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sark comments on Five-minute rationality techniques - Less Wrong
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I think movements grow at their margins. It is there that we can make the greatest impact. So perhaps we should focus on recent converts to rationality. Figure out how they converted, what factors were involved, how the transition could have been easier, taking into account their personality etc.
This is what I have been trying to do with the people I introduce rationality to and who are somewhat receptive. It is not only a victory that they began to accept rationality. It was also an opportunity to observe how best to foster more of such conversions.
It is somewhat worrying that these people tend to be geeks/nerds. But given the nature of rationality itself and personality, this shouldn't be too surprising. The success of geek/nerd culture in recent mainstream pop culture is a cause for hope I think, even though some geeks/nerds will argue their culture have been distorted in the process. What matters is that the public are now not averse to geeks/nerds. Such aversion is often the first and strongest impediment to begin even considering topics such as rationality.
It ultimately comes down to social acceptance. We must leverage the phenomenon by focusing on the fringes of the rationality demographic. They have the most power to effect peer pressure to convert further rationalists.
Defining rationalists as LW users, I think more came from these...
...than from just happening upon the site. I think people are more drawn in by an ongoing serial than an archive of pre-existing material.
It's easy to get someone to follow a cool blog or fanfic. It's hard to get someone to "read the sequences".
Maybe Eliezer should repost his sequences over the next few years, in a foreign part of the blogosphere, under a pen-name? :)
When I first found OB, Eliezer was just finishing the sequences and transitioning to LW. I would start reading an article, and follow all the links back to articles I hadn't read yet. I was happy to spend days reading a later article with lots of prereqs. For me, have a depth of existing material that has been built on is a feature.
Yep, just like TV Tropes or Wikipedia; all it takes is an interesting initial hook, and then the tab-queueing begins.
If we use LW as a metric of conversion, then you can consider me a new convert, lured here by the occasional link from the Octagon. This is, of course, a pretty weak metric. I've been interested in rational thinking since the 9th grade, when i went to a debate club and realised that people went there to win arguments, not get to the truth. While i've done my best to keep my actions and words rational in cases that seem detached from my personal life, i think i mostly fail at self-examination.
My personal observations confirm that the geek/nerd social group is the most prone to rationality, but there is a significant buffer layer around the group, that can be influenced and converted.
P.s., It feels good to finally register here. And... Am i the only one who feels a bit odd when using the word "convert" in this context?
Welcome to Less Wrong!