I might be a niche example, but the Dark Forest Theory as applied to meetups was novel to me and affects how I approach helping rationality meetups.
Sometimes they’re not advertised for good reasons, even if those reasons aren’t articulated. It sure does seem to make accurate claims about meetups from my observation, where when I notice an odd dearth of meetups in an area where it seems like there should be more meetups, sometimes I find out they exist they’re just not as public and also nobody seems to have told the more frustrating quarter of the local community.
It’s a counterintuitive sort of evidence, but it is evidence, and this essay helped me see it clearer. It feels related to Social Dark Matter (https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/KpMNqA5BiCRozCwM3/social-dark-matter) if not exactly the same point and while Social Dark Matter is the more thorough explanation, Dark Forest Theories is more concise.
The followup work I’d like to see is on how to spot these lacuna, and to distinguish “there’s nothing visible here because something is ‘hunting’ the visible examples” and “there’s nothing visible here because there’s actually nothing here.”
Overall, I’d be happy to have this in the Best Of LessWrong collection. A short, well written essay that introduces a new idea you can keep in your back pocket to make sense of the world is a worthwhile addition in my book.
I might be a niche example, but the Dark Forest Theory as applied to meetups was novel to me and affects how I approach helping rationality meetups.
Sometimes they’re not advertised for good reasons, even if those reasons aren’t articulated. It sure does seem to make accurate claims about meetups from my observation, where when I notice an odd dearth of meetups in an area where it seems like there should be more meetups, sometimes I find out they exist they’re just not as public and also nobody seems to have told the more frustrating quarter of the local community.
It’s a counterintuitive sort of evidence, but it is evidence, and this essay helped me see it clearer. It feels related to Social Dark Matter (https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/KpMNqA5BiCRozCwM3/social-dark-matter) if not exactly the same point and while Social Dark Matter is the more thorough explanation, Dark Forest Theories is more concise.
The followup work I’d like to see is on how to spot these lacuna, and to distinguish “there’s nothing visible here because something is ‘hunting’ the visible examples” and “there’s nothing visible here because there’s actually nothing here.”
Overall, I’d be happy to have this in the Best Of LessWrong collection. A short, well written essay that introduces a new idea you can keep in your back pocket to make sense of the world is a worthwhile addition in my book.