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:
- The Worst Argument in the World
- That Alien Message
- How to Convince Me that 2 + 2 = 3
- Lawful Uncertainty
- Your Intuitions are Not Magic
- The Planning Fallacy
- The Apologist and the Revolutionary
- 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
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!
Once a post gets over 500 comments, the site stops showing them all by default. If this post has 500 comments and you have 20 karma, please do start the next welcome post; a new post is a good perennial way to encourage newcomers and lurkers to introduce themselves. (Step-by-step, foolproof instructions here; takes <180seconds.)
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, a big thank you to everyone that helped write this post via its predecessors!
I'm Griffin. I am 17 and sending in my first application to college today! (relevance? maybe)I suppose one reason I am signing up for an account now is that all these wacky essays have made me want to write more about myself.
Things that led me to Less Wrong: well I guess when I first found my way here it was to the wiki article on some religious topic and I was like, "hmm a hate website. How curious." because I had that thing where I knew hate websites existed but didn't really connect it to reality. In any case, I closed the page and went on doing whatever I was doing
Later I stumbled upon Less Wrong again, this time under the guise of Overcoming Bias. This was probably at an old or obsolete section of the website, and it linked to the sequences, which I read about 1/4 of. I became all about the power of science, and became insufferable to be around (I suspect) for a few weeks.
I cooled off for some time (still trying to apply the techniques I learned) but then discovered HPMOR, which started all over again and became this huge ordeal.
In any case, I lurked for around two years, and accumulated a few pet projects I intend to work on later in life (or now), mostly influenced by this blog. I do viola at an arts high school, and the uncuriousity of musicians in general just baffles me.
Also gender and sexuality may have influenced me getting inexorably drawn here, because I was drawn to the asexual community, being asexual (or at least near it in asexy-space). Asexuals are super into reductionism (link to an asexual blog) and just wacky models in general, and the idea that theoretical models shouldn't be wrong was kind of hammered into me, hence the dislike of music theory and also the inexorable drawing. Of course, it's possible I started with a strong sense that beliefs should be consistent and that models should not be wrong.
Should theoretical models not be wrong? Now that I actually put that (mostly subconscious) belief down in writing, I find myself suspecting it.
Proof that I need to be a better rationalist: it took me 90 minutes to figure out that I needed to verify my email address in order to comment. I was distracted because there was a thing on this page that takes me down to were this comment box allegedly was, but I hadn't done the email so I didn't see any box (or little button that says reply on every comment). I was convinced (to my credit, it was more suspicion than conviction) that the website had some sort of bug. At one point I gave up and tried to post in the discussion place an article asking for help (couldn't post a comment asking for help duh) and I was saved from the embarrassment (until now) by the little message that says I need an email to post articles. One crazy entrance exam, huh?