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TrE comments on Foma: Beliefs that Cause Themselves to be True - Less Wrong
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I think I get this point. Suppose an intelligent extrovert steps by. He/she will not be able to usethe social advice in any way, as it's just obvious for him/her. Instead, he/she might think that we are a bunch of nerds who are claiming to attempt to be more rational, but just have problems with social interaction. He/she leaves.
Well, that might be quite improbable, but it is plausible that similar things may indeed "make lw look bad".
However, I'd claim that creating a subreddit or something similar is a good thing for (1) getting this stuff away from lw and (2) exploring the problem of bad social skills more thoroughly. Here, those posts are quickly overwhelmed by other matters such as meetups, cryonics and the other stuff.
This hypothetical intelligent extrovert isn't very perceptive or curious. Why pander to her/him?
Well, before saying what the lw community should do, one needs to figure out what lw is supposed to be. If it is about pushing the boundaries of knowledge, akin to a scientific journal, then we should not be held accountable to those who don't "get" it any more than a mathematical publication is.And if this is true then lw needs to decide what standards it enforces, that is, whether or not social interaction instruction is a worthwhile publication. However, if it is about the lesswrong community improving their ability to "think and decide more successfully", as it says on the About page, then one should consider how certain groups would respond to posts. And if it is the latter, one should be careful about replying "why pander to them" to critiques, as this response can be used generally against many disenfranchised group that may have a legitimate complaint. Misogynistic? Why pander to overly sensitive people who can't take it like it is. You don't buy into the singularity/transhumanism/cryonics/atheism? Well, I'm not going to pander to your inferior intellect.
Personally, I think TrE did an excellent job describing the impression this site can sometimes give. I really enjoy reading this site, and the posts on epistemology are some of the most influential things I have ever read. And I know that many people on this site lack the social graces that most people have. And this does not necessarily affect their ability to write on the types of topics I like to read about. I also know that there are very fundamental tasks, making friends, getting dates, that are obviously important for people to learn to do. But much of the population, as well as myself, may not glean a lot of insight from this type of instruction. One could even turn the logic around and say, why pander to the socially incompetent?
Since I know lw, I can skip the occasional article that doesn't strike my fancy, but as a newcomer I'm not sure if I would have stuck around. Some of the discussions about socializing, especially the whole PUA episode, really made me wonder, is this my tribe? Are these the people I should be learning from? People who cannot do, in my mind, very rudimentary tasks that illiterates in Appalachia can excel at? And I really do wonder that sometimes. I feel that lw is full of incredibly intelligent people who in their real lives aren't actually "winning." And I know that is what this site is supposed to improve, of course. But I don't feel that the current level of lw elitism is really justified when many people can only theoretically "win."
I personally consider communicating with others about one's life woes to be a form of winning. I suppose that could happen in a place peripherally connected to LW instead of on the main site or discussion page.
I think I just bristled at the suggestion that I (or anyone) should avoid talk about social problems simply because I might alienate a smart extrovert. Any smart extrovert that I would want to know would not be so easily turned off by social difficulty. Especially if it's super-clear that the person having the difficulty is working through it to the best of his/her ability.
If there was a Socially Awkward Pride Parade, I'd march.
If someone on this site did not understand basic algebra, and wanted to talk about it, would you think that would be a valid lw discussion? You write that "Any smart extrovert that I would want to know would not be so easily turned off by social difficulty", but what would you think of a rationality community that had to teach its members basic algebra? And these individuals may be trying very hard to understand it, but they still really struggle. Would you be turned off by their mathematical difficulty?
But algebra is SO EASY, one might say. To many, social skills are easy and math is hard. And I'm not saying that "easy" things should not be focused on on lw, only that lw content is generally "hard", with the conspicuous example of "easy" social skills. (easy meaning much of the general population can do it) Currently the lesswrong community focuses less on algebra and more on social skills because that is the skill set the community needs, but that focus in turn influences what the community becomes. If we accept the current composition of the lw community, which I would warn against as I think it is too homogeneous, then sure, we can deal with the existing needs of the community, ie teaching social skils. But if we are trying to foster exclusively discussions of high level winning, and if we would reject a discussion on algebra as being too easy, we should similarly reject basic discussions on social skills.
Figuring out how to explain math to people who aren't naturally good at it might be a valuable topic for the site.
What do you mean by "high level winning?"
I understand the point you're trying to make by comparing social skills to algebra (which, maybe not so ironically, I find very difficult), but as far as I know, there isn't any subjectivity to algebra. You either know it or you don't. There are right answers and wrong answers. Are there objectively right and wrong answers to social skill problems?
Again, I didn't disagree with your suggestion that this type of discussion be moved elsewhere. I just don't think stigmatizing it as somehow exasperating does ANYONE any good.