Hi! I first saw LW as a node on a map of neoreactionary web sites. Which I guess is a pretty weird way to find it, since I’m not myself a neoreactionary and LW doesn’t seem to fit the map. You have to stretch pretty far to connect some of those nodes.
Fortunately, I took a look at the Less Wrong community, and it’s been really interesting to explore. I figured I should introduce myself, since I posted in another thread. I’m in my early 30′s and I’m studying in the life sciences at the postgraduate level. I’m a Christian. I’m also a married father, and a veteran. So. Probably somewhat atypical (I peeked at the survey results.)
I’m excited by several of the big problems that seem to animate LW: minimizing cognitive bias day-to-day, optimizing philanthropy, and working through received ideology. I know zip about AI, but addressing existential risk is really interesting to me indirectly, as it relates to forecasting and mitigating mere catastrophes*, a challenge for wonks and technocrats and scientists (and everybody, of course). In fact, if anybody knows of LW’ers or other rationalists interested in policy problems of that nature I’d be super grateful for a pointer or a link.
In conclusion, I read ZeroHedge far too much, sometimes wear Vibrams, and am thrilled to meet all of you.
*is there a better word? My jargon is level 0.
One of the more distinctive features of the US system is the the connection to youth sports. Other countries play sports, obviously, but the US model tends to locate competitive sports programs inside schools, from middle school on up through college.
That started in the mid-1800′s, in the northeast, and it spread from there, both laterally to other colleges and vertically, down to high schools. But it took a long time for it to become as effort-intensive as it is now, and there was a pretty significant spike in intensity after World War II, when colleges grew quickly and families bought more televisions and radios and schools could afford to field more teams.
Pretty slim connection, obviously. But if you’re looking for an effect that could plausibly rearrange social groups in age-segregated communities, sports fits the bill. And if you’re looking for a another milieu that tends to brand and shun obsessive pursuits (NOT giftedness—but earnest, obsessive pursuits like we tend to identify with nerd subculture), you might look to the concept of sprezzatura among the sporting aristocracy.