This is why I have left the LW community for a year. I think that there is a lot to be learned from LW, but I also think that LW is currently 95% distracting by volume of text and by time-you’ll-actually-spend-on-it.
I’d like to make the additional point that LW is not only a time-wise distraction, but it is also motivationally toxic, or at least has been to me.
More specifically, I think that investing emotionally too much in big-picture issues like efficient charity or high-technology risks and futurism tends to remove healthy, positive motivations from one’s everyday life. You, as a human being, have to care about what you’re going to do tomorrow and in the next week, and you have to be in a frame where most of the time, things are looking good and you’re “winning”. I think that a lot of the frames that LW encourages people to adopt (e.g. the frame that the entire future of the human race is likely doomed) contribute strongly to psychological depression and motivational exhaustion. That these frames and memes are based upon careful analysis is beside the point: there are some life-frames that you simply cannot live with, truth be damned.
What to do? I think that Patri’s idea of more activity focussed posting is a good one. In the online social dynamics communities people are expected to post “field reports” of something that they actually achieved (e.g. starting a conversation and getting somebody’s number with the intention of seeing them again).
In LW terms, I’d like to see a sub-forum dedicated to people applying for highly paid jobs. And another one dedicated to people gaining more intangible forms of power and influence, e.g. social skills, networking, etc. And perhaps another dedicated to making a LW-version of givewell.
These are all concrete, non-depressing things that we can do now and some of us will actually succeed at.
(I came back today to look for a specific post to give to a friend but saw this and couldn’t help but comment)
For me right now, the thing I need to care about that’s going on tomorrow and next week is getting LessWrong to answer the call to action they’ve had for three years now.
I think that a lot of the frames that LW encourages people to adopt (e.g. the frame that the entire future of the human race is likely doomed) contribute strongly to psychological depression and motivational exhaustion. That these frames and memes are based upon careful analysis is beside the point: there are some life-frames that you simply cannot live with, truth be damned.
I don’t think there’s any good reason for thinking that humans are “likely doomed”.
Rather, I think that there is a good chance of humans persisting for a long time—in historical simulations. For one thing, recording the past is a common instrumental value.
I don’t think I am engaging in wishful thinking. Indeed, I would point to the financial incentives of DOOM-mongering as being behind the DOOM conception. DOOM is pumped into people by films and comic books—and after a while some of them actually come to believe it.
DOOM is frightening—and so it gets propagated around a lot—and people earn a living from it—but that doesn’t make it true. Indeed, its spreadability as a meme is a factor that actually makes it less likely to be true.
This is why I have left the LW community for a year.
I agree with everything after this sentence. Because you haven’t just left, you did a lot more. But I don’t want to revive this topic any further, it has been discussed in your absence.
This is why I have left the LW community for a year. I think that there is a lot to be learned from LW, but I also think that LW is currently 95% distracting by volume of text and by time-you’ll-actually-spend-on-it.
I’d like to make the additional point that LW is not only a time-wise distraction, but it is also motivationally toxic, or at least has been to me.
More specifically, I think that investing emotionally too much in big-picture issues like efficient charity or high-technology risks and futurism tends to remove healthy, positive motivations from one’s everyday life. You, as a human being, have to care about what you’re going to do tomorrow and in the next week, and you have to be in a frame where most of the time, things are looking good and you’re “winning”. I think that a lot of the frames that LW encourages people to adopt (e.g. the frame that the entire future of the human race is likely doomed) contribute strongly to psychological depression and motivational exhaustion. That these frames and memes are based upon careful analysis is beside the point: there are some life-frames that you simply cannot live with, truth be damned.
What to do? I think that Patri’s idea of more activity focussed posting is a good one. In the online social dynamics communities people are expected to post “field reports” of something that they actually achieved (e.g. starting a conversation and getting somebody’s number with the intention of seeing them again).
In LW terms, I’d like to see a sub-forum dedicated to people applying for highly paid jobs. And another one dedicated to people gaining more intangible forms of power and influence, e.g. social skills, networking, etc. And perhaps another dedicated to making a LW-version of givewell.
These are all concrete, non-depressing things that we can do now and some of us will actually succeed at.
(I came back today to look for a specific post to give to a friend but saw this and couldn’t help but comment)
For me right now, the thing I need to care about that’s going on tomorrow and next week is getting LessWrong to answer the call to action they’ve had for three years now.
I don’t think there’s any good reason for thinking that humans are “likely doomed”.
Rather, I think that there is a good chance of humans persisting for a long time—in historical simulations. For one thing, recording the past is a common instrumental value.
I don’t think I am engaging in wishful thinking. Indeed, I would point to the financial incentives of DOOM-mongering as being behind the DOOM conception. DOOM is pumped into people by films and comic books—and after a while some of them actually come to believe it.
DOOM is frightening—and so it gets propagated around a lot—and people earn a living from it—but that doesn’t make it true. Indeed, its spreadability as a meme is a factor that actually makes it less likely to be true.
I agree with everything after this sentence. Because you haven’t just left, you did a lot more. But I don’t want to revive this topic any further, it has been discussed in your absence.