I thought it'd be worth bringing to attention here, because if there's one adjective that would not apply to the online LW community, it's "laid back".

Hmm. I have pretty strong Daoist / Stoic tendencies, and a large part of that deals with rejection of "should-ness;" that is, things are as they are, and carrying around a view of how the world "should" be that disagrees with the actual world is, on net, harmful.

I've gotten some pushback from LWers on that view, as they use the delta between their should-world and their is-world to motivate themselves to act. As far as I can tell, that isn't necessary; one can be motivated by the is-world directly, and if one reasons in the is-world one is more likely to make successful plans than if one reasons in the should-world (which is where one will reason, since diffs between the should-world and is-world are defects!).

But I think that LW is useful at dissolving that pushback; the practice of cashing out beliefs as predictions about the world rather than tribal identifications or moral claims is basically the practice of living in the is-world instead of the should-world.