Is there an index of everything I ought to read to be 'up-to-date' in the rationalist community? I keep finding new stuff: new ancient LW posts, new bloggers, etc. There's also this on the Wiki, which is useful (but is curiously not what you find when you click on 'all pages' on the wiki; that instead gets a page with 3 articles on it?). But I think that list is probably more than I want - a lot of it is filler/fluff (though I plan to at least skim everything, if I don't burn out).
I just want to be able to make sure, if I try to post something I think is new on here, that it hasn't been talked to death about already.
No, there's no index. The rationalist community is a disapora of people in which everyone keeps producing its own content. It's basically impossible to read everything and be on-par with everyone.
I suggest you select a couple of forum (the obvious choices are LW and SSC) and read a bunch of things from there (again, "AI to Zombie" strikes me as the obvious choice).
This thread is for asking any questions that might seem obvious, tangential, silly or what-have-you. Don't be shy, everyone has holes in their knowledge, though the fewer and the smaller we can make them, the better.
Please be respectful of other people's admitting ignorance and don't mock them for it, as they're doing a noble thing.
To any future monthly posters of SQ threads, please remember to add the "stupid_questions" tag.