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atucker comments on An Outside View on Less Wrong's Advice - Less Wrong
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On the outside view, this rationality community is very young, and most young organizations lack sophistication, easily repeatable methods, and proof of whatever they claim. Changing yourself takes lots of time (on the order of years), if it can be done at all (it can be, but it's not particularly easy).
On the outside view, any organization which dissolves for lack of proof in its methods takes a very very long time to arise and stay, or never gets off the ground.
I really think that the issue is more one of time and organization, and I'm not super surprised that Less Wrong isn't obviously able to deliver what it wants to over the internet.
Yes, of course. My argument isn't that Less Wrong should dissolve itself. If your inside view suggests that you have a good shot at a massive success in the medium-to-long term, and your outside view puts you in a reference class that includes some potential for big successes but many more failures, the thing to do is pursue the opportunity, but to do some humbly and carefully. Emphasize low-hanging fruit. Hedge. Warn. Some of us do those things, but others quit their jobs to work full-time for SIAI and then urge their friends to do the same. I'll try to make this clearer in the next version.
This behaviour of SIAI employees is extremely surprising. Please provide details.
The US Peace Corps prompted over 200,000 people to do something I consider even more extreme by committing to multiple years of service in foreign countries for very modest goals. I'd be surprised if something like Existential Risk didn't provoke such a reaction.
Ah.
Yeah, looks like we pretty much agree then about what to do then.
I'm considering trying to work for SIAI in the future though, but I also don't have an established job or lifestyle so the costs of doing so are fairly low for me. To the extent that my pre-LW heuristic for deciding what I'd like to do with my life was mostly based on what I'd find interesting, that's not too huge of a disruption for me.