You say that like it's a bad thing. But just wait 'till the references to Heinlein and Tolkien are replaced by long discussions about Beyonce and the Super Bowl on Less Wrong. Then, see how you like it.
No one is advocating that we throw in sports and celebrity references. The point was that the large number of references to nerd topics could be a problem. See the difference?
(In any event other comments here especially ata's comment have reduced my concern.)
No one is advocating that we throw in sports and celebrity references.
I am. Why shouldn't we?
Admittedly, almost no one who is attracted by discussion of sports and celebrity meets community standards for rationality, most of us would find it difficult to include such references, and it would increase the willpower required to read LW for some people, but these do not mean that we are currently at the optimum level of sport and celebrity references. Given that we're all a bunch of nerds with a huge grudge against mainstream tastes, it seems quite likel...
Less Wrong is as a community extremely nerdy. That's true for almost any definition of "nerd" that captures anyone's intuition for the word. However, to a large extent, many aspects of nerdiness are not connected to rationality at all, even though nerdiness may be associated with more rationality in some limited aspects. For example, fantasy literature is probably not in any deep way connected to either intelligent or rational thinking except for historical reasons.
Yet LW is full of references to science fiction, fantasy literature, anime and D&D. In one recent example, a post started with an only marginally connected tidbit from Heinlein. Moreover, substantial subthreads have arisen bashing aspects of other subcultures. For example, see this subthread where multiple users discuss how spectator sports are "banal" and "pointless". I suspect that this attitude may be turning away not only non-nerds but even the somewhat nerdy who enjoy watching sports, and see it has harmless tribalist fun, not very different than friends arguing over whether Star Wars or Star Trek is superior which has about the same degree of actual value here.
There's a related issue which is a serious point about rationality and human cognition: Our hobbies are to a large extent functions of our specific upbringings and surrounding culture. That some people prefer one form of fantastic escapism involving imaginary spaceships isn't at some level very different than the escapism of watching some people throw and catch objects. Looking down on other people because of these sorts of preferences is unhelpful tribalism. It might feel good, and it might be fun, but it isn't helpful.