Hi there!
I’m focused on learning about the different causes of death and how to get rid of them: Viva Immortality! I organize rationality meetups in the Hampton Roads, VA area.
Willa
Karma: 478
HPMOR for me represented the lowest time and effort cost for gaining the ability to kind of grok what this community was about and what its culture was like. I had read a few posts here and there around the original LW site and some posts on SlateStarCodex, but it wasn’t until after I binge read HPMOR over the course of 1-2 weeks that I felt okay with starting on the Sequences. Before reading HPMOR, I could tell that the Sequences were obviously very important to the community, but I wasn’t sure whether they were worth the time and effort to read all the way through...asking new members to read the Sequences before being able to fully join the community is quite a lot to ask of new members (though is still a good thing, since we need that common intellectual framework of thought as a community). Reading HPMOR was fun, I enjoyed the rationality mindset that was conveyed through the story, and I then felt like this was a community I wanted to be a part of. Whether HPMOR should be on the front page or not...eh, I don’t know if it matters very much, I was able to find HPMOR fairly quickly after I initially started poking around the rationalist community internetspace. If putting HPMOR on the front page for new users helps them decide that they want to see what else this community has to offer and to potentially join it, then great. If it doesn’t, then it shouldn’t be on the frontpage, though I do think that having a link that’s reasonably prominent somewhere on the site to HPMOR and other rationalist fanfiction would be a useful and good thing. I want to read other rationalist fanfiction stories, but I’m not really sure where to find them.
I think that the frontpage is missing something very important though...a big link to some content that explicitly states what the community is, why it is that way, and the things the community is actively working on. And, perhaps most importantly, content that explicitly states why Johnny-New-Reader/random person who just stumbled across the site, should actually care about what it is we do here. We need some way of conveying in a relatively concise manner, what it is we do here, why a new person should care, and why they would benefit from sticking around here and eventually reading the Sequences. I think it’s perfectly fine to ask that new members to the community read the Sequences, but I think we should have content that explicitly states why they should and why it’s worth their time. While writing this post, I opened up a new tab to see what clicking on the Sequences link shows you...it shows basically the Sequences, and some info about what they are and that they were written by Eliezer, but there’s no: “And this is why you should read them/this is why they are worth your time” present. Having that kind of content show up on the frontpage (as a link, or whatever form works best) provides new readers with a quick and dirty way to see if they are interested in the rationalist community and if they should spend the very significant time and effort it takes to actually join and take part in the rationalist community.
EDIT: Oops, I totally derped and forgot that this post is in the Meta section...you can ignore the stuff below...
The above paragraph probably belonged more in the Meta section of the site...but it felt tangentially related enough to the subject of this post (should HPMOR be on the front page) that I decided to just post it here instead of creating a new post in the Meta (which I’m not sure if I can do or not, this is only my second comment).
Thanks! I have been around since sometime in 2015 or so when I first stumbled onto this corner of the internet and also SlateStarCodex. Binge-reading HPMOR hooked me and later I went on to read the Sequences which were likely one of the most influential “info dumps” I’ve ever read that were collected all in one place. In fact, I should likely re-read them at some point with a more critical eye and really reflect on the way my worldview and ideas have changed as a result of reading them, it’s beneficial to know why you believe what you believe and develop a provenance for such things so you can see how they’ve developed and changed over time (plus remember why you came to change your mind or hold a new belief).
Aye, there are differences in the way writing turns out depending on your purpose for writing. If the goal is to merely write for writings’ sake, well maybe that’s not the most helpful thing unless it’s an individual’s personal manner of entertaining themselves (we all do different things for fun). My goal for writing here on LW is to practise deliberate writing/communication practice and get better at developing, refining, critiquing, etc. ideas and having discussions with others in a more formal communication style that allows for “high levels” of thought and analysis.
