One of the big things about improving rationality is 'Getting Crap Done' and I think the problem is that for an online community wherein most of us are anonymous, there's not a lot on here to help us with that.
Now this site has helped me conceptualize and visualize in a way that I didn't realize was possible. It helped me to see things as they are, and how things could be. The problem is that whilst I'm flying ahead in terms of vision, I still sleep in and get to work late, I still play world of warcraft over going to the local toastmasters meetup, I still haven't opened up my online trading account.
It's like I know what to do, but in terms of generating the willpower and committment and motivation to do it, this site just becomes another of many shiny distractions. The thing is as an online community I'm not sure how much you could remedy that.
The Meetups however I think is possibly the best thing to come out of this site so far, as it has inspired me to start my own, which has come to great success, even after a somewhat rocky start, and provides a way for those who feel isolated to find a network of support.
Just my two humble cents.
More and more, LessWrong's posts are meta-rationality posts, about how to be rational, how to avoid akrasia, in general, without any specific application. This is probably the intended purpose of the site. But they're starting to bore me.
What drew me to LessWrong is that it's a place where I can put rationality into practice, discussing specific questions of philosophy, value, and possible futures, with the goal of finding a good path through the Singularity. Many of these topics have no other place where rational discussion of them is possible, online or off. Such applied topics have almost all moved to Discussion now, and may be declining in frequency.
This isn't entirely new. Applied discussions have always suffered bad karma on LW (statistically; please do not respond with anecdotal data). I thought this was because people downvote a post if they find anything in it that they disagree with. But perhaps a lot of people would rather talk about rationality than use it.
Does anyone else have this perception? Or am I just becoming a LW old geezer?
At the same time, LW is taking off in terms of meetups and number of posts. Is it finding its true self? Does the discussion of rationality techniques have a larger market than debates over Sleeping Beauty (I'm even beginning to miss those!) Is the old concern with values, artificial intelligence, and the Singularity something for LW to grow out of?
(ADDED: Some rationality posts are good. I am also a lukeprog fan.)