Taking a canon and forming a community around it, composed of people who find it compelling, seems more tractable right now. LessWrong coalesced around the Sequences (and later, the CFAR workshops). Objectivism coalesced around The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. My alma mater, St. John’s College, reformed as a community around the New (Great Books) Program and the students and tutors it attracted.
If you just want a community with ideas in common, canon is great. If you are interested in truth-seeking, unrevisable canon is terrible. Objectivism has its canon, but if the founders of LW thought Objectivist canon was actually true , they wouldn’t have founded LW. To truth-seek, you have to be open to discarding bad ideas.
People in the Effective Altruist and Rationalist intellectual communities have been discussing moving discourse back into the public sphere lately. I agree with this goal and want to help. There are reasons to think that we need not only public discourse, but public fora.
Just as unreviseable canon is very different to revisable canon, public discourse can mean radically different things. Preaching on a street corner is one-way discourse. Academic discourse is two way: it is accepted that counterargument is part of the truth seeking-process.
If you just want a community with ideas in common, canon is great. If you are interested in truth-seeking, unrevisable canon is terrible. Objectivism has its canon, but if the founders of LW thought Objectivist canon was actually true , they wouldn’t have founded LW. To truth-seek, you have to be open to discarding bad ideas.
of course, opposiiton to closure is part of Less Wrong doctine. Just not a part you are supposed to act on.
Just as unreviseable canon is very different to revisable canon, public discourse can mean radically different things. Preaching on a street corner is one-way discourse. Academic discourse is two way: it is accepted that counterargument is part of the truth seeking-process.