I think the original poster assumes--and, in fact, says, at one point--that the purpose of Less Wrong is for self-improvement. To him, it is supposed to be work, and it is something he alleges to participate in during work time, and he is operating under the assumption that other people do the same. You're not disagreeing about the conclusion, you're disagreeing about the premise. Judging from similar comments, you're not alone.

There's nothing wrong with buying a couch, if you aren't buying it from a "increase your health with exercise!" store, and you aren't buying it out of your exercise budget and using it during your exercise time.

But the LW store claims to be about making people more instrumentally rational (ie productive), and a significant proportion of those I sampled agreed that by reading LW, they were mentally scratching their "be more rational" itch while decreasing their own productivity through being distracted by LW.

So while nothing is wrong with having fun on fun time (I had so much fun in college that my name is still known there 12 years later), and you may be getting positive value from LW, you have not contradicted my claim.

Also, I am far from virtuous - it is because I am so distractable that I have developed (slowly and painfully and with much sadness at my own foolishness) a finely tuned sense for when I am doing something because it is shiny rather than because it serves me. I only turn this sense on for 6-10 hours a day - in the evenings, anything goes.

What is wrong with having asking people on a interesting discussion forum with smart people if they would like to work together on improving themselves?