When you talk about “truthseekers”, do you mean someone who is interested in discovering as many truths as possible for themselves, or someone who seeks to add knowledge to the collective knowledge base?
If it’s the latter, then the rationalsphere might not be so easy to differentiate from say, academia, but if it’s the former, that actually seems to better match with what I typically observe about people’s goals within the rationalsphere.
But usually, when someone is motivated to seek truths for themselves, the “truth” isn’t really an end in and of itself, but it’s really the pleasure associated with gaining insight that they’re after. This is highly dependent on how those insights are acquired. Did someone point them out to you, or did you figure it out by yourself?
I often feel that the majority of the pleasure of truthseeking is gained from self-discovery, i.e., “the joy of figuring things out.” This can be a great motivating force for scientists and intellectuals alike.
But the main issue with this is that it’s not necessarily aligned with other instrumental goals. Within academia, there are at least incentive structures that point truthseekers in the direction of things that have yet to be discovered. In the rationalsphere, I have no idea if those incentive structures even exist, or if there are many incentive structures at all (besides gaining respect from your peers). This seems to leave us open to treading old ground quite often, or not making progress quickly enough in the things that are important.
I definitely sympathize with the terminal-truthseekers (I spend a great deal of time learning stuff that doesn’t necessarily help me towards my other goals), but I also think that in regard to this effort of community building we should keep this in mind. Do we want to build a community for the individual or to build the individual for the community?
When you talk about “truthseekers”, do you mean someone who is interested in discovering as many truths as possible for themselves, or someone who seeks to add knowledge to the collective knowledge base?
If it’s the latter, then the rationalsphere might not be so easy to differentiate from say, academia, but if it’s the former, that actually seems to better match with what I typically observe about people’s goals within the rationalsphere.
But usually, when someone is motivated to seek truths for themselves, the “truth” isn’t really an end in and of itself, but it’s really the pleasure associated with gaining insight that they’re after. This is highly dependent on how those insights are acquired. Did someone point them out to you, or did you figure it out by yourself?
I often feel that the majority of the pleasure of truthseeking is gained from self-discovery, i.e., “the joy of figuring things out.” This can be a great motivating force for scientists and intellectuals alike.
But the main issue with this is that it’s not necessarily aligned with other instrumental goals. Within academia, there are at least incentive structures that point truthseekers in the direction of things that have yet to be discovered. In the rationalsphere, I have no idea if those incentive structures even exist, or if there are many incentive structures at all (besides gaining respect from your peers). This seems to leave us open to treading old ground quite often, or not making progress quickly enough in the things that are important.
I definitely sympathize with the terminal-truthseekers (I spend a great deal of time learning stuff that doesn’t necessarily help me towards my other goals), but I also think that in regard to this effort of community building we should keep this in mind. Do we want to build a community for the individual or to build the individual for the community?