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gwern comments on Open Thread: October 2009 - Less Wrong
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In the same vein, although I fear I tread too close to 'life-hacking' territory here (and I recall the LW community had consciously decided to avoid descending down into the 'cool tips/tools' territory? or am I wrong about that?), I've noticed very little discussion of the various substances labeled 'nootropics'.
We discussed quite a bit how to motivate ourselves and increase the percentage of time spent being 'productive'; shouldn't it be equally fascinating to us that things like modafinil* can eliminate the need for sleep, gaining hours? Even if modafinil's benefits averaged out cuts the need for sleep only in half or a quarter, well, it's the rare productivity or mind technique that saves you 4 and a half or 2 and a quarter hours a day.
* which I know for a fact some LWers happily & effectively use
This is an Open Thread. No restrictions here. Though, I wish we'd replace these with a proper forum that's active throughout the month.
I'm not a fan of having a Less Wrong forum. One of LW's advantages is that it has low volume and high quality. It doesn't take much of my time to read and most of the posts are worth reading. Forums are the opposite: higher volume and lower quality. This makes forums a bigger time sink for everyone: moderators, posters, and readers.
I think the low volume high quality nature of the LW front page is why a forum would be a bonus. People could hash out more low to mid quality ideas without detracting from the more developed postings that the readers who want to invest less time are looking for. I'm not a fan of a forum in lieu of the current LW format, but as an idea incubator, I think it could be interesting and of use.
I think a forum here would be fantastic. I don't believe it would detract from the articles, it would just give discussions that have potentially smaller interest bases a chance to still develop.
If the open thread were always visible somewhere in the sidebar, would that constitute "a proper forum" for you? or if there were weekly open threads?
I definitely agree that a forum would allow for more discussion, particularly of the less-momentous but still-beneficial topics. In particular, I think that discussions of actual strategies people have tried, what has worked and not worked, could actually be highly beneficial. I see them as data we need to collect in order to begin forming some kind of method for actually helping rationalists win in real world situations.
Even a general forum would be great - I wouldn't mind finding out what books and movies the rest of LW enjoys; this place is what turned me onto Torchwood. Though I could understand worries that it might distract from the core purpose of this site.
AIUI, the forum idea was tried for Overcomingbias.com back when it was a shared-authorship blog. It didn't quite work out.
There's plenty of opportunity to hash out lower-interest points here. In addition to the monthly open threads, just clicking on "Recent posts" in the sidebar will bring up a list of posts which didn't make the front page.
What are you referring to?
Some life hacking: narrow the distance between "I wish" and "I will". Shared hosting starts in the realm of $5/month. Open source forum software is very available. With fairly basic computer skills and Google you're probably not more than 6hrs away from having the forum you want. Some early research might narrow that gap further.
Forum is people first and foremost. I see no way I could attract LWers to a forum on a separate site. Besides, that is not what I want at all. I want a forum here.
More fascinating for me is how modafinil improves my motivation.
Yes, I've noticed that too, but it's hard to say what it is: is it a simple placebo effect, or is it the miser in me saying 'you spent $1.20 on modafinil for today, and dammit you'd better get >1.20 out of it!', or is it the reduction of tiredness, or the sense of lots of time in front of one (I think of Lin Yutang's quote: "A man who has to be punctually at a certain place at five o'clock has the whole afternoon from one to five ruined for him already.")?
Or something entirely else, like that one notices the drop in motivation only when stopping modafinil, and this drop might be due just to recovery from usage? (A slow depletion of dopamine, eg.)
If it's this last suggestion, then the motivation effect is just a modest version of the amphetamine motivation-then-crash - but what makes modafinil most interesting is that it by and large seems like a 'free lunch', and those are so rare in biology/pharmaceuticals.
A lot of commenters outside America on this one? You need a prescription for Modafinil in the US.
Yes. Yes, you do.