I've recently been trying to introduce some of my friends to less wrong. As a starting point I've linked them to HP:MOR and 'Three worlds collide' on the basis that they are both entertaining and accessible. But I'm not sure where to go next. Sending them to a main index page would likely be overwhelming, so could you suggest some sample articles to give them a general flavour of less wrong and envourage them to read more?
Qualities for such articles would probably include being:
- accessible to an intelligent non-specialist, so not include too much jargon and dependences on other articles;
- relatively short, so they can be absorbed at one sitting and aren't offputtingly long;
- well written and readable, in such a way that gives a good impression of less wrong's competence to the skeptical;
- and more optionally being on a particularly interesting subject matter.
What would you suggest?
[As I'm still a relative novice myself, apologies if a similar discussion has been had in the past and I haven't stumbled across it.]
If you've already pointed them to Three Worlds and HPMR and they are interested, they will likely start poking around themselves. So, unless they've asked specifically for suggestions, it isn't clear to me that such suggestions are a good idea.
Assuming they have shown that they are amenable to such suggestions, one slightly Dark Artish but potentially useful idea is to send them first to things they are more likely to agree with. So for example, if they are an agnostic or atheist, sending them to the religion related posts (like the Mysterious Answers sequence) will get them more likely to feel that the website is worth reading. This is because they will be exposed to a combination of arguments they've seen versions of before and ones they have not seen before and all those arguments will likely support their pre-existing viewpoint. This is a very effective way of making people sympathetic and willing to read more.
You're probably correct in your first point, I should introspect on why my first instinct was to manage their experience myself. I am concerned that a randomly selected article might put them off for the reasons I mentioned above.
Your second suggestion is likely to be extremely effective from the sounds of it. I wouldn't worry about the dark arts elements, if we are finding areas they are interested in already, and they are already rationalist-ish they will likely agree with the main points anyway, and be impressed by the overall structure.