I think Robin Hanson would say something about signaling here. Grammatical errors that don’t even effect content will still have some impact on readers if they think these types of errors signal ignorance. They will be less likely to pay attention to you.
This is related to another point I’ve been thinking about recently. That is, how to convince non-rationalists that rationalism is important.
I think this is a signaling problem as well. If, say, I were to write a post on LW geared towards non-rationalists, since I am unknown on this site, experienced rationalists might not respect me as much.
For example, take this sentence of yours:
It’s in your interest to consider the limitations of your interlocutors, their expectations, their attention span, their sensitivity, their bounded rationality, so that the largest possible fraction of your effort goes into delivering the payload, versus dissipating as waste heat.
A non-rationalist might not understand what you’re trying to say (at least not without studying the sentence a bit, which they might not want to do). You could get the same content out there by explaining what “bounded rationality” is, instead of assuming the reader knows what you’re talking about, but that will send quite a different signal to people who are already rationalists. They might think you’re being redundant.
I propose a third category. Content and form matter, but so does forum, for establishing effective communication.
Less Wrong is a useful and informative blog, but, by and large, not if you aren’t already a rationalist.
You’re absolutely right. Keeping in mind what audience you’re adressing is among the classical (and extremely useful) tips for improving one’s writing.
To some extent what defines an “audience” is precisely what you can expect of them in terms of vocabulary, shared values, and so on. It seems difficult, then, to say how you might write specifically for “non-rationalists”—there is no such thing as a cohesive audience. But you could think about, say, what would work in writing about rationality for people who read CNN.com. (People who value being informed, might want to signal to others that they keep up with important world events, and so on.)
Less Wrong is a useful and informative blog, but, by and large, not if you aren’t already a rationalist.
I don’t think of myself primarily as a rationalist. I came here due to other interests; I like to learn about epistemology, ethics, AI, grand science-fiction themes like uploading and cryonics. OTOH I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t interested in what a lot of rationalists are also interested in.
I think Robin Hanson would say something about signaling here. Grammatical errors that don’t even effect content will still have some impact on readers if they think these types of errors signal ignorance. They will be less likely to pay attention to you.
This is related to another point I’ve been thinking about recently. That is, how to convince non-rationalists that rationalism is important.
I think this is a signaling problem as well. If, say, I were to write a post on LW geared towards non-rationalists, since I am unknown on this site, experienced rationalists might not respect me as much.
For example, take this sentence of yours:
A non-rationalist might not understand what you’re trying to say (at least not without studying the sentence a bit, which they might not want to do). You could get the same content out there by explaining what “bounded rationality” is, instead of assuming the reader knows what you’re talking about, but that will send quite a different signal to people who are already rationalists. They might think you’re being redundant.
I propose a third category. Content and form matter, but so does forum, for establishing effective communication.
Less Wrong is a useful and informative blog, but, by and large, not if you aren’t already a rationalist.
You’re absolutely right. Keeping in mind what audience you’re adressing is among the classical (and extremely useful) tips for improving one’s writing.
To some extent what defines an “audience” is precisely what you can expect of them in terms of vocabulary, shared values, and so on. It seems difficult, then, to say how you might write specifically for “non-rationalists”—there is no such thing as a cohesive audience. But you could think about, say, what would work in writing about rationality for people who read CNN.com. (People who value being informed, might want to signal to others that they keep up with important world events, and so on.)
I don’t think of myself primarily as a rationalist. I came here due to other interests; I like to learn about epistemology, ethics, AI, grand science-fiction themes like uploading and cryonics. OTOH I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t interested in what a lot of rationalists are also interested in.