I had a couple of ideas like this myself and I chose to cull them before doing this poll for these reasons:
The problem with splitting the discussions is that then we’d end up with people having the same discussions in multiple different places. The different posts would not have all the information, so you’d have to read several times as much in if you wanted to get it all. That would reduce the efficiency of the LessWrong discussions to a point where most would probably find it maddening and unacceptable.
We could demand that users stick to a limited number of subjects within their subdivision, but then discussion would be so limited that user experience would not resemble participation in a subculture. Or, more likely, it just wouldn’t be enforced thoroughly enough to stop people from talking about what they want, and the dreaded plethora of duplicated discussions would still result.
The best alternative to this as far as I’m aware is to send the users who are disruptively bad at rational thinking skills to CFAR training.
The best alternative to this as far as I’m aware is to send the users who are disruptively bad at rational thinking skills to CFAR training.
That seems like an inefficient use of CFAR training (and so an inefficient use of whatever resources that would have to be used to pay CFAR for such training). I’d prefer to just cull those disruptively bad at rational thinking entirely. Some people just cannot be saved (in a way that gives an acceptable cost/benefit ratio). I’d prefer to save whatever attention or resources I was willing to allocate to people-improvement for those that already show clear signs of having thinking potential.
I am among those absolutely hardest to save, having an actual mental illness. Yet this place is the only thing saving me from utter oblivion and madness. Here is where I have met my only real friends ever. Here is the only thing that gives me any sense of meaning, reason to survive, or glimmer of hope. I care fanatically about it.
Many of the rules that have been proposed. Or for that matter even the amount of degradation that has ALREADY occurred… If that had been the case a few years ago, I wouldn’t exist, this body would either be rotting in the ground, or literally occupied by an inhuman monster bent on the destruction of all living things.
I’m fascinated. (I’m a psychology enthusiast who refuses to get a psychology degree because I find many of the flaws with the psychology industry unacceptable). I am very interested in knowing how LessWrong has been saving you from utter oblivion and madness. Would you mind explaining it? Would it be alright with you if I ask you which mental illness?
Would you please also describe the degradation that has occurred at LW?
I’d rather not talk about it in detail, but it boils down to LW in general promoting sanity and connects smart people in general. That extra sanity can be used to cancel out insanity, not just creating super-sanes.
Degradation: Lowered frequency of insightful and useful content, increased frequency of low quality content.
I have to admit I am not sure whether to be more persuaded by you or Armok. I suppose what it would come down to is a cost/benefit calculation that takes into account the amount of destruction saved by the worst as well as the amount of benefit produced by the best. Brilliant people can have quite an impact indeed, but they are rare and it is easier to destroy than to create, so it is not readily apparent to me which group it would be more beneficial to focus on, or if both, in what amount.
Practically speaking, though, CFAR has stated that they have plans to make web apps to help with rationality training and training materials for high schoolers. It seems to me that they have an interest in targeting the mainstream, not just the best thinkers.
I’m glad that someone is doing this, but I also have to wonder if that will mean more forum referrals to LW from the mainstream...
If you’re suggesting that duplicated discussions can be solved with paste, then you are also suggesting that we not make separate areas.
Think about it.
I suppose you might be suggesting that we copy the OP and not the comments. Often the comments have more content than the OP, and often that content is useful, informative and relevant. So, in the comments we’d then have duplicated information that varied between the two OP copies.
So, we could copy the comments over to the other area… but then they’re not separate...
Not seeing how this is a solution. If you have some different clever way to apply Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V then please let me know.
I had a couple of ideas like this myself and I chose to cull them before doing this poll for these reasons:
The problem with splitting the discussions is that then we’d end up with people having the same discussions in multiple different places. The different posts would not have all the information, so you’d have to read several times as much in if you wanted to get it all. That would reduce the efficiency of the LessWrong discussions to a point where most would probably find it maddening and unacceptable.
We could demand that users stick to a limited number of subjects within their subdivision, but then discussion would be so limited that user experience would not resemble participation in a subculture. Or, more likely, it just wouldn’t be enforced thoroughly enough to stop people from talking about what they want, and the dreaded plethora of duplicated discussions would still result.
The best alternative to this as far as I’m aware is to send the users who are disruptively bad at rational thinking skills to CFAR training.
That seems like an inefficient use of CFAR training (and so an inefficient use of whatever resources that would have to be used to pay CFAR for such training). I’d prefer to just cull those disruptively bad at rational thinking entirely. Some people just cannot be saved (in a way that gives an acceptable cost/benefit ratio). I’d prefer to save whatever attention or resources I was willing to allocate to people-improvement for those that already show clear signs of having thinking potential.
I am among those absolutely hardest to save, having an actual mental illness. Yet this place is the only thing saving me from utter oblivion and madness. Here is where I have met my only real friends ever. Here is the only thing that gives me any sense of meaning, reason to survive, or glimmer of hope. I care fanatically about it.
Many of the rules that have been proposed. Or for that matter even the amount of degradation that has ALREADY occurred… If that had been the case a few years ago, I wouldn’t exist, this body would either be rotting in the ground, or literally occupied by an inhuman monster bent on the destruction of all living things.
I’m fascinated. (I’m a psychology enthusiast who refuses to get a psychology degree because I find many of the flaws with the psychology industry unacceptable). I am very interested in knowing how LessWrong has been saving you from utter oblivion and madness. Would you mind explaining it? Would it be alright with you if I ask you which mental illness?
Would you please also describe the degradation that has occurred at LW?
I’d rather not talk about it in detail, but it boils down to LW in general promoting sanity and connects smart people in general. That extra sanity can be used to cancel out insanity, not just creating super-sanes.
Degradation: Lowered frequency of insightful and useful content, increased frequency of low quality content.
I have to admit I am not sure whether to be more persuaded by you or Armok. I suppose what it would come down to is a cost/benefit calculation that takes into account the amount of destruction saved by the worst as well as the amount of benefit produced by the best. Brilliant people can have quite an impact indeed, but they are rare and it is easier to destroy than to create, so it is not readily apparent to me which group it would be more beneficial to focus on, or if both, in what amount.
Practically speaking, though, CFAR has stated that they have plans to make web apps to help with rationality training and training materials for high schoolers. It seems to me that they have an interest in targeting the mainstream, not just the best thinkers.
I’m glad that someone is doing this, but I also have to wonder if that will mean more forum referrals to LW from the mainstream...
Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, problem solved.
If you’re suggesting that duplicated discussions can be solved with paste, then you are also suggesting that we not make separate areas.
Think about it.
I suppose you might be suggesting that we copy the OP and not the comments. Often the comments have more content than the OP, and often that content is useful, informative and relevant. So, in the comments we’d then have duplicated information that varied between the two OP copies.
So, we could copy the comments over to the other area… but then they’re not separate...
Not seeing how this is a solution. If you have some different clever way to apply Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V then please let me know.
No, because only the top content in each area would be shared to the others.
This creates a trivial inconvenience.
So add a “promote” button that basicaly does the same automatically.