Isn’t there something inherently self-destructive about a website that teaches “winning”? I mean, when people start winning in their lives, they probably spend less time debating online...
If someone starts a startup, they have less time to debate online. If someone joins a rationalist community in their area, they also spend less time online, because they spend more time in personal interactions. Even if you just decide to exercise 10 minutes every day, and you succeed, that’s 10 minutes less to spend online.
(I don’t consider myself very successful in real life, my ambitions are much higher than where I am now, and I still remain in the LW top contributor list only because my time spent on other websites dropped by an order of magnitude.)
Unless your (instrumental) goal is to write something online, as was Eliezer’s case. Which suggests that we should write about the things we care about (as long as they can be enjoyed by people who try to be rational). You know, something to protect, without the affective spirals.
So instead of trying to increase the debates on LW (which is a lost purpose per se, unless pleasant procrastination is the goal), the right question is: What is the thing you care about? Is there a topic so important to you, that you are willing to spend your time learning it and becoming stronger? (Is it compatible with rational thinking, or is it just a huge affective spiral?) If you have an important topic, and it can be approached rationally, then that’s exactly the thing you should write about… and LW is one of those places where you could publish it.
Maybe the thing stopping you is thinking “but this isn’t about rationality; it is about X”. Well, drop that thought. This is exactly the difference between the Sequences-era LessWrong and the new LessWrong. Eliezer wrote the meta stuff, and he himself admits that he “concentrated more heavily on epistemic rationality than instrumental rationality, in general” (because that was related to his main issue: programming the AI). You don’t have to write this stuff again. (Well, unless you feel extremely qualified to; but you probably don’t.) That was Eliezer’s calling; you write about your calling. It would perhaps be best for the community if you were an expert on overcoming akrasia, creating communities, teaching or testing rationality, and similar instrumental rationality topics; but if you are not an expert there, you don’t need to pretend. Write about the stuff you know. At least write the first article and see the reactions (worst case, you will republish it on your blog later).
For full disclosure, I don’t consider myself very successful in real life either, and my ambitions are also much higher than where I am now. This is a phenomenon that my friends from the Vancouver rationalist meetup have remarked upon. My hypothesis for this is that Less Wrong selects for a portion of people who are looking to jump-start their productivity to a new level of lifestyle, but mostly selects for intelligent but complacent nerds who want to learn to think about arguments better, and like reading blogs. Such behavioral tendencies don’t lend themselves to getting out an armchair more often.
Mr. Bur, I don’t know if you’re addressing myself specifically, or generally the users reading this thread, but, like Mr. Kennaway, I agree wholeheartedly. I personally don’t feel extremely qualified to rewrite the core of Less Wrong canon, or whatever. I want to write about the stuff I know, and it will probably be a couple of months before I start attempting to generate high-quality posts, as in the interim I will need to study better the topics which I care about, and which I perceive to not have been thoroughly covered by a better post on Less Wrong before. I believe the best posts in Discussion in recent months have been based on specific topics, like Brienne Strohl’s exploration of memory techniques, or the posts discussing the complicated issues of human health, and nutrition. With fortuitous coincidence, Robin Hanson has recently captured well what I believe you’re getting at.
My prior comment got a fair number of upvotes for the hypothesis about why there was an exodus from Less Wrong of the first generation of the most prominent contributors to Less Wrong. However, going forward, my impression of how remaining users of Less Wrong frame the purpose of using it is a combination of Mr. Bur’s comment above, and this one.
My hypothesis for this is that Less Wrong selects for a portion of people who are looking to jump-start their productivity to a new level of lifestyle, but mostly selects for intelligent but complacent nerds who want to learn to think about arguments better, and like reading blogs.
Any blog selects for people who like reading blogs. :D
LW is about… let’s make it a simple slogan… improving your life through better thinking in a community.
Which is like your hypothesis, with the detail that those nerds want to experience a supportive environment. Specifically, an environment that will support them in correct thinking (as opposed to: “you just have to think positively, imagine a lot of success, and the universe will send it to you” or: “don’t think about it too much, join this get-rich-quickly scheme”), and in their clumsy attempts at improving the productivity (neither: “just be yourself, relax, learn to accept your situation”, nor: “too much talk and no action, either show me some amazing results right now or shut up”).
I want to write about the stuff I know … I will need to study better the topics which I care about
Same here. I would like to write about education in general, and math education specifically. But to make it better than just random opinions, random memories, and random links to “Scenes From The Battleground”, I need to read some more materials and gather information.
So instead of trying to increase the debates on LW (which is a lost purpose per se, unless pleasant procrastination is the goal), the right question is: What is the thing you care about? Is there a topic so important to you, that you are willing to spend your time learning it and becoming stronger? (Is it compatible with rational thinking, or is it just a huge affective spiral?) If you have an important topic, and it can be approached rationally, then that’s exactly the thing you should write about… and LW is one of those places where you could publish it.
Agreed wholeheartedly.
Isn’t there something inherently self-destructive about a website that teaches “winning”?
All purposes seek their own destruction. You achieve a goal and continue on to further things. Even purposes to provide an ongoing service will decay as the world changes around it and new methods must be found.
What is LessWrong to be? A thing that was, or a thing that still has a role? And if the latter, what is that role and who will drive it, given that the founders and several of the former leading lights have moved on to other loci of activity?
Creating rationalist communities—a work that has to be done offline, by different people at different places, but we can coordinate and share success stories here.
