I've often had half-finished LW post ideas and crossed them off for a number of reasons, mostly they were too rough or undeveloped and I didn't feel expert enough. Other people might worry their post would be judged harshly, or feel overwhelmed, or worried about topicality, or they just want some community input before adding it.
So: this is a special sort of open thread. Please post your unfinished ideas and sketches for LW posts here as comments, if you would like constructive critique, assistance and checking from people with more expertise, etc. Just pile them in without worrying too much. Ideas can be as short as a single sentence or as long as a finished post. Both subject and presentation are on topic in replies. Bad ideas should be mined for whatever good can be found in them. Good ideas should be poked with challenges to make them stronger. No being nasty!
Well, this thread might be a good place to start =)
ETA: I don't think anything should ever be said against an idea which is shown to work. If its epistemic basis is dodgy, we can make a project of shoring it up, but the fact that it works means there's something supporting it, even if we don't yet fully understand it.
What I do need to do, is to think more clearly (for which now is not the best time) on whether or not the OB/LW flavor of rationality training is something which can communicate that methods I've worked out.
Then it's a matter of trade-offs between forcing the OB/LW flavor or trying to use a related, but better fitting flavor. Which means computing estimates on culture, implicit social biases and expectations. All of which takes time and experiments, much of which I expect to fail.
Which I suppose exemplifies the very basics of what I've found works - indi... (read more)