This may not be an appropriate place for this suggestion, but it might be. Related to a previous comment I made and the mention of the job ads debate and the sidebar idea.
I would like to see various concrete projects that should be referenced often, like the akrasia tactics review or links to various power tool projects on the main site. If there were a sidebar which contained something like a list of job ads relevant to the topics of the site, a link to akrasia tactics to help get everyone focused, and links to various power tools to help people pursue their goals effectively or find projects to contribute to.
These seem like topics that are very likely to be instrumentally useful to most users, and far less likely to be used or known of when they are not on the front page.
I agree that anti-akrasia tactics should be a major part of most rationality power tool sets. Being in high school, the vast majority of things that I do don’t really hinge on the likelihood of specific things (politics, technologies, etc.) happening in the near future.
Akrasia, on the other hand, often gets in the way of things that I’m trying to do, and seems like a major roadblock in turning any thought into useful action.
I’ve wondered whether akrasia of the time-killing variety as the central problem is a characteristic of the folks at LW, and if other groups would have more people who need to work using thought to moderate high-energy impulsiveness.
This may not be an appropriate place for this suggestion, but it might be. Related to a previous comment I made and the mention of the job ads debate and the sidebar idea.
I would like to see various concrete projects that should be referenced often, like the akrasia tactics review or links to various power tool projects on the main site. If there were a sidebar which contained something like a list of job ads relevant to the topics of the site, a link to akrasia tactics to help get everyone focused, and links to various power tools to help people pursue their goals effectively or find projects to contribute to.
These seem like topics that are very likely to be instrumentally useful to most users, and far less likely to be used or known of when they are not on the front page.
I agree that anti-akrasia tactics should be a major part of most rationality power tool sets. Being in high school, the vast majority of things that I do don’t really hinge on the likelihood of specific things (politics, technologies, etc.) happening in the near future.
Akrasia, on the other hand, often gets in the way of things that I’m trying to do, and seems like a major roadblock in turning any thought into useful action.
I’ve wondered whether akrasia of the time-killing variety as the central problem is a characteristic of the folks at LW, and if other groups would have more people who need to work using thought to moderate high-energy impulsiveness.
This should be posted as a suggestion here: http://lesswrong.com/lw/1w4/fall_2010_meta_thread/2n73?c=1