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Outreach Thread

6 Post author: Gleb_Tsipursky 06 March 2016 10:18PM

Based on an earlier suggestion, here's an outreach thread where you can leave comments about any recent outreach that you have done to convey rationality-style ideas broadly. The goal of having this thread is to organize information about outreach and provide community support and recognition for raising the sanity waterline. Likewise, doing so can help inspire others to emulate some aspects of these good deeds through social proof and network effects.


 

Comments (20)

Comment author: avwenceslao 23 March 2016 08:41:45AM -1 points [-]

This is great, thanks for sharing it!

Comment author: Gleb_Tsipursky 23 March 2016 09:07:04PM 0 points [-]

You're welcome Alex, and welcome to Less Wrong, glad you decided to take up my invitation!

Comment author: JohnC2015 24 March 2016 06:46:31AM 1 point [-]

I hope that someday I would be able to organize an outreach and share it here in your outreach thread.

Comment author: Sarginlove 22 March 2016 05:22:44PM 1 point [-]

Thanks! This would make my goals easier from here i could learn about other people's methods which they had successfully used for out reach then, also be able to design my own methods from other people's ideals making use of this ideals in future. I also would be able to share my taught's and ideals with others easily.

Comment author: Gleb_Tsipursky 22 March 2016 08:23:34PM 0 points [-]

Thanks!

Comment author: beatricesargin 22 March 2016 05:08:37PM 1 point [-]

This is Very brief, concise and enough to create a positive impact in touching and transforming lives. This is very motivating and I love thinking rationally.

Comment author: Gleb_Tsipursky 22 March 2016 08:24:27PM 0 points [-]

Great to hear it's helpful, and thanks for your own participation as an Intentional Insights volunteer helping spread these ideas!

Comment author: Gram_Stone 13 March 2016 08:11:43PM *  1 point [-]

Like user:BenLowell, I reached out to an individual who shall remain anonymous. I wrote about this experience and how and why to do it more often in Look for Lone Correct Contrarians.

Comment author: Gleb_Tsipursky 14 March 2016 03:34:16PM 0 points [-]

Glad to hear you did this, and will read the piece.

Comment author: BenLowell 08 March 2016 01:36:00AM *  9 points [-]

This isn't very broad, but it went much better than I expected.

I wrote a series of letters to my grandmother describing my experiences at CFAR and describing what I learned. She is finding them very valuable and says that she has been discussing and sharing them with her friends to understand the ideas better. She wishes that she heard a lot of the ideas much earlier.

I'm so far only finished writing about half of my experiences and it has been wonderful. Rewriting everything I learned is helping me connect it in new ways. Since my grandmother doesn't know very much science, I haven't used much as much jargon, or have been very patient to explain all of the small pieces. It's good for learning what the inferential distances are.

Comment author: Gleb_Tsipursky 08 March 2016 03:35:18AM 1 point [-]

Very glad to hear you're having this positive impact! Would you consider posting revised versions of the letters here, with personal details taken out? I think this would be a good resource for the community.

Comment author: polymathwannabe 07 March 2016 02:56:48PM 2 points [-]

This Saturday (March 12) I'm giving a conference at an atheist meeting in Bogotá, Colombia. I'll be using a Spanish translation I made of the famous "You Are a Brain" slideshow.

Comment author: Gleb_Tsipursky 07 March 2016 07:21:47PM 0 points [-]

Nice, if you video or audio-tape it, link it here!

Comment author: polymathwannabe 13 March 2016 07:06:21AM 1 point [-]

Unfortunately recording was not possible, but the slideshow is here. You have to download it and view it on LibreOffice; it does not look good on Google Slides.

Comment author: Gleb_Tsipursky 14 March 2016 03:25:14PM 0 points [-]

Cool, thanks!

Comment author: JohnC2015 24 March 2016 03:35:38AM 0 points [-]

I hope that one day I will be able to organize an outreach providing community support to inspire others. One good deed after another. Who knows how many we can reach out! :)

Comment author: Gleb_Tsipursky 06 March 2016 10:22:59PM 0 points [-]

Note, all these publications were for a broad audience, so couched in the language of science-based self-improvement, as are other Intentional Insights activities.

1) Published an article for a popular self-improvement website encouraging people to update their beliefs.

2) Published an article for a popular secular website introducing the concept of agency.

3) Published an article for a prominent self-improvement website introducing the basics and implications of dual process theory.

4) Published an article for a secular organization on Giving Games, workshop-style events promoting EA-style effective giving.

Comment author: Clarity 07 March 2016 11:51:54AM *  0 points [-]

Isn't the idea of spreading rationality techniques, or terms like agency, or theories like dual process theory, without an evidence base suggesting that spreading those specific rationality techniques or concepts leads to x good thing kinda irrational? Theoretical constructs are useful for researchers, but not necessarily useful for applicants.

Comment author: Gleb_Tsipursky 07 March 2016 07:21:17PM 2 points [-]

I'm not sure what's so irrational about it. I have a high probability estimate that spreading these ideas and raising the sanity waterline is a good thing. It would be irrational not to spread them due to opportunity costs.

Consider a parallel example: would you ask Eliezer to have tested out whether writing the Sequences is a good thing before writing them and spreading this thinking? If not, why not?

Comment author: Clarity 08 March 2016 12:23:18AM 1 point [-]

Convincing analogy. I don't know.