TLDR: I had idea to apply some tools I learned on coursera to our community in order to grow it better. I wanted to start some organized thinking about goals our community has, and offer some materials for people who are eager to work on it, but are maybe lost or need ideas.

Yesterday I did a course on coursera.org. It's called "Grow to Greatness: Smart Growth for Private Businesses, Part I". (I play lectures often at x2.5 so I can do 5 weeks course in one day)

Though this course seems obvious, it'd say pretty worth 3 hours, so look it up. (It's hard to say how much is hindsight and how much is actually too easy and basic) I got some ideas sorted, and I saw the tools. I'm not an expert now, obviously, but at least i can see when things are done in unprofessional manner, and it can help you understand what follows.

When growing anything (company, community, ...) you have different options. You should not opt for everything, because you will be spread thin. You should grow with measure, so that people can follow, and so that you can do it right. This is the essence of the course. Rest is focused on ways of growing.

This was informative part of this article. Rest is some thoughts that just came to my mind that I would like to share. Hopefully I inspire some of you, and start some organized thinking about this community.

This community is some kind of organization, and it has a goal. To be precise, it probably has two goals, as I see it:

1. to make existing members more rational
2. to get more members.

Note that second focus is to grow.

I will just plainly write down some claims this course made:

In order to grow:

1. your people need to grow (as persons, to get more skills, to learn).
2. you need to create more processes regarding customers, in order to preserve good service
3. you often need better organization (to regulate processes inside the company)
4. you need to focus
5. you need a plan
6. if you need to stop the fire, stop the fire which has the greatest impact, and make a process out of it, so that people can do it on their own afterwards

1. I guess no-one is against this. After all, we are all here to grow.

2. My guess is that our customers could be defined as new members. So, first steps someone makes here are responsibility of this organization. After, when they get into rationality more, when they start working on themselves, they become employees. That's at least how it works in my head. Book on sequences is a good step here since it helps to have it all organized in one pdf.

3. this is actually where it all started. We are just a bunch of people with common drive to be more rational. There are meetups, but that's it. I guess some people see EY as some kind of leader, but even if he were one, that's not an organization. My first idea is to create some kind of separation of topics, reddit-like. (With or without moderators, we can change that at any point if one option does not work.)

For example, I'm fed with AI topics. When i see AI, I literally stop reading. I don't even think it's rational to force that idea so much. I understand the core of this community is in that business, but:

1. One of the first lessons in finance is "don't put all the eggs in one basket". If there is something more important than AI we are fucked if no-one sees it. I guess "non-rational" people will see it (since they were not active on this forum, therefore not focused on AI) but then people of this forum lose attribute "rational" since "non-rationals" outperformed them simply by doing random stuff.
2. It may stop people from visiting the forum. They may disagree, they may feel "it's not right", but be unable to formulate it in "dont put all the eggs in one basket" (my example, kind of). The remaining choice is to stop visiting the site.

So, I would STRONGLY encourage new topics, and I would like to see some kind of classification. If I want to find out about AI, I want to know where to look, and if I don't want to read about it, I want to know how to avoid it. If I want to read about self-improvement, I want to know where to find it. Who knows, after some rough classification people start to do finer ones, and discuss how to increase memory without being spammed with procrastination. I think this could help the first goal (to make existing members more rational) since it would give them some overview.

I also think this would reduce cult-ism, since it would add diversity, and loose the "meta".

4. Understatement. Anyone who worked, or read anything about work knows how important plan is. It is OBLIGATORY. Essential. (See course https://www.coursera.org/learn/work-smarter-not-harder/outline )

5. I think this is not very important to us. There are lots of people here. Many enthusiasts. However, this should be some kind of guideline to make a good plan, and to tell us how much resources to devote to each problem.

In conclusion, I understand these things are big. But growth means change. (There is some EY quote on this, I think:not every change is improvement, but every improvement is a change, correct me if I'm wrong.) Humans did not evolve this far by being better, but by socializing and cooperating. So I think we should move from herd to organization.

Pardon me, please, if this is not the way to go about asking such questions (it's all I know). Is this more for LessWrong itself, or for LessWrong Discussion?

Is there some kind of comprehensive organization by subject of LessWrong posts?

I know there are the sequences, but also a lot of other useful posts.

If I want to learn about learning, about lifespan extension, about charity work, about happiness, etc., is there a place I can go to view all relevant posts in each respective area?

