AnnaSalamon comments on Mandatory Secret Identities - Less Wrong

28 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 08 April 2009 06:10PM

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Comment author: AnnaSalamon 08 April 2009 11:22:23PM *  8 points [-]

How much of Objectivism's failure was due to its teachers not having developed sufficient awesomeness elsewhere, and how much was due to the fact that it, say, tried to claim that it had the One True Method of Thought, instead of fostering an environment where all teachings were conjectural, teachers were facilitators of investigation instead of handers-down of The Answer, and everyone together tried to figure out what worked?

I mean, to what extent can we avoid similar failure modes by fostering a culture that doesn't reify anyone's teachings, but that instead tries to foster a culture of experimenting, thinking up new strategies, pooling data, and asking how we can tell what does and doesn't work?