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MattG comments on Effectively Less Altruistically Wrong Codex - Less Wrong Discussion
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Ultimately I don't think that increased discussion is really the most desirable end state., People who actually want to get shit done gradually move away from posting because they realize it's an incredibly low return activity. People who cared about AI risk started MIRI, people who cared about habits of mind started CFAR, people who cared about altruism started Givewell.
Why would you want to spend your time posting on a forum, probably not changing anyone's mind, when you could be actually working towards something in an organization.
One function of a forum like this is to get the people together who will work on projects like these, but you should HOPE they leave - it means they're doing something far more valuable with their time.
Ultimately, it means that the people who stay by and large AREN'T the people who are going to do things - and doers come to the site, see that, and realize they can't find who they're looking for here.
What I'm saying is - this site has created a number of organizations that actually work towards the values that the forum espouses. Will most of those organizations actually accomplish their goals? Probably not, if you're playing the odds, but it's really to early to say. But the fact that those organizations were created really is the end state. The discussions THEY have actually point towards creating change in the real world. Mission accomplished.
The internet is a good medium for discussion because it lets you articulate complex arguments in writing and cite/examine sources. Also internet discussions harvest cognitive surplus from random people taking breaks from their regular work. You get more diverse perspectives than you do with the people in a single organization, you broadcast your conclusions to a larger audience, and it's easier to draw new people in. More on the advantages of internet discussions.
(There are also reasons the internet is a bad medium for discussion, many of which don't apply to LW very much.)
I agree with some of this, but it doesn't change the fact that there are far more high value things you can do in your downtime (eg read a book, meditate, exercise)
I perceive heavily diminishing returns to exercise past the first few hours of exercise a week, and to meditation past the first 15 minutes per day. For books, I would say it depends on the book. This short blog post has more insight in it than most of the books I read as a kid. Many of Paul Graham's essays would probably be book-length if they were written by a less exceptional writer. In general the best internet writing I read seems more insight-dense than the best book writing I read, but the best internet writing is scattered.
Wow, I would say in general the book reading i've done has been far more fruitful than the internet reading I've done - the signal to noise ratio in an individual post might be higher, but the signal to noise ratio of finding good content is much much higher for online (IME) - additionally, I think the real issue here is the return of posting an article vs. reading a book, not of reading an article vs. reading a book.
What are some of the best books you've read? I tend to be pretty disappointed with most books.
Yeah, I think there is low-hanging fruit in assembling collections of great blog posts.
It's definitely relevant though because internet reading trades off against book reading for the people who will read your post. It's possible that there is some kind of power law distribution of post quality, and a small number of blog posts generate a large fraction of the value for readers. But it may be hard to predict how much value you will generate for your readers in advance--for example, I didn't predict this post would be as well-received as it was.
Aren't you a bit too confident about what is "more high value" for other people?
You're right, a more objective word might be 'productive".