Hello, thanks very much for your post! I really appreciate it.
“my first comment on this site was the opinion that the avenues of participation in LW don’t seem to fit how I like to express myself, and that probably other potential users were in the same situation. I think LW doesn’t lend itself to conversation or stepwise refinement of ideas by a group, which is my best guess for how I would like to really engage with the ideas discussed here”
Ah yes, I definitely agree about that. Hence why I (and many others) am hesitant to post (the other thing is that no one seems to post in threads more than a month old, so there isn’t much I can post on). I know someone suggested the idea of subreddits some time ago, but we instead went with tags. But that just means that all the threads will go on a particular front page.
“My only concern is that while your goal is good, the methods perhaps leave something to be desired. It may well be the fastest way for you to learn, but putting the burden of critique of a large flow of ideas onto others can be something of an imposition. Time certainly is a valuable resource, as you state, and remember that other people value their time too. What I hope LW can do for you is read and critique just as you wish, but that also you learn here some habits and skills of thinking that allow you to do more and more of this sort of critique of your own ideas as you have them. My time at LW (and OB, and many other places on the net) has been spent largely lurking, in a project of refining my own ability to reason and critique effectively and correctly, and I hope that it works out for you that way too.”
Okay, very good points there. Yeah, I generally self-critique my own ideas (and frequently edit them without input). My main idea in putting everything online, in any case, was that someone (with time) could probably find me and email me (I’ve emailed other people who ended up not replying to my emails, so I ended up making everything public).
The “recent comments” feature (separate for discussion and main blog, but unfortunately not available for individual posts or comment threads) means that comments on old posts have a chance of being noticed.
Hello, thanks very much for your post! I really appreciate it.
“my first comment on this site was the opinion that the avenues of participation in LW don’t seem to fit how I like to express myself, and that probably other potential users were in the same situation. I think LW doesn’t lend itself to conversation or stepwise refinement of ideas by a group, which is my best guess for how I would like to really engage with the ideas discussed here”
Ah yes, I definitely agree about that. Hence why I (and many others) am hesitant to post (the other thing is that no one seems to post in threads more than a month old, so there isn’t much I can post on). I know someone suggested the idea of subreddits some time ago, but we instead went with tags. But that just means that all the threads will go on a particular front page.
“My only concern is that while your goal is good, the methods perhaps leave something to be desired. It may well be the fastest way for you to learn, but putting the burden of critique of a large flow of ideas onto others can be something of an imposition. Time certainly is a valuable resource, as you state, and remember that other people value their time too. What I hope LW can do for you is read and critique just as you wish, but that also you learn here some habits and skills of thinking that allow you to do more and more of this sort of critique of your own ideas as you have them. My time at LW (and OB, and many other places on the net) has been spent largely lurking, in a project of refining my own ability to reason and critique effectively and correctly, and I hope that it works out for you that way too.”
Okay, very good points there. Yeah, I generally self-critique my own ideas (and frequently edit them without input). My main idea in putting everything online, in any case, was that someone (with time) could probably find me and email me (I’ve emailed other people who ended up not replying to my emails, so I ended up making everything public).
The “recent comments” feature (separate for discussion and main blog, but unfortunately not available for individual posts or comment threads) means that comments on old posts have a chance of being noticed.