ChristianKl comments on Parallelizing Rationality: How Should Rationalists Think in Groups? - Less Wrong

12 Post author: almkglor 17 December 2012 04:08AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (22)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: gjm 18 December 2012 08:40:27PM 0 points [-]

The core problem is that encouraging participation isn't one of the criteria.

I think you may have been led astray by the terminology into thinking that "disputation arena" means, y'know, an arena for disputation, when in fact it seems to mean a technique for discussing things. Techniques like the Delphi method are intended for groups that already exist and need to do some thinking.

I also doubt that reaching consensus is always a good thing.

Is anyone claiming it is? My understanding is that these "disputation arenas" are methods a group can use to arrive at consensus when they need to do so. (Also #1: I'd think most of them are adaptable to the case where you don't particularly need a consensus as such. Also #2: a consensus can be a complicated one with probabilities and things in, and it seems to me that agreement on such a consensus would avoid many of the perils of the usual sort of groupthink.)

Comment author: ChristianKl 19 December 2012 12:42:31AM 0 points [-]

Techniques like the Delphi method are intended for groups that already exist and need to do some thinking.

I don't think that's the goal layed out in the first paragarph of the post. It ends with:

This makes it not only desirable to find ways to effectively get groups of rationalists to think together, but also increasingly necessary.

Getting groups of rationalists to think together is a goal where it's important to design the system in a way that makes it easy and motivates participants to participate.

Comment author: almkglor 21 December 2012 08:42:40AM *  0 points [-]

Okay, so that's a sub-goal that I didn't think about. I will think about this a little more.

Still, assuming that group exists and needs to do some thinking together, I think techniques like Delphi are fine.

Anyway, I assumed that LW's groups are more cohesive and willing to cooperate in thinking exercises in groups (this is what I was thinking when I said "This makes it not only desirable to find ways to effectively get groups of rationalists to think together, but also increasingly necessary."), but apparently it's not as cohesive as I thought.

Comment author: ChristianKl 21 December 2012 08:22:41PM 0 points [-]

Successful online communities have a low bar to entry. As a result they aren't as cohesize as a hierachical institution where you can simply order a group to make some decision via Delphi.

LessWrong is a network. It's no hierachical institution and isn't market driven.

If you want some high level understanding of the network paradigma, I recommend "In Search of How Societies Work" by David Ronfeld.