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.)
Hello to the LessWrong universe.
I'm 23 years old. A lover of music (Last.fm): Ravel, Mozart, Radiohead, Sigur Rós, Animal Collective. And driven to learn.
My goal right now is to become a philosophy professor, and participate in radical, reason oriented movements to influence social change.
I value the intellect, the body, life, and the universe. I value learning - to improve the lives of others and myself, and to live most accordingly with 'nature.' I value those who direct themselves in a rational manner.
My rationality quest began when I was a child, always using legos to build new things and drawing. Eventually video games came into my life and problem solving drove me. However, due to immaturity and the social life of a middle/high schooler, I never really progress intellectually despite my love for science and 'deep' conversations with friends.
It wasn't until I was 20, and ended my relationship with a girl that philosophical thought dawned upon me. It was sparked by the breakup, because her family was religious and I molded myself to that lifestyle, but when it was over there was nothing there. I suppose, after losing who I thought was the love of my life, I began to search for 'purpose.' A few philosophy courses and a dive into Stoicism pushed me to realms of thought I had never began to contemplate.
Since then I've been progressing my learning on my own through literature, philosophical writings, conversation, and free online references. And I found myself here because my StumbleUpon lead me to a blog from a philosophy professor who linked to this site.
I really want to become a value member of this community, to help myself and others.
Welcome to Less Wrong! :)
You sound like a pretty studious individual; you might enjoy some of the posts on inexpensive and efficient learning, if you haven't seen them already.
Out of curiosity, what was the name of the blog that led you here?