Hey Luke,
Thanks again for your work. You are by far the greatest online teacher I’ve ever come across (though I’ve never seen you teach face-to-face). you are concise, clear, direct, empathetic, extremely thorough, tactful and accessible. I am in awe of your abilities. You take the fruit that is at the top of the tree and gently place it into my straining arms! Sorry for the exuberant worship but I really want to express my gratitude for your efforts. They definitely aren’t wasted on me.
Thank you so much for this post. This is absolute gold for someone like me.
I have only just recently begun a Less Wrong meet up group in Sydney, Australia, and have been scouring around for advice and prior models to go of and you pretty much just provided everything in one freaking awesome post!
What’s really encouraging is that in doing comparisons I already see similar happening in my group. Firstly most of the attendants are very good friends of mine, to whom topics pertaining to rationality come up naturally at almost any occasion, their great fun to hang out with, and most have shown keen interest in a fortnightly Less Wrong meeting. It’s really encouraging to receive some confirmation that what I’m doing does have this potential, and it’s really good to have a precedent to give me some basic idea of what to expect.
I wish I could upvote twice!
I’ll give this a quick go.
I’m Michael. I’m 24 and live in West Sydney. I’m in LW because I pretty much stalk Lukeprog. I’m an ex-christian, who got married way too young, but got lucky in that me and my wife have grown out of faith together and really come to a place where we really support each other in everything we want to do. I love learning and all subjects, but I’m not really an expert on anything, except maybe people, which is probably one of the best places to be an expert. I’m studying professional writing next year. I find communication fascinating, and like exploring ways to close inferential gaps between people. I’m a bit of a co-ordinator. I’ve hosted weekly discussions groups pertaining toward Rationality and Political issues, but I find that I’m still not disciplined enough to keep persevering in them. Soon I will be changing states, and moving to Ballarat, Victoria. I plan to start attending the Melbourne LW meet up when I do (come january). The good thing about this move is that it gives me and my wife a chance to re-invent ourselves without the expectations of our friends and family defining us. I like video games, and getting good at them, but this eats more time than it’s worth, so I’m aiming to quit entirely (after Diablo 3). I’m a brilliant musician, but have never been able to take it too seriously, due to the industry being flooded already, but also by getting burned by a band that had the potential to go international but was saboutaged by immature members with drug addictions. Now I just use it as a form of therapy and creative expression.
I mostly lurk on LW, I personally don’t have a lot to add to the conversation here, but I think once I start going to a meet-up there will be a lot I can contribute.
That’ll do for now.
“Irrationality offers all the things rationality does not: creativity, a sense of “magic”, ecstasy, revelation, cosmic awe, passion and pure psychic power”
i think you misunderstand what we mean by rationality. If we wanted these things, which most of us do, then it’d be rational to be irrational. using the words that way is just silly.
Has anyone had any experience with http://sundayassembly.com ?
I’d love to hear some first hand accounts. It sounds like all the things I enjoyed about going to church when I was a Christian, with the Christianity part.
Please do this.
I’d love to be able to understand and harness this resource.
I echo luke’s sentiments. Thanks Eliezer. www.Lesswrong.com is a resource that truly strikes at the heart of the matter.
Also: The Karma thing is a good way to prevent trolls and other less desirables from flooding the site with crap, plus find the more appreciated and higher contributors. I think it helps maintain the quality of discussion on this site.
My only problem is that I hate commenting unless I have something to add, which @ lesswrong.com is almost never (thanks to the diligence of the community here) but I need at least 2 points to bring up a topic in the dicussion board, where usually I just want to share how I’m using this site to encourage rationality in my local community, and also to ask if there are any Sydney, Australia meet ups.
I agree.
I imagine almost anything would become interesting to me, if I knew that I was doing it with a bunch of (aspiring) rationalists.
I always feel sad when I hear about suicide. Wasted potential. But then I think about all wasted potential and suicide just becomes one of many very depressingly true things that I can’t pretend away.
Goodybe Chris. At least your not hurting anymore. I’m not sure what to feel or even think about the rest of it.
It makes me want to go to sleep, and not mind so much if I wake up or not. Not in a depressed way. Just in a ‘This-is-all-there-is’ way. Guess I’ll just try my best and enjoy it. Wouldn’t be much else to do around here anyway :)