There are three things, as I see it, that LW could be, and posts seem to revolve around one of these three categories.
An all-purpose discussion forum, about all sorts of things, designed for people with a roughly technical bent who like a high quality of discussion. Topics that seem to draw a lot of attention are non-mainstream controversies, philosophy, politics, and self-help.
A blog about bias, rationality, and how to exercise more of the latter and less of the former. Topics can be technical (drawing on cognitive sciences and probability theory) or non-technical (illustrations of common fallacies and how to evade them.)
A blog about decision theory, FAI, and existential risk.
Personally, I would enjoy 1 or 2, and I’d be less interested in 3. I wouldn’t mind LW going in a looser, more casual direction; alternatively, I wouldn’t mind it going in a more focused, technical direction. I am interested in the intersection between, roughly, statistics and cognition, and I think that we could get a lot of interesting speculation done about how people think. I’d probably quit if LW became all decision theory, all the time, because that’s not really one of my interests, but I can see that it would be useful for people who are focused on that.
The other option is maintaining the status quo: balancing aims 1, 2, and 3, and using downvotes to eliminate anything wildly off message. Something for everyone.
I like a good political rant as much as the next person, but I do think it’s nice to have the taboo against it here. What I’m particularly concerned about (apart from the usual bias/mind-killer stuff) is that I’ve seen a lot of posts to the effect that the general public is “wrong” on a lot of topics, that we could “solve” problems here, or come to “consensus.” It seems likely that we’d start to get people claiming that “any sufficiently advanced rationalist would agree with me politically.” Especially because we have a lot of utilitarians here, there’s a real danger of getting dogmatic.
If we do open up the floor to a little random fun, I hope it won’t be politics. Health and nutrition, good books, psychoactive drugs, productivity and social skills tips, current science and tech—that sounds good. Politics could get ugly.
The other option is maintaining the status quo: balancing aims 1, 2, and 3, and using downvotes to eliminate anything wildly off message. Something for everyone.
There are three things, as I see it, that LW could be, and posts seem to revolve around one of these three categories.
An all-purpose discussion forum, about all sorts of things, designed for people with a roughly technical bent who like a high quality of discussion. Topics that seem to draw a lot of attention are non-mainstream controversies, philosophy, politics, and self-help.
A blog about bias, rationality, and how to exercise more of the latter and less of the former. Topics can be technical (drawing on cognitive sciences and probability theory) or non-technical (illustrations of common fallacies and how to evade them.)
A blog about decision theory, FAI, and existential risk.
Personally, I would enjoy 1 or 2, and I’d be less interested in 3. I wouldn’t mind LW going in a looser, more casual direction; alternatively, I wouldn’t mind it going in a more focused, technical direction. I am interested in the intersection between, roughly, statistics and cognition, and I think that we could get a lot of interesting speculation done about how people think. I’d probably quit if LW became all decision theory, all the time, because that’s not really one of my interests, but I can see that it would be useful for people who are focused on that.
The other option is maintaining the status quo: balancing aims 1, 2, and 3, and using downvotes to eliminate anything wildly off message. Something for everyone.
I like a good political rant as much as the next person, but I do think it’s nice to have the taboo against it here. What I’m particularly concerned about (apart from the usual bias/mind-killer stuff) is that I’ve seen a lot of posts to the effect that the general public is “wrong” on a lot of topics, that we could “solve” problems here, or come to “consensus.” It seems likely that we’d start to get people claiming that “any sufficiently advanced rationalist would agree with me politically.” Especially because we have a lot of utilitarians here, there’s a real danger of getting dogmatic.
If we do open up the floor to a little random fun, I hope it won’t be politics. Health and nutrition, good books, psychoactive drugs, productivity and social skills tips, current science and tech—that sounds good. Politics could get ugly.
Yeah, I could definitely see that happening. I’d probably be the one to do it, too.
Bravo!