It’s helpful to ramble sometimes if you’re exploring and not necessarily sure where you’re going or what you’re going to say, I do that a lot (word vomiting ftw!) because I like to journal frequently. It’s also important to consider why you’re exploring, maybe for certain topics at certain times it’s helpful to do such rambling and exploring publicly, perhaps on a personal blog site or on your LW page with a <ramble> / <exploration> tag? I think that kind of writing is likely necessary to do in addition to the more formal and structure kind of writing where you etch out a comprehensible thesis, defend it, discuss it, etc., but I’ve only done it privately so far (although this post could probably be classified as very “exploratory” writing). Why I think doing both types of writing is necessary is somewhat mysterious for me, but my initial take is that to build up to the nice and structure comprehensible piece, one likely has to spend some time connecting dots and reflecting on things that haven’t been aggregated together into one conceptual framework, and rambling exploratory writing seems to be the method for doing just that.
Well that’s good :)
Maybe it’ll feel less strange one day too as I get more comfortable with actually having bits of myself strewn about in public, hopefully!
Thanks :)
Aye, I’ve started attending local meetups, fortunately they’ve started occurring again in my area after a long drought. It’s a small group so far, but I am enjoying the discussions we’re having and the people I’m having them with. Physical meetups definitely add a lot of value for the community I think.
Hi Iwan,
I personally find this subject (pragmatism generally) interesting, but others here might not. If you’re going to link to an external source, could you please write a post detailing what is being explained in the external source and why people here might find it relevant plus why they should care about it? I strong-downvoted your post because simply link-posting with no context or explanation about why the topic is relevant/why people should care, is almost always a non-useful thing for people, and if one is going to post things here, they ought to be useful for the community.
Cheers
I’m happy to see that Dallas has a meetup group, best of luck with things, and I hope y’all have fun :)
I schedule meetups for Houston Rationalists and will post about your event on our facebook page ( https://www.facebook.com/groups/1816070091838828/ ) in case any of us happen to be in Dallas at the right time or know someone living in Dallas who might be interested in attending.
Cheers,
Willa
My apologies, we were there but I didn’t bring a sign. I’ll do so next time and going forward :) it’ll likely say “LW/SSC/EA Meetup” on it or something similar. We have an email list, discord, and google group in addition to the facebook page since people have different communication preferences; sending you a PM now with more info :)
This is a rather behind schedule follow-up message for the June 23 Meetup. First one I’ve done so far, feels like a good habit to get into. This post is a bit edited from the original email I sent it as, I only left out Houston Rationalists’ internal housekeeping and planning type information since that didn’t seem relevant for the whole world to see.
Notes
We discussed many things, especially learning and education, here’s what I had in my notes, and my elaborations on those notes:
(1) Using Anki when you have to memorize a large number of facts, vocabulary, or other things is quite helpful, because Anki lets you build flash card decks (and import decks others built too!) that utilize spaced repetition to automatically time when you should study each card in each deck (you can build as many different decks as you’d like) based on research around the forgetting curve. Don’t know what spaced repetition and the forgetting curve are? That’s okay! Essentially, we humans seem to remember things better if we encounter the thing we’re trying to remember (say, the meaning of “schadenfreude” or some other word or fact) multiple times over a certain period of time; we call that phenomenon the forgetting curve and spaced repetition is essentially practicing memorizing what you want to memorize according to the logic of the forgetting curve. More information and a better explanation can be found at Gwern’s website: https://www.gwern.net/Spaced-repetition
(2) Research article on ”...the feasibility of using computational methods to assist in the design of training procedures that enhance learning”. (Discussion section, last paragraph): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3267874/ ; this is a bit out of my wheelhouse so if anyone has questions please direct them to the group. I’m curious about how one could bridge the gap between a research article like this, its findings, how the findings transfer if at all to human learning and memory training, and crafting a set of memory training / learning curricula based on the new information.
