Giles comments on So what are our Mid-Term goals? - Less Wrong

8 Post author: Fergus_Mackinnon 29 June 2011 08:44PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (20)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Fergus_Mackinnon 30 June 2011 03:21:02PM 2 points [-]

Yes, that's something I'm not sure about. There's plenty of good reasons to pursue the goal, and, as far as I've seen, plenty of people willing to support it on this site... but there isn't any obvious coordination. If enough of us could gain positions at universities, spread out to maximize coverage, or focused to 'take-over' an institution, then we would likely see far more success. (Unfortunately none of our current ad-hoc 'leadership' has that much appeal outside the group, so playing politics doesn't look like it would work out well for us.) I'm probably going to try and work towards an Economics doctorate if I can get good enough grades once I'm at university, for example. Once established I'd be able to start writing to the media, try to get a column in an influential tabloid, write a popular science explanation of economics, etc with authority, and try to recruit/support rationalists.

Comment author: Giles 01 July 2011 12:36:35AM 2 points [-]

Does the Less Wrong movement suffer from not having enough "people people"? I would guess that getting the ability to influence people (as opposed to basic social skills) is something that takes a lot of work.

Comment author: Fergus_Mackinnon 01 July 2011 08:29:26AM 0 points [-]

I think so. The people most given to the introspection that leads to an interest in this philosophy seem to be those somehow marginalized by society, and they typically aren't very socially adept. Which is a pity, given how supportive a background in rationalist literature could be for a psychology student.