Konkvistador comments on Self-Improvement or Shiny Distraction: Why Less Wrong is anti-Instrumental Rationality - Less Wrong
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Why I read less wrong:
Item D is the most important to me, but LessWrong has not been very successful at it. EY rarely gives the posts that I think are important along those lines the coveted green button, nor does the LW readership vote them up highly.
I think that the most important purpose LW could serve would be to critically analyze the ideas EY has put forth, and discuss different possible paths to a better future. But, AFAIK, EY has not given the green button to any posts that look at his ideas critically. Most readers never see posts that don't get the green button. So LW doesn't serve that purpose well.
Self-improvement for me from LW does not usually come from the akrasia stuff. pjeby's website is more interesting for that, at least what I've looked at so far. (I read "Everything I Needed To Know About Life, I Learned From Supervillains" yesterday, and recommend it.) It comes more in finding specific errors in my reasoning or holes in my understanding, and calibrating.
EY's sequences and early posts are very different from the usual self-improvement stuff. I think people would benefit more from reading the sequences than from staying current on all the new posts (yet I do the latter instead of the former). I know people aren't reading them, because he has some good posts (old ones, backdated to before LW existed; maybe they were imported from OB) with only a couple of upvotes.
I'm currently reading the old sequences. But felt discouraged to comment since I felt no one would respond anyway.
You've got a chance of getting replies from those of us who follow Recent Comments.
Recent comments on old sequences have actually been getting pretty interesting.