I’m curious if we can somehow operationalize a bet between Lightcone-ish-folk and you/Adam. I think agree the social-environment-distortion is an important cost. I do think it’s probably necessary for genius thinkers to have a period of time where they are thinking alone.
But, I do think there are also important benefits to publishing more, esp. if you can develop an internal locus of “what’s important”. I also think doing things like “just publish on your private blog rather than LessWrong, such that a smaller number of higher-context people can way in” would help.
But, my gut says pretty strongly that you and Adam are erring way too far in the not-publishing direction, and like, I would pay money for you to publish more.
FWIW I think that much our epistemic environment is too far from the true/right path. I think Habryka is able to think for himself in public better than most, and this has involved being one of the most intellectually aggressive arguers on the internet. I am not sure that being more in touch with everyone and their feedback would be healthy. For similar reasons, I don’t tweet. I suspect I would become more insane.
my gut says pretty strongly that you and Adam are erring way too far in the not-publishing direction, and like, I would pay money for you to publish more.
I am interested in debating the principle here (e.g. whether it sometimes makes sense to write books, whether/why most scientific progress so far has involved writing books, etc), but I feel less interested in debating your gut take on the tradeoffs Aysja and I are making personally, since I expect you know nearly nothing about what those are? Most obviously, the dominant term has been illness rather than choices, but I expect you also have near-zero context on the choices, which we have spent really a lot of time and effort considering. I would… I guess be up for describing those in person, if you want.
I’m curious if we can somehow operationalize a bet between Lightcone-ish-folk and you/Adam. I think agree the social-environment-distortion is an important cost. I do think it’s probably necessary for genius thinkers to have a period of time where they are thinking alone.
But, I do think there are also important benefits to publishing more, esp. if you can develop an internal locus of “what’s important”. I also think doing things like “just publish on your private blog rather than LessWrong, such that a smaller number of higher-context people can way in” would help.
But, my gut says pretty strongly that you and Adam are erring way too far in the not-publishing direction, and like, I would pay money for you to publish more.
FWIW I think that much our epistemic environment is too far from the true/right path. I think Habryka is able to think for himself in public better than most, and this has involved being one of the most intellectually aggressive arguers on the internet. I am not sure that being more in touch with everyone and their feedback would be healthy. For similar reasons, I don’t tweet. I suspect I would become more insane.
I am interested in debating the principle here (e.g. whether it sometimes makes sense to write books, whether/why most scientific progress so far has involved writing books, etc), but I feel less interested in debating your gut take on the tradeoffs Aysja and I are making personally, since I expect you know nearly nothing about what those are? Most obviously, the dominant term has been illness rather than choices, but I expect you also have near-zero context on the choices, which we have spent really a lot of time and effort considering. I would… I guess be up for describing those in person, if you want.
Makes sense, it is possible that after illness were factored out it wouldn’t seem so obvious to me.