Rationality curriculum—I would love to read a progress report from CFAR. When they have some materials that other people can use, that’s again a work for everyone in their own city.
Other than that, I think we should try to apply rationality in things we care about, whatever that is. For example, I am interested in computer programming: I would like to know whether some programming languages are really better than others, or whether that’s just an affective death spiral. As a reader, I think that reading about most topics where the author knows what they talk about and tries to be rational, would be interesting.
Isn’t there something inherently self-destructive about a website that teaches “winning”? I mean, when people start winning in their lives, they probably spend less time debating online...
If someone starts a startup, they have less time to debate online. If someone joins a rationalist community in their area, they also spend less time online, because they spend more time in personal interactions. Even if you just decide to exercise 10 minutes every day, and you succeed, that’s 10 minutes less to spend online.
(I don’t consider myself very successful in real life, my ambitions are much higher than where I am now, and I still remain in the LW top contributor list only because my time spent on other websites dropped by an order of magnitude.)
Unless your (instrumental) goal is to write something online, as was Eliezer’s case. Which suggests that we should write about the things we care about (as long as they can be enjoyed by people who try to be rational). You know, something to protect, without the affective spirals.
So instead of trying to increase the debates on LW (which is a lost purpose per se, unless pleasant procrastination is the goal), the right question is: What is the thing you care about? Is there a topic so important to you, that you are willing to spend your time learning it and becoming stronger? (Is it compatible with rational thinking, or is it just a huge affective spiral?) If you have an important topic, and it can be approached rationally, then that’s exactly the thing you should write about… and LW is one of those places where you could publish it.
Maybe the thing stopping you is thinking “but this isn’t about rationality; it is about X”. Well, drop that thought. This is exactly the difference between the Sequences-era LessWrong and the new LessWrong. Eliezer wrote the meta stuff, and he himself admits that he “concentrated more heavily on epistemic rationality than instrumental rationality, in general” (because that was related to his main issue: programming the AI). You don’t have to write this stuff again. (Well, unless you feel extremely qualified to; but you probably don’t.) That was Eliezer’s calling; you write about your calling. It would perhaps be best for the community if you were an expert on overcoming akrasia, creating communities, teaching or testing rationality, and similar instrumental rationality topics; but if you are not an expert there, you don’t need to pretend. Write about the stuff you know. At least write the first article and see the reactions (worst case, you will republish it on your blog later).
Upvoted. My thoughts:
For full disclosure, I don’t consider myself very successful in real life either, and my ambitions are also much higher than where I am now. This is a phenomenon that my friends from the Vancouver rationalist meetup have remarked upon. My hypothesis for this is that Less Wrong selects for a portion of people who are looking to jump-start their productivity to a new level of lifestyle, but mostly selects for intelligent but complacent nerds who want to learn to think about arguments better, and like reading blogs. Such behavioral tendencies don’t lend themselves to getting out an armchair more often.
Mr. Bur, I don’t know if you’re addressing myself specifically, or generally the users reading this thread, but, like Mr. Kennaway, I agree wholeheartedly. I personally don’t feel extremely qualified to rewrite the core of Less Wrong canon, or whatever. I want to write about the stuff I know, and it will probably be a couple of months before I start attempting to generate high-quality posts, as in the interim I will need to study better the topics which I care about, and which I perceive to not have been thoroughly covered by a better post on Less Wrong before. I believe the best posts in Discussion in recent months have been based on specific topics, like Brienne Strohl’s exploration of memory techniques, or the posts discussing the complicated issues of human health, and nutrition. With fortuitous coincidence, Robin Hanson has recently captured well what I believe you’re getting at.
My prior comment got a fair number of upvotes for the hypothesis about why there was an exodus from Less Wrong of the first generation of the most prominent contributors to Less Wrong. However, going forward, my impression of how remaining users of Less Wrong frame the purpose of using it is a combination of Mr. Bur’s comment above, and this one.
Note: edited for content, and grammar.
Any blog selects for people who like reading blogs. :D
LW is about… let’s make it a simple slogan… improving your life through better thinking in a community.
Which is like your hypothesis, with the detail that those nerds want to experience a supportive environment. Specifically, an environment that will support them in correct thinking (as opposed to: “you just have to think positively, imagine a lot of success, and the universe will send it to you” or: “don’t think about it too much, join this get-rich-quickly scheme”), and in their clumsy attempts at improving the productivity (neither: “just be yourself, relax, learn to accept your situation”, nor: “too much talk and no action, either show me some amazing results right now or shut up”).
Same here. I would like to write about education in general, and math education specifically. But to make it better than just random opinions, random memories, and random links to “Scenes From The Battleground”, I need to read some more materials and gather information.
Agreed wholeheartedly.
All purposes seek their own destruction. You achieve a goal and continue on to further things. Even purposes to provide an ongoing service will decay as the world changes around it and new methods must be found.
What is LessWrong to be? A thing that was, or a thing that still has a role? And if the latter, what is that role and who will drive it, given that the founders and several of the former leading lights have moved on to other loci of activity?
Creating rationalist communities—a work that has to be done offline, by different people at different places, but we can coordinate and share success stories here.
Rationality curriculum—I would love to read a progress report from CFAR. When they have some materials that other people can use, that’s again a work for everyone in their own city.
Other than that, I think we should try to apply rationality in things we care about, whatever that is. For example, I am interested in computer programming: I would like to know whether some programming languages are really better than others, or whether that’s just an affective death spiral. As a reader, I think that reading about most topics where the author knows what they talk about and tries to be rational, would be interesting.