How well do the "Twelve Virtues" really work as an introduction? After having devoured the entire Yudkowskian canon, I can reread the "Virtues," and it makes sense, and it's beautiful, and I love it, but I've experienced poor results on the two occasions that I can remember pointing others to the document. (One person, already a scientific-rationalist type, was turned off by the poetry; for example, he objected to "curiosity seeks to annihilate itself," saying that curiosity shouldn't be extinguished. I said he was misinterpreting the line, which clearly refers to the answering of a specific question rather than the end of curiosity-in-general; he said it was just poorly-written. The other person, a New-Age spiritual type, just horribly misinterpreted the entire document.)
One person, already a scientific-rationalist type, was turned off by the poetry;
Right, this is the problem I'm getting at
For a while now, I've been using a laser printer to print out a couple of hundred copies of the Twelve Virtues of Rationality (in its printable pamphlet version) and taking them with me to conferences, talks, and science fiction conventions. Cut, staple in the middle (using a large-sized, measuring stapler), and fold. This method is very cheap, probably something like ten cents a copy for ink and paper. But it produces crappy-looking pamphlets.
Does anyone know of a way of cheaply printing small 16-page pamphlets? Take a look at the pamphlet to see the current size. I would really like to see the pamphlets stack well so I can plump down 50 of them without the tower falling over, which is the main problem with the staple-and-fold method. But even more important is that they be cheap, considering the quantities in which I hand these out for free. Something conducive to a professional-looking cover (i.e. allowing for the top sheet to be glossy or a higher quality of paper) would also be nice, again cost permitting.
If I can find a good solution I'll also go ahead and get the pamphlet graphically redesigned before printing, of course, and include some more direct proselytizing material for Less Wrong on the back cover.
I've looked around online, but all the print shops I've seen have been way too expensive for giving away 200 copies per convention - even by myself, much less getting other people to do it on a routine basis. Does anyone know how to get this done cheaply? A minimum order of 10,000 for $1000 would be quite acceptable - I expect at that price I could ship some boxes to other LWers.