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jmmcd comments on Poll - Is endless September a threat to LW and what should be done? - Less Wrong
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If trending towards the mean wasn't explicitly mentioned in the poll this would be a useful contribution. As it stands, you should pay a lol toll.
My point is that as LW was founded largely as a way of drumming up support for SIAI. The fact that they want to and are making efforts to grow LW in number should make it utterly unsurprising that we are regressing to the mean.
Then what do you make of this:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/c1/wellkept_gardens_die_by_pacifism/
Yes, when Eliezer made this place, he was frustrated that people didn't seem, to him, to understand the deal with AI / existential risk, but he also really cares about this place as a garden of it's own and I don't think he wants a large quantity of users as much as he wants quality thinking going on.
Nor does he want "support for SIAI" - he does not want undiscriminating skeptics or followers like Ayn Rand had who did what she did without thinking for themselves about it.
Considering those two constraints, I figure LW is not largely about getting support for SIAI, but largely about raising the sanity waterline. He believes that if the sanity waterline raises, people will be able to see the value of his ideas. He acknowledges, also, that you can't capture all the value you create, and I believe he said he expected most of the benefits from this site to be applied elsewhere, not necessarily benefiting SIAI.
Official publications from the SI have said that LW was specifically about community building. This is very well established.
Not sure why you're equating "community building" with "supporting SIAI". I'm sure they would not have started LW if they didn't think it would help with SIAI goals (they're probably too busy / too focused for that) but to me "I would not have started this without it needing to serve x purpose" does not mean "this is going to serve several purposes" has no value. It may be that they would not have started it without it serving y and z purposes as well (where y and z may be raising the sanity waterline, encouraging effective altruism and things like that.)