I've been wondering if that the "can't get crap done" malaise of the lesswrong community is based in part on its format and feedback system.
I am part of another community (a hackspace) with a similar makeup in members, geeky computery people, and stuff gets done. Hackdays are done, workshops are organised, code is altered, things are created. "What are you working on" is a common question.
The thingiverse and github communities are on-line ones where people do stuff.
So what is the difference? Lesswrong is a talking shop, you are given positive feedback for making a good post or comment. It will attract people that enjoy and are good at discussion. You also might get evaporative cooling, where people that like action go elsewhere.
What makes github or thingiverse different? The base unit of thing that might get people interested in you is a project, something you have created or are in the process of doing.
If anyone is interested in making a community that rewards doing projects in a rationalist frame (maximum effect for the effort), get in contact. I'm currently working my way there very slowly, through an indirect path.
Edit: See here for details http://groups.google.com/group/group-xyz
What about people who have LW accounts and also accounts at places like GitHub (like me, for example)? It makes sense then that people would do talking at talking-sites and production at production-sites.
The "can't get crap done" malaise might just be that LWers tend to think that they're not getting enough crap done. Talking about that feeling at LW is appropriate, whereas talking about it at GitHub would (perhaps rightly) just earn some responses of "Well, starting coding already then!", since it's not the function of those sites to deal with akrasia but to organize efforts that have already dodged that trap.
During a discussion today about the bizarre "can't get crap done" phenomenon that afflicts large fractions of our community, the suggestion came up that most people can't do anything where there is a perceived choice that includes the null option / "do nothing" as an option. Of which Michael Vassar made the following observation:
And if you're not the leader, it is not good for your reproductive fitness to act like one. In modern times the penalties for standing up are much lower, but our instincts haven't updated.
Interesting to reconsider the events of "To lead, you must stand up" in this light. It makes more sense if you read it as "None of those people had instincts saying it was a good idea to declare themselves the leader of the monkey tribe, in order to solve this particular coordination problem where 'do nothing' felt like a viable option" instead of "nobody had the initiative".