And the “total immersion” effect of LessWrong is really healthy for young minds, but I am not sure you have understood the purpose of this would-be project. If you were an English teacher, would you not be interested in a “rational thinking for teachers” group?
We could have “rational thinking for teachers”, a “rational thinking for programmers”, a “rational thinking for musicians”, a “rational thinking for women” and a “rational thinking for teenagers” group. At the end you have 10 different groups. I don’t think that’s a good way to proceed.
When you were 15, would you have been interested in understanding the inner-workings of a teenage brain through puberty?
I don’t see how that discussion would be unwelcome on LessWrong. If you have such a discussion on LessWrong it’s likely that people who aren’t teenagers contribute their knowledge. That’s a good thing for the discussion.
A rational teenager who speaks about how parents are in general overcontroling doesn’t need another teenager with the same perspective to agree with him. He profits much more if someone with a different opinion than him contributes to the discussion.
Would approaching college applications in a rational way be a useful tool for 15 year old ChristianKl?
Given that I live in Germany a discussion about US college applications wouldn’t have been more valuable to me back then, then it’s now.
That’s a bit different. The fact that the group exist doesn’t show that the people who are members of the group don’t feel welcome on LessWrong.
23 people are also not enough to have a functioning LessWrong forum.
Or does “A community blog devoted to refining the art of human rationality” not apply if your under 20?
Of course it applies. Come and open your discussions about college applications and the workings of the teenage brain right here. You are welcome on LessWrong proper and don’t need a separate room to have that discussion.
We could have “rational thinking for teachers”, a “rational thinking for programmers”, a “rational thinking for musicians”, a “rational thinking for women” and a “rational thinking for teenagers” group. At the end you have 10 different groups. I don’t think that’s a good way to proceed.
Not to mention that it carries the implication that the default rationalist is not a member of any of these categories.
We could have “rational thinking for teachers”, a “rational thinking for programmers”, a “rational thinking for musicians”, a “rational thinking for women” and a “rational thinking for teenagers” group. At the end you have 10 different groups.
It depends.
If the Discussion page gets flooded by dozen “rationality for musicians” articles, it could make the members without musical interests feel excluded. One such article in a few months would not have the same effect. And it could make the musicians very happy.
One can be more specific about “applied rationality for musicians” than about “applied rationality for artists”, which is still more specific than “applied rationality” in general. Perhaps we should replace “rational” with “optimal” here. But anyway, the goal of rationality is to win. We can win more by sharing the fruit we already found; even if doing that does not directly increase one’s fruit-seeking skills.
(Personally, I would love to see the “rational thinking for programmers” topic, but I am afraid that this topic has a very high chance of jumping to a dozen articles per month when the taboo is broken, so I will rather not break that taboo. But writing for teenagers seems much safer.)
If the Discussion page gets flooded by dozen “rationality for musicians” articles, it could make the members without musical interests feel excluded.
If you do have the discussion page flooded by dozen of “rationality for musicians” articles it’s time to open a separate forum for them.
I don’t see a reason to open that forum before that happens.
We could have “rational thinking for teachers”, a “rational thinking for programmers”, a “rational thinking for musicians”, a “rational thinking for women” and a “rational thinking for teenagers” group. At the end you have 10 different groups. I don’t think that’s a good way to proceed.
I don’t see how that discussion would be unwelcome on LessWrong. If you have such a discussion on LessWrong it’s likely that people who aren’t teenagers contribute their knowledge. That’s a good thing for the discussion.
A rational teenager who speaks about how parents are in general overcontroling doesn’t need another teenager with the same perspective to agree with him. He profits much more if someone with a different opinion than him contributes to the discussion.
Given that I live in Germany a discussion about US college applications wouldn’t have been more valuable to me back then, then it’s now.
That’s a bit different. The fact that the group exist doesn’t show that the people who are members of the group don’t feel welcome on LessWrong. 23 people are also not enough to have a functioning LessWrong forum.
Of course it applies. Come and open your discussions about college applications and the workings of the teenage brain right here. You are welcome on LessWrong proper and don’t need a separate room to have that discussion.
Not to mention that it carries the implication that the default rationalist is not a member of any of these categories.
It depends.
If the Discussion page gets flooded by dozen “rationality for musicians” articles, it could make the members without musical interests feel excluded. One such article in a few months would not have the same effect. And it could make the musicians very happy.
One can be more specific about “applied rationality for musicians” than about “applied rationality for artists”, which is still more specific than “applied rationality” in general. Perhaps we should replace “rational” with “optimal” here. But anyway, the goal of rationality is to win. We can win more by sharing the fruit we already found; even if doing that does not directly increase one’s fruit-seeking skills.
(Personally, I would love to see the “rational thinking for programmers” topic, but I am afraid that this topic has a very high chance of jumping to a dozen articles per month when the taboo is broken, so I will rather not break that taboo. But writing for teenagers seems much safer.)
If you do have the discussion page flooded by dozen of “rationality for musicians” articles it’s time to open a separate forum for them. I don’t see a reason to open that forum before that happens.
Maybe “optimizing” rather than “optimal”? It’s hard to be sure you’ve gotten something as right as possible.