In stand up comedy, performances are where you present your good jokes and open mics are where you experiment.
Sometimes when you post something on a blog (or Twitter, Facebook, a comment, etc.), you intend for it to be more of a performance. It’s material that you have spent time developing, are confident in, etc.
But other times you intend for it to be more of an open mic. It’s not obviously horribly or anything, but it’s certainly experimental. You think it’s plausibly good, but very well might end up being garbage.
Going further, in stand up comedy, there is a phase that comes before open mics. I guess we can call that phase “ideation”. Where you come up with your ideas. Maybe that’s going for walks. Maybe it’s having drinks with your comic friends. Maybe it’s talking to your grandma. Who knows? But there’s gotta be some period where you’re simply ideating. And I don’t really see anything analogous to that on LessWrong. It seems like something that should exist though. Maybe it exists right here with the Short Form (and Open Thread)? OnTwitter? Slack and Discord groups? Talking with friends? Even if it does, I wonder if we could do more.
Stand-up is all about performance, not interaction or collaboration, and certainly not truth-seeking (looking for evidence and models so that you can become less wrong), so it’s an imperfect analogy. But there’s value in the comparison.
I do see occasional “babble” posts, and fairly open questions on LW, that I think qualify as ideation. I suspect (and dearly hope) that most people do also go on walks and have un-recorded lightweight chats with friends as well.
Open mic posts
In stand up comedy, performances are where you present your good jokes and open mics are where you experiment.
Sometimes when you post something on a blog (or Twitter, Facebook, a comment, etc.), you intend for it to be more of a performance. It’s material that you have spent time developing, are confident in, etc.
But other times you intend for it to be more of an open mic. It’s not obviously horribly or anything, but it’s certainly experimental. You think it’s plausibly good, but very well might end up being garbage.
Going further, in stand up comedy, there is a phase that comes before open mics. I guess we can call that phase “ideation”. Where you come up with your ideas. Maybe that’s going for walks. Maybe it’s having drinks with your comic friends. Maybe it’s talking to your grandma. Who knows? But there’s gotta be some period where you’re simply ideating. And I don’t really see anything analogous to that on LessWrong. It seems like something that should exist though. Maybe it exists right here with the Short Form (and Open Thread)? OnTwitter? Slack and Discord groups? Talking with friends? Even if it does, I wonder if we could do more.
Stand-up is all about performance, not interaction or collaboration, and certainly not truth-seeking (looking for evidence and models so that you can become less wrong), so it’s an imperfect analogy. But there’s value in the comparison.
I do see occasional “babble” posts, and fairly open questions on LW, that I think qualify as ideation. I suspect (and dearly hope) that most people do also go on walks and have un-recorded lightweight chats with friends as well.