Thanks much

Say we want to try out new organizational structures. Zaine suggests that a game might be a good method. However rather than a game to test a specific method of organizing people, I'm going to make a game where different organizational structures can be pitted against each other and statistics about their operation over time can be collected to inform new organisation designs. 

Some organizational structures that might be tested include Democracy, Futarchy, Control Markets, Histocracy, some form of Meritocracy and Direct Democracy.

The conditions under which organizations suffer from corruption of purpose more frequently are when the people inside the organization are generally selfish and only moderately interested in the goals of the organization. So it makes sense to concentrate on these sorts of conditions.

Summary:

The purpose of this entry is to establish the existence of local equilibriums which introduce deviations from an ends-driven organization (an organization whose primary focus is a particular purpose) to transform it into a means-driven organization (an organization whose primary focus is the means to achieve its purpose, rather than the purpose itself).

Subsuming Purpose, Part 1

Imagine you run a charity, and you have two star employees; one shares your goals without any emphasis on a means, the other believes in the cause but believes firmly in fundraising as the best means to that end.  Both contribute to your charity, but the fundraiser does more good overall.  The fundraiser enables your organization.  Who do you set as your successor?

Who will your successor choose as their successor?

The person who believes in the purpose will choose the best person for achieving that purpose.  The person who believes in a specific means to achieve that ends will choose the best person for those means.  The means will subsume the ends.  A person who values specific means, say, fundraising, is more likely to promote fellow fundraisers; he values their contributions more.  Specialists, and in particular the lines of thinking which lead to specialization, create rigidity in the organization.

Suppose that you choose the fundraiser.  The fundraiser, by dint of having chosen to specialize in fundraising, probably believes that fundraising is more important than the alternative means of supporting the organization: he will probably choose to promote other effective fundraisers over their alternatives.

And now people who don't agree that fundraising will start protesting, seeing their charity becoming increasingly subverted; fundraising is rewarded over the charitable purpose of the organization.  They will leave, or protest; if their protests aren't heeded, for example because fundraisers who believe in fundraising do already run the company, they may be marginalized.  Such individuals may be selected out, either self-selectively, or by explicit opposition by management to introducing people who are likely to cause trouble for them in the future.

Generalized:

In the example above, I made one particular assumption: That somebody who possesses some choice-driven characteristic X (competency at fundraising in the example) is more likely to believe that X is important, and will favor X over alternative characteristics.  It's not necessary that this is always the case; a generalist may also possess some characteristic X.  It's only necessary that p(XY) > p(X!Y), where X is possession of characteristic X, and Y is belief that X is an important characteristic to have (belief that fundraising is the most valuable pursuit for the charitable organization in the example).

Any preference, once established, which follows a tendency such that p(XY) > p(X!Y) will concrete itself into the organization once given a foothold; those who are selected based on X will also have, on average, a preference for X.  They will select individuals with X.

The danger of organization specialization, as opposed to individual specialization, arises when that preference extends to preference; when, given two people X, those who have a preference for X (those who have characteristic Y) are preferred over those who do not.  This is the point at which selecting people for X and Y becomes a runaway process, a process which may subsume the original purpose of the organization.

When those who do not have a preference for X begin to believe that X has already overtaken the original purpose of the organization, the meaningful possibilities are that they will either fight it or leave.  If they simply leave, they harden the preference for X; there are fewer individuals in the organization who oppose Y.  If they fight it and win, they've won for a day; an equilibrium has not yet been reached.  If they fight it and lose, they establish a preference for preference; people who disagree with the orthodoxy of X begin to be seen as potential conflict creators in the organization, and just as problematically, revealing the preference for X may alter the decisions of those who might enter the organization otherwise; a non-Y individual may choose another organization which better suits their preferences.

Every Cause Wants to be a Cult.  Every belief wants to be an orthodoxy.  Orthodoxy is a stable equilibrium, the pit surrounding the gently sloped hill of idea diversity.

Related to: Rationality Power Tools

I'm looking to use (or make) something that helps me achieve god-like productivity. In particular, I'm interested in any information about systems that are:

• Flexible: They can be extended or customized to accommodate new work-flows and a diverse range of information structures (like to-do lists, schedules, etc.), perhaps via easy coding.

• Linked: The elements can be connected and categorized using a variety of link types (like is_an_action_for, is_a_subgoal_of, etc.).

I would prefer not to have a bunch of separate systems if possible. From what I've seen so far, org-mode seems the most promising.