Demosthenes comments on The Benefits of Rationality? - Less Wrong

18 Post author: cousin_it 31 March 2009 11:17AM

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Comment author: Demosthenes 31 March 2009 10:38:14PM 1 point [-]

And you must enjoy the signal value you a little bit! You aren't keeping your Less Wrong postings in your diary under lock and key!

Comment author: Demosthenes 01 April 2009 01:19:12PM 1 point [-]

logi:

That's possible and probably partially accurate; if there were more posts taking the form "I believe X because..." on Less Wrong, I might be more open to the idea that people are doing that.

Ciphergoth:

Also, this would be a terrible community to signal truth-seeking in, considering how entrenched the "rationality as win" metaphor is. As I mentioned in the hair example, I think a lot more people here are signaling a burning interest in real-world application than really have one.

I just wanted to get Yvain's opinion about how much value from posting on Less Wrong was coming from signaling. Yvain suggested that this was not his or her main goal and that LW would be a uniquely poor place to attempt it. I personally doubt both of those points, but I was hoping to get some clarification since the comments about signaling and the nature of truth-seeking don't seem to be part of a system of beliefs.

Are you worried that signaling truth-seeking is legitimate enough?