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Alexandros comments on What topics would you like to see more of on LessWrong? - Less Wrong Discussion

25 Post author: Emile 13 December 2010 04:20PM

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Comment author: Alexandros 13 December 2010 04:42:38PM 11 points [-]

Entrepreneurship would be nice.

Comment author: Louie 14 December 2010 02:20:21AM 7 points [-]

As an entrepreneur, this strikes me as an incredible waste of our community's intellectual ability.

Being an entrepreneur is like being a rapper. You need to deal in the narrow band of ideas that are just good enough that you can make them look ridiculously popular, but also terribly flawed enough that customers need to pay you for a new version of your stuff next quarter. And these great looking, deeply flawed ideas have to be something that you can use to destroy markets with near monopoly powers.

I'd rather see Less Wrong explore actually good ideas... not business ideas.

Also, good entrepreneurship is the ultimate combo of every "dark art" that people repudiate on this site. Just for starters, it requires TONS of self-deception + other deception if you expect to have the motivation to work on it or the investment needed to succeed.

However, I could be wrong here. The alternative of working for others is even worse. It gives you terrible incentives to improve yourself (or even maintain yourself) since you get no improved earnings for better performance... merit pay raises are a joke.

Comment author: wedrifid 14 December 2010 11:15:28AM 1 point [-]

This has been done by others who are entirely better informed on the subject than us.

Comment author: Alexandros 14 December 2010 11:58:24AM *  0 points [-]

I know of Rolf Nelson's series of posts on the matter, all other links appreciated

Comment author: wedrifid 14 December 2010 01:05:27PM 0 points [-]

Some of these are ok.

Comment author: Alexandros 14 December 2010 01:13:54PM -1 points [-]

Yeah, not quite what I had in mind.

Comment author: wedrifid 14 December 2010 01:29:57PM *  0 points [-]

I would like to see LW posts of the kind you are after but I unfortunately the LW community is not particularly suited to the task and some of the norms here are hostile to accurate epistemic knowledge of elements of the subject in question.

Most of the links there will provide better information than what you would get here.

Comment author: Alexandros 14 December 2010 04:10:46PM 1 point [-]

At this point I feel like I'm stating the obvious but:

  1. The thread asked what I'd like to see. I answered.

  2. How in the world would you be able to make inclusive claims about what expertise exists in the community?

Comment author: Davorak 13 December 2010 07:40:24PM 1 point [-]

I would like to know your reasoning could you elaborate? Why would you like to see more Entrepreneurship on LessWrong?

Comment author: Nick_Roy 14 December 2010 12:26:02AM 3 points [-]

Discussions on the relationship between entrepreneurship and rationality would forward SIAI and FHI's common goal of increasing the amount of money spent on existential risks. There is an Existential Risk Reduction Career Network, but no entrepreneurship discussion group devoted to reducing existential risks that I know of. Entrepreneurship offers an income-earning alternative for people facing situations where standard careers are sub-optimal.

Comment author: Alexandros 13 December 2010 08:05:21PM 6 points [-]

Well not entrepreneurship as such, but more like discussions about entrepreneurship. There's all sorts of things in the process that could benefit from rationality, and it'd be nice to see them expanded on: How to pick an idea, How to build a team, Whether starting a business is a good use of time to begin with, etc.