I was bouncing around LessWrong and ran into this. I started reading it as though it were a normal post, but then I slowly realized …
I think according to typical LessWrong norms, it would be appropriate to try to engage you on the object level claims or talk about the meta-presentation as though you and I were trying to collaborate on figuring things out and how to communicate things.
But according to my personal norms and integrity, if I detect that something is actually quite off (like alarm bells going) then it would be kind of sick to ignore that, and we should actually treat this like a triage situation. Or at least a call to some kind of intervention. And it would be sick to treat this like everything is normal, and that you are sane, and I am sane, and we’re just chatting about stuff and oh isn’t the weather nice today.
LessWrong is the wrong place for this to happen. This kind of “prioritization” sanity does not flourish here.
Not-sane people get stuck on LessWrong in order to stay not-sane because LW actually reinforces a kind of mental unwellness and does not provide good escape routes.
If you’re going to write stuff on LW, it might be better to write a journal about what the various personal, lifestyle interventions you are making to get out of the personal, unwell hole you are in. A kind of way to track your progress, get accountability, and celebrate wins.
Rationality seems to be missing an entire curriculum on “Eros” or True Desire.
I got this curriculum from other trainings, though. There are places where it’s hugely emphasized and well-taught.
I think maybe Rationality should be more open to sending people to different places for different trainings and stop trying to do everything on its own terms.
It has been way better for me to learn how to enter/exit different frames and worldviews than to try to make everything fit into one worldview / frame. I think some Rationalists believe everything is supposed to fit into one frame, but Frames != The Truth.
The world is extremely complex, and if we want to be good at meeting the world, we should be able to pick up and drop frames as needed, at will.
Anyway, there are three main curricula:
Eros (Embodied Desire)
Intelligence (Rationality)
Wisdom (Awakening)
Maybe you guys should work on 2, but I don’t think you are advantaged at 1 or 3. But you could give intros to 1 and 3. CFAR opened me up by introducing me to Focusing and Circling, but I took non-rationalist trainings for both of those. As well as many other things that ended up being important.