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Yvain comments on "Target audience" size for the Less Wrong sequences - Less Wrong
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Comments (84)
I can think of about a dozen personal acquaintances who fit all of your criteria and for whom I think LW would be appropriate. Of these, three read Less Wrong - one because I referred her, one because he referred me, and one because he was referred by the same mutual friend who referred me.
I think I've referred about five or six of the remaining nine over here at some point or other and it just didn't take for some reason.
Of these dozen people, the number whom I talked to about Less Wrong who were already reading it by coincidence (ie not in a way causally linked to me reading Less Wrong) was zero. Despite moving in circles that are mostly made up of people from the groups above, I've never just randomly met another LW reader.
Even though that's anecdotal evidence, I think it's pretty unlikely that most of our potential readers are already here.
I can think of several people who would enjoy a blog about rationality that was about rationality and didn't seem to require buying into the transhumanist belief cluster as a prerequisite.
So, find the fiesty ones and sic them on LW. The only way to avoid evaporative cooling is to invite and welcome people who disagree with you. I'm interested in rationality and AI (note the lack of G), but don't buy into the transhumanist belief cluster- if more people like me show up, we'll move in that direction. But I don't see the change happening without the population to make the posts and upvote them and comment encouragingly.
Yep. It doesn't have to be anti-transhumanist, or anti-anything - it just needs to be more on topic, and less off topic. Here's a suggestion list.
Note that I've been here three weeks, so (per Shirky's A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy, which appears to have fallen offline - Google cache for the moment) have much less claim to the secret of making LW the social forum from Rationalist Heaven than those who've been here three years. So evaluate my words with a suitable quantity of salt. OTOH, it was basically in agreement with Yvain, the second-rated poster on the site and a transhumanist.
I find it very pleasing that I have been able to make quite strong criticisms (e.g.) of locally favoured memes and get upvoted, because I've taken the time to show my working, link my references and show my understanding of what I'm criticising. So the moderation system ("vote up what you want more of") appears to work as advertised.
And I've found it personally very useful discipline in learning to think clearly as I write, instead of just spewing abuse at people for being stupid. Not that there's no place for that sort of thing, just that this isn't it and it's not an effective way to convince someone they're wrong.
Check your assumptions; what evidence do you have that this statement describes my goal? Is that evidence sufficient?