(3) Continuing the learning and education theme, it was highly recommended that everyone read through “SSC Gives a Graduation Speech”: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/05/23/ssc-gives-a-graduation-speech/ ; I read it once previously, but skimmed it again before listing it here. Overall I think it’s good stuff, and the main point says essentially to ask yourself what you got out of your education (to whatever extent you pursued or received one), was it worth it, etc. The article also spent a lot of time reflecting on universal basic income guarantees (UBI), the potential societal apocalypse we’ll have if we don’t go UBI, and meanders nicely into discussing how broken the system is, plus the power of kindness. Among other things.
(4) If you’re feeling like more education things, you can also check out Bryan Caplan’s book “The Case against Education: Why the Education System is a Waste of Time and Money”. I’d recommend reading Scott’s “SSC Gives a Graduation Speech” and other education related articles first though to help give yourself an increased sense of the nuance of the topic: https://slatestarcodex.com/tag/education/. Link to description of Caplan’s book here: https://press.princeton.edu/titles/11225.html The book is...acquirable elsewhere...if you need help obtaining a copy please message me directly, assistance may be provided. I did not write summaries or take notes while reading Caplan’s book last year sometime.......and don’t remember enough to provide commentary, unfortunately. Lesson to self: please write chapter summaries and take notes of books I read, thanks.
(5) Topic shift!! We spent a decent amount of time discussing the necessity or lack thereof regarding the usefulness of having “shamans” around to conduct placebo inducing rituals that help you and others feel better afterwards. See chiropractors, meditation, homeopathy, acupuncture, and plenty of other things often gate-kept or officiated by “shamans” that many individuals do and say they feel better after doing/going through. I mildly wonder whether therapy should be included in this category...I lean towards saying: probably. But, therapy feels a bit different, and I’m not sure how to unpack why it feels different (maybe I am too close to it? I’ve regularly seen a therapist for several years and it does feel quite helpful). Any thoughts?
(6) We discussed the usefulness of knowledge, generally. I am afraid I’m unable to recollect enough to offer any specifics besides knowing that I tied these topics/articles to this discussion:
Richard Rorty’s concept of a “final vocabulary”, as defined in his book Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity: “All human beings carry about a set of words which they employ to justify their actions, their beliefs, and their lives. These are the words in which we formulate praise of our friends and contempt for our enemies, our long-term projects, our deepest self-doubts and our highest hopes… A small part of a final vocabulary is made up of thin, flexible, and ubiquitous terms such as ‘true’, ‘good’, ‘right’, and ‘beautiful’. The larger part contains thicker, more rigid, and more parochial terms, for example, ‘Christ’, ‘England’, … ‘professional standards’, … ‘progressive’, ‘rigorous’, ‘creative’. The more parochial terms do most of the work. (p. 73)” excerpt quoted from this webpage: http://www.exampler.com/testing-com/writings/final-vocabulary.html; however, you can find more information here: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0787/2/2/313/htm (having read this review and a bit of Rorty’s thought elsewhere, I judge that the excerpted quote I linked from the exampler.com website is reasonably valid, not fake news). I’d like to do a deep dive into Rorty’s thought one day, for now though, I’ve mostly read a few review articles and some of his info at https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rorty/ and https://www.iep.utm.edu/rorty/; there is one relevant article related to his thought but more centered around postmodernism that I strongly recommend, it’s called: Judgements without rules: towards a postmodern ironist concept of research validity; http://garyrolfe.net/documents/judgmentswithoutrules.pdf Fun stuff, I recommend checking it out
Yudkowsky’s posts Guessing the Teacher’s Password (https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/NMoLJuDJEms7Ku9XS/guessing-the-teacher-s-password); and Lawful Uncertainty (https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/msJA6B9ZjiiZxT6EZ/lawful-uncertainty) were also listed as relevant to discussions on the usefulness of knowledge. I can’t really tell you specifically how, it’s what I wrote down at the time though.
