I propose that LessWrong should produce a quarterly magazine of its best content.

LessWrong readership has a significant overlap with the readers of Hacker News, a reddit/digg-like community of tech entrepreneurs. So you might be familiar with Hacker Monthly, a print magazine version of Hacker News. The first edition, featuring 16 items that were voted highly on Hacker News, came out in June, and the second came out today. The curator went to significant effort to contact the authors of the various articles and blog posts to include them in the magazine.

Why would we want LessWrong content in a magazine? I personally would find it a great recruitment tool; I could have copies at my house and show/lend/give them to friends. As someone at the Hacker News discussion commented, "It's weird but I remember reading some of these articles on the web but, reading them again in magazine form, they somehow seem much more authoritative and objective. Ah, the perils of framing!"

The publishing and selling part is not too difficult. Hacker Monthly uses MagCloud, a company that makes it easy to publish and sell PDFs into printed magazines.

Unfortunately, I don't have the skills or time to do this myself, at least not in the short-term. If someone wants to pick up this project, major tasks would include creating a process to choose articles for inclusion, contacting the authors for permission, and designing the magazine.

There's also the possibility of advertisements. I personally would be excited to see what kinds of companies would like to advertise to an audience of rationalists. Cryonics companies? Index funds? Rationalist books? Non-profits seeking donations?

Should advertising be used just to defray costs, or could the magazine make money? Make money for whom?

If people think it's a good idea but no-one takes it on, I might have some time free early next year to make this happen. But I hope someone gets to it earlier.