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.)
Howdy,
tl;dr This seems like a place that I can use to shore up some of my cognitive shortcomings, eliminate some bias and expand my worldview. Maybe I can help someone else along the way.
I have been reading the material here for the last several days and have decided that this is a community that I would like to be a part of and hopefully contribute to. My greatest interests are improving my map of the territory(how great is that analogy?), using my constantly improving map to be a better husband and father, and exploring transhumanist ideas and conceits.
I came to be a rationalist when I started reading somewhat milquetoast skeptical literature. Having been raised religious and having served in the Marine Corps I have found that I have a tendency to allow arguments from authority too much credence. If I am not careful I can serve as quite the dutiful drone.
It became important over the last few months that I be able to do as much of my own philosophical and scientific legwork as possible. If an author or speaker that I enjoy espouses ideas I am inclined to agree with it is vital (in my estimation) that I either be able to verify the information presented myself or locate reliable independent verification. This is the type of thinking that I feel I owe my wife and son. LessWrong seems like it aligns well with that ideal. Bias and gullibility kill.
The religious arguments were fun at first, but have become boring. The issue is resolved to my satisfaction. I tend to approach things scientifically instead of philosophically. I struggle to grok philosophy. I think that means I need to redouble my efforts there. My maths could use work, but aren't as sorry as some folks. I get algebra and have survived a few classes in statistics. Keyword: survived.
I am slowly chewing my way through the sequences and learning a good bit. I'm not the fastest thinker, so I will have to read some of them a few times to get the ideas involved. Some of the quantum ideas seem wildly exotic, but that just means I am going to have to really brush up on my physics....of which I have none. I'm not about to make an argument from incredulity there. I don't know enough to HAVE an opinion yet.
I used to read Common Sense Atheism and I find myself now thinking, "Ah, this is what Luke was going on about.' There is some pretty cool stuff here and I look forward to contributing what I can.
Welcome!
My background is in physics and mathematical optimization techniques, and so it interests me a lot what perspective people without those skills have on the sorts of thinking and strategies we talk about on Less Wrong. Knowing what [inferential gaps] we missed is really useful to writers or educators. Don't be afraid to ask questions.
Or, if it comes to it, to let sleeping theories lie. Lots of posters here don't finish all of the sequences, or avoid the more esoteric decision theory posts.