A few notes about the site mechanics
A few notes about the community
If English is not your first language, don't let that make you afraid to post or comment. You can get English help on Discussion- or Main-level posts by sending a PM to one of the following users (use the "send message" link on the upper right of their user page). Either put the text of the post in the PM, or just say that you'd like English help and you'll get a response with an email address.
* Normal_Anomaly
* Randaly
* shokwave
* Barry Cotter
A note for theists: you will find the Less Wrong community to be predominantly atheist, though not completely so, and most of us are genuinely respectful of religious people who keep the usual community norms. It's worth saying that we might think religion is off-topic in some places where you think it's on-topic, so be thoughtful about where and how you start explicitly talking about it; some of us are happy to talk about religion, some of us aren't interested. Bear in mind that many of us really, truly have given full consideration to theistic claims and found them to be false, so starting with the most common arguments is pretty likely just to annoy people. Anyhow, it's absolutely OK to mention that you're religious in your welcome post and to invite a discussion there.
A list of some posts that are pretty awesome
I recommend the major sequences to everybody, but I realize how daunting they look at first. So for purposes of immediate gratification, the following posts are particularly interesting/illuminating/provocative and don't require any previous reading:
- Your Intuitions are Not Magic
- The Apologist and the Revolutionary
- How to Convince Me that 2 + 2 = 3
- Lawful Uncertainty
- The Planning Fallacy
- Scope Insensitivity
- The Allais Paradox (with two followups)
- We Change Our Minds Less Often Than We Think
- The Least Convenient Possible World
- The Third Alternative
- The Domain of Your Utility Function
- Newcomb's Problem and Regret of Rationality
- The True Prisoner's Dilemma
- The Tragedy of Group Selectionism
- Policy Debates Should Not Appear One-Sided
- That Alien Message
- The Worst Argument in the World
More suggestions are welcome! Or just check out the top-rated posts from the history of Less Wrong. Most posts at +50 or more are well worth your time.
Welcome to Less Wrong, and we look forward to hearing from you throughout the site!
Note from orthonormal: MBlume and other contributors wrote the original version of this welcome post, and I've edited it a fair bit. If there's anything I should add or update on this post (especially broken links), please send me a private message—I may not notice a comment on the post. Finally, once this gets past 500 comments, anyone is welcome to copy and edit this intro to start the next welcome thread.
Hi! I've been lurking here for maybe 6 months, and I wanted to finally step out and say hello, and thank you! This site has helped to shape huge parts of my worldview for the better and improved my life in general to boot. I just want to make a list of a few of the things I've learned since coming here which I never would have otherwise, as nearly as I can tell.
Anyway, for all of that and more, thanks! This site has influenced me more than anything or anyone else ever has. It's really difficult to describe what it feels like to be less wrong and know exactly how and why, but I guess you guys probably know anyway.
And a few questions. First, I noticed that there's a meetup in Austin but not in the (much larger) Houston area. Is this just a lack of members in the area (this is the Bible Belt after all) or just because no one's tried to start one? Second, and there may be a thread already devoted to this somewhere, but what are some good math or computer science books I should look for? I already know the basics of calculus and I can throw my own solutions together for most harder problems but I'd like to get a stronger understanding of higher level math and computer algorithms to use it. And third, are there any other websites/ blogs (besides OB) that have a similar tone/community to this one, though perhaps on different topics, which anyone would recommend?
Anything written by Yvain, including his old and new blogs, though someone ought to compile a list of his greatest hits.