I imagine that in Vienna, the community is small enough that if someone gets excited by rationalist ideas and wants to meet with other rationalists in person, there essentially is just the one group. And also, it sounds like this group is small enough that having a group brainstorm to help a specific community member is viable.
In the Bay Area, it’s large enough that there are several cliques which someone excited by rationalist ideas might fall into, and there’s not a central organization which has the authority to say which ones are or aren’t rationalist, nor is there a common standard for rationalists. It’s also not clear which cliques (if any) a specific person is in when you meet them at a party or whatever, so even though there are cliques with bad reputations, it’s hard to decisively exclude them. (And also, Inner Ring dynamics abound.)
As for the dysfunctional houses thing, what seems to happen something like: Wow, this rationalism stuff is great, and the Bay Area is the place to be! I’ll move there and try to get a software job. I can probably teach myself to code in just a couple months, and being surrounded by other rationalists will make it easier. But gosh, is housing really that expensive? Oh, but there are all these group houses! Well, this one is the only one I could afford and that had room for me, so I guess I’ll stay here until I get a proper job. Hmm, is that mold? Hopefully someone takes care of that… And ugh, why are all my roommates sucking me into their petty drama?! Ughhhh, I really should start applying for jobs—damn this akrasia! I should focus on solving that before doing anything else. Has it really been 6 months already? Oh, LSD solved your akrasia? Seems worth a try. Oh, you’ll be my trip-sitter and guide me through the anti-akrasia technique you developed? Awesome! Woah, I wasn’t sure about your egregores-are-eating-people’s-souls thing, but now I see it everywhere...
This is a hard problem for the community-at-large to solve, since it’s not visible to anyone who could offer some real help until it’s too late. I think the person in the vignette would have done fine in Vienna. And the expensive housing is a large factor here, it makes it much harder to remove yourself from a bad situation, and constantly eats up your slack. But I do think the community has been negligent and reckless in certain ways which exacerbate this problem, and that is what my criticism of CFAR here is about. Specifically, contributing towards a culture where people try and share all these dubious mental techniques that will supposedly solve their problems, and a culture where bad actors are tolerated for far too long. I’m sure there are plenty of other things we’re doing wrong too.
Thank you, the description is hilarious and depressing at the same time. I think I get it. (But I suspect there are also people who were already crazy when they came.)
I am probably still missing a lot of context, but the first idea that comes to my mind, is to copy the religious solution and do something like the Sunday at church, to synchronize the community. Choose a specific place and a repeating time (could be e.g. every other Saturday or whatever) where the rationalists are invited to come and listen to some kind of news and lectures.
Importantly, the news and lectures would be given by people vetted by the leaders of the rationality community. (So that e.g. Ziz cannot come and give a lecture on bicameral sleep.) I imagine e.g. 2 or 3 lectures/speeches on various topics that could be of interest to rationalists, and then someone give a summary about what things interesting to the community have happened since the last event, and what is going to happen before the next one. Afterwards, people either go home, or hang out together in smaller groups unofficially.
This would make it easier to communicate stuff to the community at large, and also draw a line between what is “officially endorsed” and what is not.
(I know how many people are allergic to copy religious things—making a huge exception for Buddhism, or course—but they do have a technology for handling some social problems.)
I imagine that in Vienna, the community is small enough that if someone gets excited by rationalist ideas and wants to meet with other rationalists in person, there essentially is just the one group. And also, it sounds like this group is small enough that having a group brainstorm to help a specific community member is viable.
In the Bay Area, it’s large enough that there are several cliques which someone excited by rationalist ideas might fall into, and there’s not a central organization which has the authority to say which ones are or aren’t rationalist, nor is there a common standard for rationalists. It’s also not clear which cliques (if any) a specific person is in when you meet them at a party or whatever, so even though there are cliques with bad reputations, it’s hard to decisively exclude them. (And also, Inner Ring dynamics abound.)
As for the dysfunctional houses thing, what seems to happen something like: Wow, this rationalism stuff is great, and the Bay Area is the place to be! I’ll move there and try to get a software job. I can probably teach myself to code in just a couple months, and being surrounded by other rationalists will make it easier. But gosh, is housing really that expensive? Oh, but there are all these group houses! Well, this one is the only one I could afford and that had room for me, so I guess I’ll stay here until I get a proper job. Hmm, is that mold? Hopefully someone takes care of that… And ugh, why are all my roommates sucking me into their petty drama?! Ughhhh, I really should start applying for jobs—damn this akrasia! I should focus on solving that before doing anything else. Has it really been 6 months already? Oh, LSD solved your akrasia? Seems worth a try. Oh, you’ll be my trip-sitter and guide me through the anti-akrasia technique you developed? Awesome! Woah, I wasn’t sure about your egregores-are-eating-people’s-souls thing, but now I see it everywhere...
This is a hard problem for the community-at-large to solve, since it’s not visible to anyone who could offer some real help until it’s too late. I think the person in the vignette would have done fine in Vienna. And the expensive housing is a large factor here, it makes it much harder to remove yourself from a bad situation, and constantly eats up your slack. But I do think the community has been negligent and reckless in certain ways which exacerbate this problem, and that is what my criticism of CFAR here is about. Specifically, contributing towards a culture where people try and share all these dubious mental techniques that will supposedly solve their problems, and a culture where bad actors are tolerated for far too long. I’m sure there are plenty of other things we’re doing wrong too.
Thank you, the description is hilarious and depressing at the same time. I think I get it. (But I suspect there are also people who were already crazy when they came.)
I am probably still missing a lot of context, but the first idea that comes to my mind, is to copy the religious solution and do something like the Sunday at church, to synchronize the community. Choose a specific place and a repeating time (could be e.g. every other Saturday or whatever) where the rationalists are invited to come and listen to some kind of news and lectures.
Importantly, the news and lectures would be given by people vetted by the leaders of the rationality community. (So that e.g. Ziz cannot come and give a lecture on bicameral sleep.) I imagine e.g. 2 or 3 lectures/speeches on various topics that could be of interest to rationalists, and then someone give a summary about what things interesting to the community have happened since the last event, and what is going to happen before the next one. Afterwards, people either go home, or hang out together in smaller groups unofficially.
This would make it easier to communicate stuff to the community at large, and also draw a line between what is “officially endorsed” and what is not.
(I know how many people are allergic to copy religious things—making a huge exception for Buddhism, or course—but they do have a technology for handling some social problems.)