If anything, LW is far more at risk of becoming an echo chamber than of an eternal September. Fora can also die just by becoming a closed group and not being open to new members, and given that there’s a fairly steep learning curve before someone is accepted here (“read the Sequences!”) it would, if anything, make more sense to be reducing barriers to entry rather than adding more.
The echo chamber concern, in my mind, is not that everyone says the same thing- sure, there are enough pedants to point out small errors to keep people chattering forever.
The echo chamber concern I have is that people will only be from one discipline- and so they will not drink from wells of knowledge that are two doors down the hall.
If anything, LW is far more at risk of becoming an echo chamber than of an eternal September.
Do you have any particular reason to believe that? (many people show opposite concerns, and more specifically the stats seem to show increasing numbers of new users)
there’s a fairly steep learning curve before someone is accepted here (“read the Sequences!”)
That doesn’t happen that often, and when it is it’s usually recognized that it’s a bit of a cliché. The case where it seems most likely to happen is if a new member starts proposing some great “new” ideas on AI or friendliness or morality, such as “it’s obvious, for Friendly AI all you have to do is tell the AI to be nice!”.
If anything, LW is far more at risk of becoming an echo chamber than of an eternal September. Fora can also die just by becoming a closed group and not being open to new members, and given that there’s a fairly steep learning curve before someone is accepted here (“read the Sequences!”) it would, if anything, make more sense to be reducing barriers to entry rather than adding more.
Have you seen our contrarians?
The echo chamber concern, in my mind, is not that everyone says the same thing- sure, there are enough pedants to point out small errors to keep people chattering forever.
The echo chamber concern I have is that people will only be from one discipline- and so they will not drink from wells of knowledge that are two doors down the hall.
Both risks should be addressed. Eternal September is not an optimal measure against Echo Chamber and conversely.
This overlaps what I was thinking—that fora die from insipidity and boredom at least as often from low-quality new members.
Do you have any particular reason to believe that? (many people show opposite concerns, and more specifically the stats seem to show increasing numbers of new users)
That doesn’t happen that often, and when it is it’s usually recognized that it’s a bit of a cliché. The case where it seems most likely to happen is if a new member starts proposing some great “new” ideas on AI or friendliness or morality, such as “it’s obvious, for Friendly AI all you have to do is tell the AI to be nice!”.