A general rule that I try to follow is “never write something which someone else has already written better”. Rather than give a numerical scale, I’ll list a few distinct ways that pieces can satisfy this rule. I’ll give examples of each from my own writing, with the caveat that they are not necessarily very good pieces—just examples of my own reasoning regarding their novelty.
Analyzing something which has been analyzed many times before, but usually incorrectly, so it’s hard to sift signal from noise. In this case, the novelty/value is in making the analysis visibly correct. Ex.: Accounting for college costs
Translating some piece of metic knowledge into a more transmissible model/technique. Ex.: How to find unknown unknowns
Arguing that some known idea/problem is more important than people seem to have noticed. Ex.: Coordination economy
Note that these are ways that a piece of writing can be novel, not guarantees that nobody has ever written the same thing before.
Side note: if using a numerical scale, I worry about confusing novelty with importance—the example scale in the OP seems to mix the two. Perhaps a better approach would be to give handles for several different ways things can be novel, and then use those as tags?
A general rule that I try to follow is “never write something which someone else has already written better”.
A sensible rule, but I’d like to bring some rationalist insights to other communities that might be able to benefit from seeing how people who’ve read the Sequences handle things. This seems to necessitate a little bit of redundant writing.
Also, I could stand to get better at writing. On the other hand, if I limit myself to writing only novel things, I wouldn’t practice nearly as much as I ought to do. Of course, the decision to publish any given piece is a separate issue.
I worry about confusing novelty with importance—the example scale in the OP seems to mix the two.
Not on purpose. I just couldn’t think of something super-novel yet unimportant.
Perhaps a better approach would be to give handles for several different ways things can be novel, and then use those as tags?
That sounds like a good idea inasmuch as it maps to reality the best, but it’s also more work than I thought I’d have to do. I’m considering collapsing the novelty scale to no more than five points and trying to make it more coarse to deliberately paper over the different ways a piece can be novel.
Thanks for demonstrating that novelty isn’t totally orderable, though; I thought it was, more or less.
A general rule that I try to follow is “never write something which someone else has already written better”. Rather than give a numerical scale, I’ll list a few distinct ways that pieces can satisfy this rule. I’ll give examples of each from my own writing, with the caveat that they are not necessarily very good pieces—just examples of my own reasoning regarding their novelty.
Novel theory/observation/interpretation (or at least novel as far as I know). Ex.: Computational limits of empire
Carving up known ideas differently, e.g. by pointing to a particular sub-idea or creating a handle. Ex.: The broken chain problem
Taking a well-known idea from one area, and applying it in another area. Ex.: Competitive markets as distributed backprop
Analyzing something which has been analyzed many times before, but usually incorrectly, so it’s hard to sift signal from noise. In this case, the novelty/value is in making the analysis visibly correct. Ex.: Accounting for college costs
Translating some piece of metic knowledge into a more transmissible model/technique. Ex.: How to find unknown unknowns
Accessible explanations of technical ideas. Ex.: Queuing theory without math
Arguing that some known idea/problem is more important than people seem to have noticed. Ex.: Coordination economy
Note that these are ways that a piece of writing can be novel, not guarantees that nobody has ever written the same thing before.
Side note: if using a numerical scale, I worry about confusing novelty with importance—the example scale in the OP seems to mix the two. Perhaps a better approach would be to give handles for several different ways things can be novel, and then use those as tags?
A sensible rule, but I’d like to bring some rationalist insights to other communities that might be able to benefit from seeing how people who’ve read the Sequences handle things. This seems to necessitate a little bit of redundant writing.
Also, I could stand to get better at writing. On the other hand, if I limit myself to writing only novel things, I wouldn’t practice nearly as much as I ought to do. Of course, the decision to publish any given piece is a separate issue.
Not on purpose. I just couldn’t think of something super-novel yet unimportant.
That sounds like a good idea inasmuch as it maps to reality the best, but it’s also more work than I thought I’d have to do. I’m considering collapsing the novelty scale to no more than five points and trying to make it more coarse to deliberately paper over the different ways a piece can be novel.
Thanks for demonstrating that novelty isn’t totally orderable, though; I thought it was, more or less.