But if “metacognitive movement” is a better name, then we should consider adopting it. If we can’t solve that coordination problem, then I’m worried about our ability to solve the more important ones.
Setting aside the name for the moment, I feel that “we” have never been particularly good at solving coordination problems. See Why Our Kind Can’t Cooperate.
LessWrong itself is not really about coordination. It’s more about sanity in a mad world. One of the prices we pay for that sanity is a cultural taboo on getting too deep into politics, because Politics is the Mind Killer. It’s why the default commenting guidelines here say “Aim to explain, not persuade”.
To the extent that “we” have succeeded in coordinating, it’s usually been by building institutions of sane(r) people outside of LessWrong proper, not by persuading lots of LessWrongers to coordinate on LessWrong. If you want to organize an outside institution around a goal, then you can give that institution an appropriate brand.
So I take it that you basically see LessWrong as a blogging forum that should not be a locus for community- or institution-building, or for activism? Just for individuals writing, reading, and commenting in an intimate way to refine their own personal thinking?
What I think it is now and what I think it should be are two different things. I would prefer that saner people have more control in the world, and if that means some kind of activism, so be it. That could be instrumentally rational.
LessWrong, the website, however, isn’t really set up for governance or mass coordination. We don’t have parliamentary procedures, arbitration procedures, good ways to punish defectors, ways to buy in like a Kickstarter, or even a philosopher-king. And our only voting system is karma, which is too easily gamed were it to become political. We sort of have ways to establish facts, but that could be improved. The only avenue I’m seeing is political persuasion, which is taboo for good reason, because it risks destroying the very thing that makes LessWrong valuable: some semblance of sanity in a mad world. We have not yet perfected the Art. We are not immune to human failings. Perhaps rather than “sane” we are just a little LessWrong :)
If you want to set up a platform for coordination and governance by, for, and of rationalists, then I’m for it. I would love to have trustworthy rationalist institutions to tell me what to invest in or donate to or who to vote for or what risks are reasonable or aren’t or how to optimize my health and well-being, but this should be external to LessWrong, so that when it fails (and it likely will—institution building is hard) then it won’t take LessWrong down with it. My priors include rumors of group houses that did poorly, MetaMed and Arbital, which haven’t worked out so well, and CFAR, which… is still there and doing stuff, I guess.
Discussing hypothetically how such institutions should work is totally on-topic for LessWrong though. Prediction markets? Approval voting? Science courts? Iterated trust kickstarters? Dominant assurance contracts? I don’t think we’ve figured that out yet. I don’t personally think that I have the skills to attempt this right now. But we should keep trying. How often do startups fail? 90% of the time? And those that do succeed often have the experience from failing before. The 10% that do succeed are worth it. We see postmortems from institution building attempts here from time to time. I think they’re valuable.
What people are doing here can look, both to participants and to outsiders, like some form of movement-building or ideology-spreading. There’s a demand both from within and without to name and describe what “we” do, what “we” think, “our” takes on the political and scientific questions of the day, “our” relationships with other people/ideologies/movements/ideas.
The way some people, including me here, respond this demand is by trying to supply an acceptable answer. One that is accurate, bold enough to be interesting, yet cautious enough to avoid provoking unnecessary ire.
An alternative way to respond to this demand is by rejecting it, to say “that question is unhelpful, so please stop asking.”
In that light, some basic principles of the forum might be:
Do not choose speech norms for the forum based on their impact on political movements.
For example, do not make arguments of the form “Movement X is bad. Speech norm Y is Xist, while speech norm Z is anti-X. Therefore, we should reject speech norm Y and use speech norm Z.”
Do not apply rewards and punishments in order to disrupt thinking and enforce conformity. Use them instead to reward cogency and critical thinking. Use scout mindset, not soldier mindset.
Actively resist attempts to tie the forum into a particular movement, ideology, or institution, or frame it as an enemy. This includes attempts to tie it to a movement that champions these principles in the wider world. Keep the forum independent, neutral, and small.
Actively resist attempts to use incentives (voting mechanisms, rhetoric, official site policy) to try and enforce a unified approach to the execution of forum independence and neutrality. Make reasoned arguments, and let people make their own decisions.
