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Poll for next article
Hi everyone,
I am planning to write one or more full-length articles for the main page soon, and I thought I'd take an informal poll to see what people would find most useful.
Possible articles include:
- A three-part series on how to calibrate (how to know how much you know), and how to apply your newfound powers of calibration to make successful plans under extreme uncertainty
- A three-part series on the frontiers of reductionism (the theory that all interesting phenomena can be fully explained in terms of ordinary physics), with arguments suggesting that consciousness, free will, and/or narrative truths might be both interesting and irreducible.
- A solo article listing procedural heuristics which suggest that we should be skeptical of claims about cryonics and Friendly AI.
- A solo article examining ways that liberal Jewish memes have personally increased and decreased my rationality, and exploring possible strategies for designing memes or rituals that would achieve the benefits without the costs.
- A four-part series providing a brief overview of the American legal system (contracts, torts, criminal law, administrative law) along with analysis of the extent to which various features of the system are likely to achieve any of the system's apparent goals.
- A solo article proposing various strategies for using board games to achieve social change, and seeking feedback on how to improve these strategies as well as on which strategies are most likely to succeed.
I am also open to requests, if you would like to see something slightly different from one of these articles, or if you know me well enough to suggest something that I would be good at writing about.
Thanks for your input!
EDIT: Thanks for all the comments! 3 seems to be in highest demand, so I will start with that. If I have any karma remaining after it gets chewed to pieces, I'll move on to 2 and 4.
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Comments (28)
They all sound potentially interesting. Most to least interesting: 4, 1, 3, 2, 6, 5. Caveats: unconvinced that 1 (calibration) really needs a 3-parter; concerned that 2 (frontiers of reductionism) might turn out to be a standard-issue anti-"scientism" whinge (perhaps this wouldn't be a concern if I went back and read more of what you've written); 5 (US legal system) is at the bottom mostly because four articles on that subject seems like too much for something that's rather tangential here; 3 (skepticism about FAI and cryonics) seems like it might want a little generalizing, since heuristics that apply to both FAI and cryonics probably apply to a bunch of other things too.
In descending order of interest to me: 3,2,1,6,4,5. I'm especially interested in 3 because I'm currently uncertain about whether the Singularity will happen and looking for arguments either way, and in 2 because I'm fairly confident you're wrong about consciousness being irreducible (and thus have the potential to be very surprised by the post). If your arguments for the implausibility of cryonics and/or Singularitarianism involve your assertion that some aspect of the mind is irreducible, definitely post your irreducibility arguments first.
Well, these all seem interesting. The first sound the most interesting to a general audience but may run into issues in that we've had somewhat similar stuff. The procedural heuristics may also be worth reading.
Also, regarding option 4- although I don't think I'd find it to be that interesting, empirically the recent posts about people learning lessons from LDS practices were well-received, so that one might interest a fair bit of the community.
I would like a philosophy (conceptual analysis) post about the reductionism spectrum: full reductionism, non-eliminativist reductionism, non-reductionist naturalism; but perhaps lukeprog would be better at writing it? Of your list, I vote for #3 (i.e. skepticism arguments).
6, 4, 5, 3 descending interest. I'm doubtful that 1 or 2 will cover any new ground for me; if I'm wrong, then I'd move 1 to the top.
3, 5, and 6 sound most interesting to me, in that order. I think 2 is likely to degenerate into a discussion of definitions.
The second one seems interesting, the first one seems interesting AND USEFUL. The others seem boring.
I split my vote between Frontiers of reductionism (No. 2, 79%) and Procedural heuristics (No. 3, 21%).
I like all oft the above. #1 and #4 I would want to read first.
I vote #2 and #3.
4, 5 and 6.
3
2 and 3 sound interesting. Please consider writing a single post instead of a sequence.
Posts have been criticised for containing too much tangentially related thoughts and splitting them in several subposts is often suggested. Your advice can easily become counter-productive without knowing what the author intents to cover.
One sounds the most interesting, but you'll have to do something cool or I won't be convinced you needed three whole posts :P
I vote for 2 or 3
The sequence on calibration sounds the most interesting to me.
1 and 3 sound especially cool,though the rest of them sound interesting too.
The one I'd like to read is the one about the American legal system.
4 and 5
My preferences are 6, 5, 1, 3, 4; ranked in order and by the criteria of "definitely not being 2".
My preferences are 6, 5, 1, 3, 4; ranked in order and by the criteria of "definitely not being 2".
I'd be willing to bet even odds that you don't want 2 for the same reason I do want it--it's probably wrong. Care to tell me if I'm right? (No actual money involved here.)
Yes, probably wrong, probably nothing that hasn't already been said multiple times and likely to prompt confused people to say many things with unwarranted confidence in the resulting discussion.
I'm hoping that he's wrong in an interesting, post-reading-the-Sequences way. Then again, I thought that when a Mormon came on and said "ask me anything," but it turned out to be the same old boring kind of wrong. I may need to update more on that experience.
I vote for 2 and 3.
In order of descending interest to me: 6, 3, 2. Thanks for the work.
I don't think this should be in the main LW, and I definitely don't think one should get tens of karma points for posting about some articles that one might write in the future.