Some of this reminds me of a talk by Sumana Harihareswara, a friend of mine in the free software community, where she tries to exmaine which strange and offputting things are necessary and which are needlessly driving people away: Inessential Weirdnesses in Free Software
I think there are in fact a lot of parallels between issues in free software and the rationalist community—similarly devaluing Hufflepuff skills even when they’re necessary to get the full value out of everyone’s contributions, similarly having concerns about not watering down the core philosophical commitments while still being open to newcomers and people who are not yet committed to the entire culture.
(FWIW, I am a weakly-connected member of the Bay Area rationalist community—it’s not what I think of as my primary community so I’m not particularly present.)
Some of this reminds me of a talk by Sumana Harihareswara, a friend of mine in the free software community, where she tries to exmaine which strange and offputting things are necessary and which are needlessly driving people away: Inessential Weirdnesses in Free Software
I think there are in fact a lot of parallels between issues in free software and the rationalist community—similarly devaluing Hufflepuff skills even when they’re necessary to get the full value out of everyone’s contributions, similarly having concerns about not watering down the core philosophical commitments while still being open to newcomers and people who are not yet committed to the entire culture.
(FWIW, I am a weakly-connected member of the Bay Area rationalist community—it’s not what I think of as my primary community so I’m not particularly present.)