Introducing others to LessWrong-ism… through comics!

Having read through the Sequences, Methods of Rationality, related blogs and books and so on, and having changed my mind a few times on at least a few ideas that I’d been fairly sure about… I feel that I finally have enough of a grasp of the basics of LessWrong-style rationality to start trying to introduce it to other people. And while the Sequences form a good set of basics, getting someone interested enough in rationality to start reading them is a step of its own… and, as best as I can tell, one that needs to be custom-tailored to a particular audience.

For my first attempt, I’ve focused on two online subcultures which I’m at least somewhat familiar with: furries and a certain subset of libertarians. For example, a large number of furry fans are fairly easy to please—give them a short comic to read involving a cute anthropomorphic animal, throw in a bit of sex appeal and maybe a message that’s compatible with tolerance of all people, and that comic will be happily read by a lot of them. Trying to avoid “politics is the mind-killer” derailment, the community of libertarians I’m aiming for tend to have their own quirks about what attracts their attention.

The result I came up with was the creation of Rationality Matters, a couple of comics pages that introduce some LW-type thoughts in an audience-compatible fashion without beating the readers’ heads with them. I’ve already received some positive feedback from members of both target groups, indicating that I’ve accomplished my goal with at least a few individuals… so now I’m posting the link here, for whatever feedback I can get that could improve the existing pages (mainly for the text, since re-doing the art at this stage is impractical), and to make any future pages (should I decide to create them) better than I would have made them without such help.

(And yes, I try to follow Crocker’s Rules.)