= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
ChristianKl comments on Making a Rationality-promoting blog post more effective and shareable - Less Wrong Discussion
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (18)
The title is "Succeeding at Other Minds". That's jargon. If I would share that title on facebook it wouldn't be clear to the average person what the post is about or why they should read it.
There also seems to be no specific reason to share the post.
Appreciate the point about the title. What would be a better way of titling the post, to make it more clear to the average person what the post is about or why they should read it?
I envision the specific reason to share the post would be to educate people about the rationality concepts described in the post. So that would be relevant if you would like to have your social media contacts who are not into rationality to learn more about rationality. Do you think this post fits that purpose? If not, how can it be improved?
The point wasn't only that it's a bad title. It's also jargon. You said that your project wanted to present rationality without jargon. You failed.
If you really want to present rationality without jargon then you should try to use language that's as easily understood as possible.
That's no specific reason. It's a general reason.
I don't think that the post is interesting for people who don't care about rationality.
To the extend that I want to share something to that goal, referring to HPMOR is much better.
Thanks for raising the concerns about jargon. I want to avoid binary thinking here, and underscore that not all jargon is problematic. Complex concepts expressed in a brief form can be helpful, and what we would like to do is balance minimizing the jargon with presenting complex concepts that we think reason-oriented people not currently aware of rationality might find helpful. However, I do understand and appreciate your point about using simpler language, and we will strive to that end in the future.
Do you think there might be some people who would like to read easy-to-follow blog posts but would not want to read HPMOR, or might want to read both? If so, how do you think our blog posts can be improved to make them more impactful and effective?
I don't know what that phrase means.
That's we have use jargon on LW. On the other hand if want to reach a more broader audience who's interested in substance but doesn't know relevant vocabulary jargon reduces the readership experience. That assumes that your reader already knows the underlying vocabulary.
The core issue is strategic commitment. You aren't committed to any principles or a target audience.
Answers in Reddits "Explain like I'm five"(ELI5) do from time to time contain jargon when it's unavoidable but they strive not to. It's a different style like a post that titled "Succeeding at Other Minds" where a kid simply won't get what it's about.
ELI5 explanations of rationality concepts could have use, if the do the job better than wikipedia does at the moment.
By reason-oriented people not currently interested in rationality, I am referring to many people who say they like "reason" but are not aware of Less Wrong and other sources of psychology and cognitive neuroscience-informed rationality.
Regarding target audience: we are not explaining things to five-year-olds, but to a senior high school and college- freshman level audience. And they are responding well so far, as this comment illustrates.