asr comments on [LINK] Why I'm not on the Rationalist Masterlist - Less Wrong Discussion
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In my experience, reading blogs from minority representants (sensible ones) introduces you to different thought patterns.
Not very specific, huh ?
Gypsies are the most focused on minority in my country. The gypsy blogger, who managed to leave her community, once described a story. Her mother visited her in her home, found frozen meat in her freezer, and started almonst crying: My daughter, how can you store meat at home, when people exist, who are hungry today ? (Gypsies are stereotypically bad at planning and managing their finances, to the point of selfdestruction. But before this blog, I did not understand, it makes them virtuous in their own eyes.)
This blog was also enlightening for me.
Would not it be nice to have such people interacting in LW conversations, instead of just linking to them ?
Especially for people intending to program friendly AI, who need to understand the needs of other people (although I doubt very much AI will be developed or that MIRI will ever really start coding it. Plus I do not want it to exist. But it is just me.)
Yes. It would be nice. I am genuinely uncertain whether there's a good way to make LW appealing to people who currently dislike it, without alienating the existing contributors who do like it.
Maybe I am naive, but, how about explicitly stating, by some high status member, that we would be very happy if they contributed here ?
Eliezer wrote the same thing about women. http://lesswrong.com/lw/ap/of_gender_and_rationality/ It was not exactly "Women, come, please" but it was clear they would be welcome to participate. It might have helped. Or maybe the increased percentage in the census result was due to something else ? How would I know...
And note that Eliezer did not forbid pick-up art discussion and whatever You guys hold dear.
I could try and write a similar post as was that about women, but I am a small fish in this pond.
If you want to increase your fish-size, articles / comment threads which generate lots of upvotes are a good way to do it. And since your fish-size is small already there's not much to lose if people don't like it.
Please do! It would be worth a try (though I'm not totally sure what kind of post you want to write...)