RichardKennaway comments on [Meta] The Decline of Discussion: Now With Charts! - Less Wrong

43 Post author: Gavin 04 June 2014 10:02PM

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Comment author: RichardKennaway 07 June 2014 02:50:59PM 4 points [-]

So instead of trying to increase the debates on LW (which is a lost purpose per se, unless pleasant procrastination is the goal), the right question is: What is the thing you care about? Is there a topic so important to you, that you are willing to spend your time learning it and becoming stronger? (Is it compatible with rational thinking, or is it just a huge affective spiral?) If you have an important topic, and it can be approached rationally, then that's exactly the thing you should write about... and LW is one of those places where you could publish it.

Agreed wholeheartedly.

Isn't there something inherently self-destructive about a website that teaches "winning"?

All purposes seek their own destruction. You achieve a goal and continue on to further things. Even purposes to provide an ongoing service will decay as the world changes around it and new methods must be found.

What is LessWrong to be? A thing that was, or a thing that still has a role? And if the latter, what is that role and who will drive it, given that the founders and several of the former leading lights have moved on to other loci of activity?

Comment author: Viliam_Bur 07 June 2014 08:37:29PM *  1 point [-]

Creating rationalist communities -- a work that has to be done offline, by different people at different places, but we can coordinate and share success stories here.

Rationality curriculum -- I would love to read a progress report from CFAR. When they have some materials that other people can use, that's again a work for everyone in their own city.

Other than that, I think we should try to apply rationality in things we care about, whatever that is. For example, I am interested in computer programming: I would like to know whether some programming languages are really better than others, or whether that's just an affective death spiral. As a reader, I think that reading about most topics where the author knows what they talk about and tries to be rational, would be interesting.

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