a friend is more likely to say ‘Oh that’s nice’ for fear of offending you.
Also, if anyone wants to try this out, I can probably hook you up with one of the internships I did. It’s a pretty sweet gig, you will learn a lot with a great editor in a small office. The only qualification is being reasonably intelligent. PM me.
I would be unable to tell that you weren’t a native speaker upon cursory reading, if you didn’t mention it.