I’m strongly in favor of the sequences requirement. If I had been firmly encouraged/pressured into reading the sequences when I joined LW at ~march/april 2022, my life would have been much better and more successful by now. I suspect this would be the case for many other people. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about ways that LW could set people up to steer themselves (and eachother) towards self-improvement, like the Battle School in Ender’s Game, but it seems like it’s much easier to just tell people to read the Sequences.
Something that I’m worried about is that the reading sequences requirement actually makes lesswrong too reputable, i.e. that it makes LW into an obvious elite exclusive club that people race to become a member of in order to show status. This scenario is in contrast with the current paradigm, where people who are good enough to notice LW’s value, often at a glance, are the ones who stay and hang around the most.
I’m strongly in favor of the sequences requirement. If I had been firmly encouraged/pressured into reading the sequences when I joined LW at ~march/april 2022, my life would have been much better and more successful by now. I suspect this would be the case for many other people. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about ways that LW could set people up to steer themselves (and eachother) towards self-improvement, like the Battle School in Ender’s Game, but it seems like it’s much easier to just tell people to read the Sequences.
Something that I’m worried about is that the reading sequences requirement actually makes lesswrong too reputable, i.e. that it makes LW into an obvious elite exclusive club that people race to become a member of in order to show status. This scenario is in contrast with the current paradigm, where people who are good enough to notice LW’s value, often at a glance, are the ones who stay and hang around the most.