I want to help the world as much as possible: lets define that as reduction of suffering¹ of the human race.

I am an engineering student. It would be very simple to spend the rest of my life working on engineering problems, thereby making humanity more effective, and so reducing suffering: Pretty acceptable in terms of benefit to the world, and also given my skill set it makes sense. The issue here is that it may be a local maximum.

Now, what if instead of directly solving problems I focus my efforts on other people? Directing others down a more rational path. This may include things like telling people about Less Wrong, specifically addressing their direction in life, or providing information about effective charities instead of ineffective ones. This seems like a massively more efficient solution space, even if my social skills are weak. Compared to the effectiveness of a single engineer, the life paths of hundreds of people with improved rationality would be enormous.

Here I make the assumption that more rational thought reduces suffering. I would argue this to be the case because a less rational thinker is going to act in more conflicting, arbitrary, and harmful ways than otherwise. Clearer thinking then means better judgements, and we also say that on average people's actions improve society as evidenced by society progressing to this point.

Still, directing others is not particularly efficient for me considering my skill set. This task should be delegated to another with a skill set more suited: a people person. This would then allow me to get back to my own efficient problems. But here is the question: How many "people people" is it efficient to train? Isn't my time still better spent as an ineffective people person even above my direct problem solving even at that point? If so, shouldn't we all be focusing on expanding our numbers?

By doing so will we increase the quality of our discussions by bringing in many new ideas and faces, or will more people hinder quality? Should we instead simply delve deeper into the depths of rationality growing only as people discover the site organically? What is the ideal community growth rate? (quality versus quantity? If Less Wrong expands too quickly is that an issue?)

We could also produce some kind of rationality book or other set of materials if we intended to improve rationality without inherently expanding the community by linking them. (Anyone super interested would go looking for more, and we'd definitely want them.)

I may be overestimating how much other people's lives can be influenced, but it seems a high probability that after even a year of dedicated... irrationality sniping?... on even a bimonthly basis (every other Saturday lets say) would have a profound effect on at least one other individual. Especially given the internet's connective ability it seems that the ability to improve the cognitions of other people is cheap and high impact compared to direct problem solving.

If I am not solving those engineering problems will someone else be? The question then becomes how much I value the reduction of the world's suffering versus my other values rather than the actual effectiveness of irrationality sniping versus direct problem solving.

Conclusion: To reduce world suffering I should reduce the irrationality of others, then convince those persons to do the same.

Should there be a lesson plan of sorts for aspiring rationalists? There are the sequences, and people interested enough will find their own way around the site, but I am wondering if there is some more directed thought process we want people to go through, or if perhaps randomly encountering ideas might actually be better, especially if we are trying to expand rationality in all directions.

Regardless of the answers to these questions I intend to print out flyers and scatter them across my college campus. Is there already a resource like that I can just print off? I figure even if I drop off the face of the earth I'll have done some good that way.

_{1. Without uh, killing everyone or tiling smiley faces.}

ps. Sorry if this comes off as rambling. No idea what I am doing. Never stopped me before.