Many of my hypotheses will be junk, but that’s okay. As long as I can maximize the number of useful ideas that I can generate, I think I’ll have done something.
Really bad thinking, IMHO. You should be trying to maximize (good_ideas—K * bad_ideas). Now I don’t know for sure what is the best value to use for K. But I suspect that if you use a K < 1 in your objective function, none of your good ideas will be useful—because no one will bother reading them.
My advice would be to continue to use your blog as a dumping ground for unevaluated ideas and to use LessWrong for a different purpose. Use us for practice and experimentation in communication skills, argument construction, and other aspects of pedagogy. Send us only those of your ideas which you think are your really good ideas. And then try to craft your presentation so that everyone here who reads it really gets your idea on the first try.
Inevitably, you won’t succeed as often as you hope. Sometimes we won’t get your idea, and sometimes we will understand, but disagree. In either case, you will learn something from the feedback.
It is a lot of extra effort compared to your original proposal, but I think you will discover that the results are worth it.
Okay good points there. Maybe we could make a feature for personal blogs on this site? (I know some forums let users have their own blogs on the forum). I know people can see each other’s blogs through blog URLs, but not a lot of people use those features.
I know people can see each other’s blogs through blog URLs, but not a lot of people use those features.
I would guess that many people make use of that feature. I know I do. However, I don’t look at the blogs of everyone I run into here. Only the people who consistently impress me with their analysis, insight, and focus on topics that interest me.
Still though, what if I wanted to, say, ask a short question to the community? (or what if I wanted to ask multiple short questions?)
One question I’m especially dying to ask: How do people respond when they learn that you’re interested in being very rational? This question is especially important since many people think they’re more rational than they really are. And also since they might accuse self-labeled rationals as “arrogant”.
Another thing: I wish there was a way for lesswrong people to post links and discuss them (but aren’t prominent enough to be in the discussion session). We might be able to post links to several news articles a day (it’s a way to learn from each other, since we could get each other’s perspective on a particular link).
Really bad thinking, IMHO. You should be trying to maximize (good_ideas—K * bad_ideas). Now I don’t know for sure what is the best value to use for K. But I suspect that if you use a K < 1 in your objective function, none of your good ideas will be useful—because no one will bother reading them.
My advice would be to continue to use your blog as a dumping ground for unevaluated ideas and to use LessWrong for a different purpose. Use us for practice and experimentation in communication skills, argument construction, and other aspects of pedagogy. Send us only those of your ideas which you think are your really good ideas. And then try to craft your presentation so that everyone here who reads it really gets your idea on the first try.
Inevitably, you won’t succeed as often as you hope. Sometimes we won’t get your idea, and sometimes we will understand, but disagree. In either case, you will learn something from the feedback.
It is a lot of extra effort compared to your original proposal, but I think you will discover that the results are worth it.
Okay good points there. Maybe we could make a feature for personal blogs on this site? (I know some forums let users have their own blogs on the forum). I know people can see each other’s blogs through blog URLs, but not a lot of people use those features.
I would guess that many people make use of that feature. I know I do. However, I don’t look at the blogs of everyone I run into here. Only the people who consistently impress me with their analysis, insight, and focus on topics that interest me.
Still though, what if I wanted to, say, ask a short question to the community? (or what if I wanted to ask multiple short questions?)
One question I’m especially dying to ask: How do people respond when they learn that you’re interested in being very rational? This question is especially important since many people think they’re more rational than they really are. And also since they might accuse self-labeled rationals as “arrogant”.
Another thing: I wish there was a way for lesswrong people to post links and discuss them (but aren’t prominent enough to be in the discussion session). We might be able to post links to several news articles a day (it’s a way to learn from each other, since we could get each other’s perspective on a particular link).
Short questions are fine. It’s the long rambling comments that will annoy people and earn you downvotes.
For multiple short questions, put them all in one thread.