You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

jasonmcdowell comments on The elephant in the room, AMA - Less Wrong Discussion

22 Post author: calcsam 12 May 2011 02:59PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (428)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: jasonmcdowell 12 May 2011 09:27:52PM 6 points [-]

Yes. But the reason why we should listen to him is self-evident. He has written things that are valuable. If he maintains his interest in the community here, and the quality is good, he could be a value-multiplier. A catalyst. His writing here is the intersecting part of a Venn diagram, his interests overlapping with Less Wrong.

His allusions to his missionary work are provoking an immune response from many here, including me (not that I write much). I think this is why (from a quote thread):

What frightens us most in a madman is his sane conversation. --Anatole France

Comment author: wedrifid 12 May 2011 10:28:50PM 1 point [-]

His allusions to his missionary work are provoking an immune response from many here, including me (not that I write much). I think this is why (from a quote thread):

I have not been particularly bothered by the missionary allusions but obviously don't consider the posts nearly as valuable as you do. There is an undesirable emphasis on norms and a constant pressure to move things in the direction of 'making the group do set projects' and 'consensus'. This isn't an organisation, it's a blog.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 14 May 2011 05:06:39AM 10 points [-]

This isn't an organisation, it's a blog.

Some of us would like a %$^&ing organization, pardon my French.

Comment author: wedrifid 14 May 2011 06:49:33AM *  7 points [-]

Some of us would like a %$^&ing organization, pardon my French.

You have one.

Injecting LW with a pint of blood from a religious Behemoth will not give you another organisation, charged up with the power of divine effectiveness. It'll cause an autoimmune disease, doing serious neurological damage and causing externally visible disfigurement (unnecessarily cultish vibe), scaring healthy potential recruits away.

If you want to actually enhance the potential practical effectiveness of LW and LW spinoff communities instead take the quickening of an entrepreneur. Or at very least track down and feast on the essence of a successful business professional and an economist or two.

Food for Thought: Holy Books usually don't get implemented at all. Which is usually a good thing. What mainstream religious authorities do when 'implementing Holy Books' is something quite different from implementing holy books - and not something that is necessarily desirable to emulate.