I’m new here, so I’d like to share my rationalist origin story. (Please somebody tell me if I’m doing this in the wrong place.) I only became aware that rationality was a thing very recently. I’m getting started with the sequences and rationalist blogs, but there is a ton to read and it will take me a while. I’m familiar with many of the concepts and I have strong opinions about them, though I realize there’s a lot to learn. I am going to try to express my opinions but hold onto them loosely, so PCK can work.
I was introduced to rationality by attending a CFAR workshop in early May. I’m not sure exactly why I signed up. A few people at work had raved about it, but I didn’t really understand what it would help me accomplish. For the last year I’ve been feeling a lot of anxiety about the future of humanity and the possible collapse of society, etc. I’ve been coping with this anxiety by writing short stories about a moral revolution. I think one of our root problems is that people mostly talk about how things aren’t working. I wanted to write about how things might be working perfectly. If there was a specific goal, I went to CFAR for help making more progress at becoming an author.
I found the workshop to be transformative in many ways I won’t go into here. It helped me with my writing project as well, but not in the way I expected. My writing is concept-heavy, but I am bad at creating characters. One concept that is important to me is that humanity needs a new kind of philosophy. Something that isn’t quite a religion or a scientific theory or an economic model but is something that combines all of those domains. This philosophy would strengthen individuals and give groups in different domains shared values/goals. Rationalism strikes me as this kind of philosophy. The rationalists I observed in the workshop struck me as being stronger because of what they know. Rationalism had changed them in ways I don’t yet fully understand. In short, you all make me believe that a moral revolution is possible. You help me imagine the kinds of people who will address humanity’s biggest challenges.
This is a really long intro I feel weird about that but I’m going to post it anyway. Rationalism is great. You’re all great.
Welcome. My thing is problem solving. Now in the sense that there is a lot of reading worth doing, it might be better to make a bugs list, or a curiosity list and then post it and others can suggest where to go to get understanding of the things you are seeking.
I think at this point I’m in the learning phase where I’m just staring at things in wonder. For my bugs and technique discussions, I have followups with my workshop buddies and that seems to be working pretty well. I think the reason I came to lesswrong was to understand more about the community itself. Who is part of it? How big is it? What is everybody talking about? Those kinds of things. Reading posts every couple of days seems to be working for now.
It might help if there are recent posts where the community is focused inward and talking about itself. I’ve seen a couple of these, but if there are any good ones that come to mind for you I would appreciate it.
Hi everybody!
I’m new here, so I’d like to share my rationalist origin story. (Please somebody tell me if I’m doing this in the wrong place.) I only became aware that rationality was a thing very recently. I’m getting started with the sequences and rationalist blogs, but there is a ton to read and it will take me a while. I’m familiar with many of the concepts and I have strong opinions about them, though I realize there’s a lot to learn. I am going to try to express my opinions but hold onto them loosely, so PCK can work.
I was introduced to rationality by attending a CFAR workshop in early May. I’m not sure exactly why I signed up. A few people at work had raved about it, but I didn’t really understand what it would help me accomplish. For the last year I’ve been feeling a lot of anxiety about the future of humanity and the possible collapse of society, etc. I’ve been coping with this anxiety by writing short stories about a moral revolution. I think one of our root problems is that people mostly talk about how things aren’t working. I wanted to write about how things might be working perfectly. If there was a specific goal, I went to CFAR for help making more progress at becoming an author.
I found the workshop to be transformative in many ways I won’t go into here. It helped me with my writing project as well, but not in the way I expected. My writing is concept-heavy, but I am bad at creating characters. One concept that is important to me is that humanity needs a new kind of philosophy. Something that isn’t quite a religion or a scientific theory or an economic model but is something that combines all of those domains. This philosophy would strengthen individuals and give groups in different domains shared values/goals. Rationalism strikes me as this kind of philosophy. The rationalists I observed in the workshop struck me as being stronger because of what they know. Rationalism had changed them in ways I don’t yet fully understand. In short, you all make me believe that a moral revolution is possible. You help me imagine the kinds of people who will address humanity’s biggest challenges.
This is a really long intro I feel weird about that but I’m going to post it anyway. Rationalism is great. You’re all great.
Welcome. My thing is problem solving. Now in the sense that there is a lot of reading worth doing, it might be better to make a bugs list, or a curiosity list and then post it and others can suggest where to go to get understanding of the things you are seeking.
I think at this point I’m in the learning phase where I’m just staring at things in wonder. For my bugs and technique discussions, I have followups with my workshop buddies and that seems to be working pretty well. I think the reason I came to lesswrong was to understand more about the community itself. Who is part of it? How big is it? What is everybody talking about? Those kinds of things. Reading posts every couple of days seems to be working for now.
It might help if there are recent posts where the community is focused inward and talking about itself. I’ve seen a couple of these, but if there are any good ones that come to mind for you I would appreciate it.
Thank you for being welcoming.