Setting aside the name for the moment, I feel that “we” have never been particularly good at solving coordination problems. See Why Our Kind Can’t Cooperate.
LessWrong itself is not really about coordination. It’s more about sanity in a mad world. One of the prices we pay for that sanity is a cultural taboo on getting too deep into politics, because Politics is the Mind Killer. It’s why the default commenting guidelines here say “Aim to explain, not persuade”.
To the extent that “we” have succeeded in coordinating, it’s usually been by building institutions of sane(r) people outside of LessWrong proper, not by persuading lots of LessWrongers to coordinate on LessWrong. If you want to organize an outside institution around a goal, then you can give that institution an appropriate brand.
So I take it that you basically see LessWrong as a blogging forum that should not be a locus for community- or institution-building, or for activism? Just for individuals writing, reading, and commenting in an intimate way to refine their own personal thinking?
What I think it is now and what I think it should be are two different things. I would prefer that saner people have more control in the world, and if that means some kind of activism, so be it. That could be instrumentally rational.
LessWrong, the website, however, isn’t really set up for governance or mass coordination. We don’t have parliamentary procedures, arbitration procedures, good ways to punish defectors, ways to buy in like a Kickstarter, or even a philosopher-king. And our only voting system is karma, which is too easily gamed were it to become political. We sort of have ways to establish facts, but that could be improved. The only avenue I’m seeing is political persuasion, which is taboo for good reason, because it risks destroying the very thing that makes LessWrong valuable: some semblance of sanity in a mad world. We have not yet perfected the Art. We are not immune to human failings. Perhaps rather than “sane” we are just a little LessWrong :)
If you want to set up a platform for coordination and governance by, for, and of rationalists, then I’m for it. I would love to have trustworthy rationalist institutions to tell me what to invest in or donate to or who to vote for or what risks are reasonable or aren’t or how to optimize my health and well-being, but this should be external to LessWrong, so that when it fails (and it likely will—institution building is hard) then it won’t take LessWrong down with it. My priors include rumors of group houses that did poorly, MetaMed and Arbital, which haven’t worked out so well, and CFAR, which… is still there and doing stuff, I guess.
Discussing hypothetically how such institutions should work is totally on-topic for LessWrong though. Prediction markets? Approval voting? Science courts? Iterated trust kickstarters? Dominant assurance contracts? I don’t think we’ve figured that out yet. I don’t personally think that I have the skills to attempt this right now. But we should keep trying. How often do startups fail? 90% of the time? And those that do succeed often have the experience from failing before. The 10% that do succeed are worth it. We see postmortems from institution building attempts here from time to time. I think they’re valuable.
That’s an interesting perspective.
What people are doing here can look, both to participants and to outsiders, like some form of movement-building or ideology-spreading. There’s a demand both from within and without to name and describe what “we” do, what “we” think, “our” takes on the political and scientific questions of the day, “our” relationships with other people/ideologies/movements/ideas.
The way some people, including me here, respond this demand is by trying to supply an acceptable answer. One that is accurate, bold enough to be interesting, yet cautious enough to avoid provoking unnecessary ire.
An alternative way to respond to this demand is by rejecting it, to say “that question is unhelpful, so please stop asking.”
In that light, some basic principles of the forum might be:
Do not choose speech norms for the forum based on their impact on political movements.
For example, do not make arguments of the form “Movement X is bad. Speech norm Y is Xist, while speech norm Z is anti-X. Therefore, we should reject speech norm Y and use speech norm Z.”
Do not apply rewards and punishments in order to disrupt thinking and enforce conformity. Use them instead to reward cogency and critical thinking. Use scout mindset, not soldier mindset.
Actively resist attempts to tie the forum into a particular movement, ideology, or institution, or frame it as an enemy. This includes attempts to tie it to a movement that champions these principles in the wider world. Keep the forum independent, neutral, and small.
Actively resist attempts to use incentives (voting mechanisms, rhetoric, official site policy) to try and enforce a unified approach to the execution of forum independence and neutrality. Make reasoned arguments, and let people make their own decisions.