A few notes about the site mechanics
A few notes about the community
If English is not your first language, don't let that make you afraid to post or comment. You can get English help on Discussion- or Main-level posts by sending a PM to one of the following users (use the "send message" link on the upper right of their user page). Either put the text of the post in the PM, or just say that you'd like English help and you'll get a response with an email address.
* Normal_Anomaly
* Randaly
* shokwave
* Barry Cotter
A note for theists: you will find the Less Wrong community to be predominantly atheist, though not completely so, and most of us are genuinely respectful of religious people who keep the usual community norms. It's worth saying that we might think religion is off-topic in some places where you think it's on-topic, so be thoughtful about where and how you start explicitly talking about it; some of us are happy to talk about religion, some of us aren't interested. Bear in mind that many of us really, truly have given full consideration to theistic claims and found them to be false, so starting with the most common arguments is pretty likely just to annoy people. Anyhow, it's absolutely OK to mention that you're religious in your welcome post and to invite a discussion there.
A list of some posts that are pretty awesome
I recommend the major sequences to everybody, but I realize how daunting they look at first. So for purposes of immediate gratification, the following posts are particularly interesting/illuminating/provocative and don't require any previous reading:
- Your Intuitions are Not Magic
- The Apologist and the Revolutionary
- How to Convince Me that 2 + 2 = 3
- Lawful Uncertainty
- The Planning Fallacy
- Scope Insensitivity
- The Allais Paradox (with two followups)
- We Change Our Minds Less Often Than We Think
- The Least Convenient Possible World
- The Third Alternative
- The Domain of Your Utility Function
- Newcomb's Problem and Regret of Rationality
- The True Prisoner's Dilemma
- The Tragedy of Group Selectionism
- Policy Debates Should Not Appear One-Sided
- That Alien Message
More suggestions are welcome! Or just check out the top-rated posts from the history of Less Wrong. Most posts at +50 or more are well worth your time.
Welcome to Less Wrong, and we look forward to hearing from you throughout the site.
(Note from orthonormal: MBlume and other contributors wrote the original version of this welcome message, and I've stolen heavily from it.)
Hi everyone, I am a 19 year old undergraduate science student majoring in statistics living in Australia. For fun I play chess and flute which I am quite mediocre at but find them both stimulating and challenging. I am always trying to improve myself in one way or another, whether it be learning or practicing skills.
I have an academic interest in maths, statistics and biology and would eventually want to be a biostatistician. I was originally seen as academically gifted, however after years of not working hard, I am trying to regain my academic vigor and educate myself, which I have neglected for a number of years. I am working to educate myself in quantum physics, cryonics, philosophy and AI as I think these are all important issues that I don't know a lot about.
I value truth, as I think it always for the best in the long run. I believe "That which can be destroyed by truth should" is valid and I try to follow the 12 virtues of Rationality. I'm sure I value a lot of other things but haven't thought about them much.
My journey as a rationalist has been an interesting one. I have always affiliated with being a rationalist since when I can remember. However, I have found that being rational hasn't gone well with my more emotionally-inclined friends. I have found that being logical is off-putting to them and that they don't like being shown when they are wrong. This made me question whether rationality is a good thing in my life and whether it was beneficial to my life. This prompted to me to reassess rationality and read more on Less Wrong. This reaffirmed my opinion that rationality a good thing and I should work on not offending people.
That is all I feel like writing for the moment as that took me a few hours. Hopefully that is enough of an introduction. If there is anything you think that I should read, please link me. I always want to learn new things. I look forward to engaging in discussion with many of you. Kind Regards,
Fluchess
Actually, several of the chapters of this book are very likely completely wrong and the rest are on shakier foundations than I believed 9 years ago (similar to other works of social psychology that accurately reported typical expert views at the time). See here for further elaboration.
I'm on the fence about recommending this book now, but please read skeptically if you do choose to read it.