It’s possible that a central theme could be excavated from everything mentioned here around the usefulness of knowledge, but I’m not prepared to be that archaeologist, not tonight at least. Epistemic confidence in the value of such a pursuit: seems possibly helpful and could be fun. I’m not sure what my mind was cooking at the time when thinking about the things mentioned in (6), but it’s a direction I’ve been trending towards a fair bit for the last few months, and I do think I’d like to make a non-scattered and focused attempt at crafting some sort of point or meaning in that direction. Any thoughts?Please let me know if you have any questions or would like more information on anything.
Cheers,
Willa
We’re at Cafe Brasil outside on the back patio, we have a sign in landscape position that says “LW/SSC/EA Meetup and then Houston Rationalists underneath that”. I’m wearing a red t-shirt.
We’re here and have moved to the outside area.
Follow-up post for July meetup:
We made some musings on existence: this included discussing Aquinas’ conception of how to know we exist through knowing God exists, and then went into more materialistic and atheist metaphysics things and also we talked about a number of thinker’s thoughts on the topic; including Plato’s.
quantum mechanics uncertainty principle: https://www.gregegan.net/FOUNDATIONS/04/found04.html#s5;
the first color viewable in visible light spectrum was pink produced by some bacteria: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/jul/09/scientists-discover-worlds-oldest-colour-bright-pink-sahara
We had some conversations about consciousness and its deterministic or lack there of qualities.
Marvin Minsky’s article “WHY PROGRAMMING IS A GOOD MEDIUM FOR EXPRESSING POORLY UNDERSTOOD AND SLOPPILYFORMULATED IDEAS”: https://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/papers/Why programming is--.html
Mormon transhumanism: https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/mormon-transhumanism-and-the-immortality-upgrade
block chain identity thing called keybase (https://keybase.io)
How to allow for deep and far reaching conversations in a social setting that often aren’t held elsewhere: see also https://boingboing.net/2017/05/04/the-sandwich-alignment-chart.html and intense discussions around categorizing things.
Discussed potential winter solstice celebration and bonfire thing we could do in Galveston, would be fun.
There were other things too, but these were the things I wrote down. Cheers, Willa
Follow-up post for August meetup:
We discussed the ethics and practices of marketing and advertising industries, though admittedly we should have narrowed the questions we were concerned about instead of attempting to make large general claims.
We discussed the US’s civic / political process and infrastructure, especially with regard to voting and civic engagement. We also discussed ideal forms of government and political regimes, though we mostly all had different views regarding what such ideal forms might look like. Twas fun :) What is the ideal civilization and how do we get there?
We discussed cybersecurity + free and open source software, especially how both of those things relate to US election security. Plus, we talked about the wannacry ransomware attack, cybersecurity + free and open source software more generally, and programming stuff more generally too.
We talked about Effective Altruism and received a really good overview of what EA does and is about from a member of Effective Altruism UH (https://eauh.wordpress.com/). We talked about cause areas and cause prioritization, common failure modes of charitable giving and charitable organizations, and more! Also discussed the possibility of a Houston-wide Effective Altruism group, though that’s still very tentative, still, might we see such a group? Stay tuned for more updates next time!
And that’s all for now. I didn’t take very good notes this time, I was enjoying the discussions too much and didn’t force myself to take notes. If you think I missed something, please comment about that and describe what we discussed!
Cheers, Willa
Hey! We’re at Cafe Brasil in the big room to the right of the entrance hall after walking in. I’m in a green shirt and we have a Houston Rationalists sign. Come join us!
I’m at Empire Cafe for the meetup inside near the back; when you come in, keep walking forward past the cashier area and into the large back room and I’ve got 4 tables put together and a sign. See y’all soon :)
Hi all! I’m here at a table outside, I have a small sign and am wearing a blue and white plaid shirt.
We’re here! Come to the side patio outside, you’ll see me in a blue and black plaid shirt and we have a sign.
