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AnnaSalamon comments on Goals for which Less Wrong does (and doesn't) help - Less Wrong
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My post didn't claim Less Wrong contains the best rationalists anywhere. It claimed that for many readers, Less Wrong is the best community of aspiring rationalists that they have easy access to. I wish you would be careful to be clear about exactly what is at issue and to avoid straw man attacks.
As to how to evaluate Less Wrongers’, or others’, rationality skills: It is hard to assess others’ rationality by evaluating their opinions on a small number of controversial issues. This difficulty stems partly from the difficulty of oneself determining the right answers (so as to know whether to raise or lower one’s estimate of others with those views). And it stems in part from the fact that a small number of yes/no or multiple-choice-style opinions will provide only limited evidence, especially given communities’ tendency to copy the opinions of others within the community.
One can more easily notice what processes LWers and others follow, and one can ask whether these processes are likely to promote true beliefs. For example, LWers tend to say they’re aiming for true beliefs, rather than priding themselves in their faith, optimism, etc. Also, folks here do an above-average job of actually appearing curious, of updating their claims in response to evidence, of actively seeking counter-evidence, of separating claims into separately testable/evaluable components, etc.
At the risk of repeating myself: it is these processes that I, and at least some others, have primarily learned from the sequences/OB/LW. This material has helped me learn to actually aim for accurate beliefs, and it has given me tools for doing so more effectively. (Yes, much of the material in the sequences is obvious in some sense; but reading the sequences moved it from “somewhat clear when I bothered to think about it” to actually a part of my habits for thinking.) I’m a bit frustrated here, but my feeling is that you are not yet using these habits consistently in your writing -- you don’t appear curious, and you are not carefully factoring issues into separable claims that can be individually evaluated. If you do, we might make more progress talking together!
My impression is that XiXiDu is curious and that what you're frustrated by has more to do with his difficulty expressing himself than with closed-mindedness on his part. Note that he compiled a highly upvoted list of references and resources for Less Wrong - I read this as evidence that he's interested in Less Wrong's mission and think that his comments should be read more charitably.
I'll try to recast what I think he's trying to say in clearer terms sometime over the next few days
I agree with you, actually. He does seem curious; I shouldn't have said otherwise. He just also seems drawn to the more primate-politics-prone topics within Less Wrong, and he seems further to often express himself in spaghetti-at-the-wall mixtures of true and untrue, and relevant and irrelevant statements that confuse the conversation.
Less Wrong is a community that many of us care about; and it is kind, when one is new to a community and is still learning to express oneself, to tread a little more softly than XiXiDu has been.
Arguably the primate-politics-prone topics are the most important ones; the tendency that you describe can be read as seriousness of purpose.
Agreed.
Not to mention more pragmatic socially in the general case. Unless you believe you have the capacity to be particularly dominant in a context and wish to introduce yourself near the top of a hierarchy. Some people try that here from time to time, particularly those who think they are impressive elsewhere. It is a higher risk move and best used when you know you will be able to go and open a new set, I mean community, if your dominant entry fails.
Confession: Having a few muddled ideas of signalling in mind when I joined LessWrong, I knew of this pattern (works really well at parties!) and decided that people here were too savvy, so I specifically focused on entering as low as possible in the hierarchy. I'm curious whether that was well-received because of various status reasons (made others feel higher-status) or because it was simply more polite and agreeable.
Though there are many brilliant people within academia, there is also shortsightedness and group-think within academia which could have led the academic establishment to ignore important issues concerning safety of advanced future technologies.
I've seen very little (if anything) in the way of careful rebuttals of SIAI's views from the academic establishment. As such, I don't think that there's strong evidence against SIAI's claims. At the same time, I have the impression that SIAI has not done enough to solicit feedback from the academic establishment.
John Baez will be posting an interview with Eliezer sometime soon. It should be informative to see the back and forth between the two of them.
Concerning the apparent group think on Less Wrong: something relevant that I've learned over the past few months is that some of the vocal SIAI supporters on LW express views that are quite unrepresentative of those of the SIAI staff. I initially misjudged SIAI on account of past unawareness of this point.
I believe that if you're going to express doubts and/or criticism about LW and/or SIAI you should take the time and energy to express these carefully and diplomatically. Expressing unclear or inflammatory doubts and/or criticism is conducive to being rejected out of hand. I agree with Anna's comment here.
Wow, that's cool! They read my mind :-)
Even Eliezer Yudkowsky doesn't believe he's the smartest person alive. He's the founder of the site and set its tone early, but that's not the same thing.
Finding people smarter than oneself is essential to making oneself more effective and stretching one's abilities and goals.
For an example I'm closely familiar with: I think one of Jimmy Wales' great personal achievements with Wikipedia, as an impressively smart fellow himself, is that he discovered an extremely efficient mechanism for gathering around him people who made him feel really dumb by comparison. He'd be first to admit that a lot of those he's gathered around him outshine him.
Getting smarter people than yourself to sign up for your goals is, I suspect, one marker of success in selecting a good goal.
I agree; the average quality of your comments and posts has been increasing with time and I commend you for this.
This statement carries the connotation that I'm very important. At present I don't think that there's solid evidence in this direction. In any case; no need to feel self-conscious about taking my time, I'm happy to make your acquaintance and engage with you.