LessWrong itself doesn’t have as much activity as it once did, but the first users on LessWrong have pursued their ideas on Artificial Intelligence and rationality, through the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI) and the Center for Applied Rationality (CFAR), respectively, they have a lot more opportunity to impact the world than they did before. If those are the sorts of things you or anyone, really, is passionate about, if they can get abreast of what these organizations are doing now and can greatly expand on it on LW itself, it can lead to jobs. Well, it’d probably help to be able to work in the United States and also have a degree to work at either CFAR or MIRI. I’ve known several people who’ve gone on to collaborate with them by starting on LW. Still, though, personally I’d find the most exciting part to be shaping the future of ideas regardless of whether it led to a job or not.
I think it’s much easier to say now to become a top contributor on LW can be a springboard to much greater things. Caveat: whether those things are greater depends on what you want. Of course there are all manner of readers and users on LW who don’t particularly pay attention to what goes on in AI safety, or at CFAR/MIRI. I shouldn’t say building connections through LW is unusually likely to lead to great things if most LessWrongers might not think the outcomes so great after all. If LW became the sort of rationality community which was conducive to other slam-dunk examples of systematic winning, like a string of successful entrepreneurs, that’d make the sight much more attractive.
I know several CFAR alumni have credited the rationality skills they learned at CFAR as contributing to their success as entrepreneurs or on other projects. That’s something else entirely different from finding the beginnings of that sort of success merely on this website itself. If all manner of aspiring rationalists pursued and won in all manner of domains, with all the beginnings of their success attributed to LW, that’d really be something else.
Oops, went on a random walk there. Anyway, my point even shy nerdy people...
[even shy nerdy people who are socially isolated or socially awkward, for which commenting on an internet blog may count as a significant social engagement]
...can totally think of LW as significant social engagement if they want to, because I know dozens of people for whom down the road it’s brought them marriages, families, careers, new passions, and whole new family-like communities. That’s really more common among people who attended LW meetups in the past, when those were more common.
LessWrong itself doesn’t have as much activity as it once did, but the first users on LessWrong have pursued their ideas on Artificial Intelligence and rationality, through the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI) and the Center for Applied Rationality (CFAR), respectively, they have a lot more opportunity to impact the world than they did before. If those are the sorts of things you or anyone, really, is passionate about, if they can get abreast of what these organizations are doing now and can greatly expand on it on LW itself, it can lead to jobs. Well, it’d probably help to be able to work in the United States and also have a degree to work at either CFAR or MIRI. I’ve known several people who’ve gone on to collaborate with them by starting on LW. Still, though, personally I’d find the most exciting part to be shaping the future of ideas regardless of whether it led to a job or not.
I think it’s much easier to say now to become a top contributor on LW can be a springboard to much greater things. Caveat: whether those things are greater depends on what you want. Of course there are all manner of readers and users on LW who don’t particularly pay attention to what goes on in AI safety, or at CFAR/MIRI. I shouldn’t say building connections through LW is unusually likely to lead to great things if most LessWrongers might not think the outcomes so great after all. If LW became the sort of rationality community which was conducive to other slam-dunk examples of systematic winning, like a string of successful entrepreneurs, that’d make the sight much more attractive.
I know several CFAR alumni have credited the rationality skills they learned at CFAR as contributing to their success as entrepreneurs or on other projects. That’s something else entirely different from finding the beginnings of that sort of success merely on this website itself. If all manner of aspiring rationalists pursued and won in all manner of domains, with all the beginnings of their success attributed to LW, that’d really be something else.
Oops, went on a random walk there. Anyway, my point even shy nerdy people...
...can totally think of LW as significant social engagement if they want to, because I know dozens of people for whom down the road it’s brought them marriages, families, careers, new passions, and whole new family-like communities. That’s really more common among people who attended LW meetups in the past, when those were more common.