Hey! I’m here at Empire Cafe :) I’m sitting outside on the farthest out patio and am wearing a blue and black flannel shirt. I don’t have my sign today because it broke :(
This is great! Thank y’all for putting this document together, it’s difficult to track down Peter Thiel’s thoughts in one spot so this is an excellent resource, and I look forward to going through it.
I wonder if Andrew Yang is familiar with Thiel’s writings / thoughts? While it seems they disagree about the impact and/or potential threat(s) posed by automation (Thiel isn’t worried at the moment, Yang is), Yang’s book “Smart People Should Build Things” seems to echo or at least be compatible with many of Thiel’s thoughts regarding what types of work an enterprising individual should consider pursuing, the brokenness of current institutions, and the threat to “progress” when too many smart people funnel into law, finance, et alia instead of entrepreneurship, institution-building, hardware, space related things, etc.
Do we want content about sex on LW at all?
Content about sex on LW seems fine, so long as the discussion of sex is used to make some rationality related point, or is necessary to include because of the subject—say, discussing sexual norms and their impact on society/individuals from a sociological perspective, psychological perspective, other academic perspectives, etc.—or some combination thereof. I think your post handled the discussion of sex well, because you used sex to emphasise the thesis of your post: “The rule follows: for things that are private and rarely discussed, there may be a good deal of unacknowledged diversity.” The opening example—how people shower—was good as an opener, but the discussion of sex helped make clear how important it is for people to consider how generally your thesis can be applied when they are conducting research/thinking about how the world works—especially regarding the “bubbles” issue highlighted in Scott’s Different Worlds post that you also mentioned.
There should be content warnings, because some people browse LW in public places, at work, are squeamish about various subjects, etc.
I think tags could be a good idea, though I don’t know how that would necessarily help if a NSFW post makes it on to the front page. Maybe a Tumblr-esque “Safe Mode” filter could be added to the site and people could opt-in to seeing NSFW content on the front page—including comments on NSFW content—through their profile settings, but if they didn’t opt-in, they wouldn’t see NSFW on the front page. Would that kind of filter also need to apply to people’s personal profiles? Or should people have two things to opt-in to: Front page NSFW “Safe Mode” filter plus a separate Personal page NSFW “Safe Mode” filter? I think that might be a decent option.
It is probably a good idea to have at least a little idea what “about sex” means. Do STD etymology fact posts count? Or posts about rational romantic relationships?
I think it would be difficult to have a narrow definition of what “discussing sex” means on LW without tremendously censoring what kind of posts might appear on LW. Perhaps posts with NSFW content should have to be approved by moderators…but how does the poster know to mark their post as NSFW? It would be useful to have a somewhat broad definition/rule on what “discussing sex” means for LW.
Cursing: is it off-limits entirely? Certain words only? (Which ones?) No excessive cursing?
I like cursing, I think when used well it can help emphasise points, convey emotions (especially the strength of those emotions), and generally make things more fun. However, I hate cursing when it’s not used well…nor do I really have much of a definition for when it’s used well…this is one of those “I know it when I see it” kind of things for me. Perhaps people should generally be cautious about cursing, unless it seems particularly relevant to the subject matter at hand or is needed to emphasise an important point, or convey an emotion more clearly, etc.
What norms apply to titles?
Titles should probably not be flashy or attention-grabbing, but should instead convey as much information about the subject matter—including its NSFW-ness, or lack of NSFW-ness, perhaps through tags—while not being terribly long.
Even if the content is content-warned or on people’s own blogs, the recent comments show up in the recent comments feed, which could make some people feel uncomfortable browsing LW in public.
Perhaps the site should hide all comments on NSFW tagged posts from the recent comments feed unless someone is logged in and has explicitly marked affirmative: “allow NSFW tagged posts on the recent comments feed” in their profile settings? That way, by default no NSFW related comments should show up in the recent comments feed, and people who are okay with those comments can simply opt-in to seeing them—thus making the site more “presentable” in public and still allowing users the freedom to see those sorts of comments.