Howdy All!
I’m a post middle-aged, impressively moustachioed dude from Texas, now living in Wisconsin. I moved up here recently, following the work, and now have a fine job in a surprising career path. See, I recently took a couple degrees in Mathematics (which I capitalize out of love, grammar be damned!) hoping to be a teacher for the rest of my time. It turns out, that was not such a good move for me and I was fortunate to receive an offer to get back into private-sector IT. I am now happily managing UNIX systems for a biggish software company here in the tundra.
I’ve been consuming the sequences and lurking in the forum (and newly the Slack cahtrooms) for several weeks. I have no recollection of how I found the site; StumbleUpon would be my first guess, though the xkcd forum is nearly as likely. As I read through the LW site I am struck by the quality of discourse, which is high even among those who disagree.
I am motivated to fill in some gaps in my own thinking on various issues of interest and importance. With the exception of my atheism, I don’t have many strongly held opinions (though at times I do seem to lean quite a ways over on some of them).
So, how did I become a rationalist? Well. Hmmm. I got pulled into a youth cult in high school. At a rally (or whatever) I was implored by a zealot on stage to “seek the truth”. I realized in hindsight he probably meant something other than that, like: “listen to me and read the bible and there’s your source of truth”. But I took him at his word. I looked at other religions and started taking philosophy courses. I talked to people who held beliefs different from my own. I dug in and studied issues of morality, politics, aesthetics, and more. Gradually I started to realize that I didn’t believe any of the ideas pushed at me by organized religion. I remember questioning what it means to “believe” and concluding that I simply don’t believe in any of the gods other people claim exist.
At one point, back in my late teens, I was a bible thumping (literally and figuratively), charismatic, evangelical prophet of christ. A few years later I was openly secular, having still not fully grokked the scope of the words “atheist” and “agnostic”.
These days I am still openly secular, and when I get to know you, I’ll let on that I’m a gnostic atheist, and perfectly happy to Taboo both words (as I understand that phrase), preferably over good dark beer on tap and a basket of deep-fried cheese curds.
I am hesitant to admit that one of my principle interests lately is politics. While I support (and adore) the idea that politics is the mind killer, I can’t shake a notion that we, the folks who strive to be less wrong, should be involved in the larger discussion. If there’s a subset of human endeavor that really needs an IV drip of less wrongness, it’s politics.
Now I’ve found this part of the webs, I am fair sure I’ll continue to spend more time here than I ought.
Be welcome, sir.
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A few notes about the community
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A note for theists: you will find the Less Wrong community to be predominantly atheist, though not completely so, and most of us are genuinely respectful of religious people who keep the usual community norms. It's worth saying that we might think religion is off-topic in some places where you think it's on-topic, so be thoughtful about where and how you start explicitly talking about it; some of us are happy to talk about religion, some of us aren't interested. Bear in mind that many of us really, truly have given full consideration to theistic claims and found them to be false, so starting with the most common arguments is pretty likely just to annoy people. Anyhow, it's absolutely OK to mention that you're religious in your welcome post and to invite a discussion there.
A list of some posts that are pretty awesome
I recommend the major sequences to everybody, but I realize how daunting they look at first. So for purposes of immediate gratification, the following posts are particularly interesting/illuminating/provocative and don't require any previous reading:
More suggestions are welcome! Or just check out the top-rated posts from the history of Less Wrong. Most posts at +50 or more are well worth your time.
Welcome to Less Wrong, and we look forward to hearing from you throughout the site!
Once a post gets over 500 comments, the site stops showing them all by default. If this post has 500 comments and you have 20 karma, please do start the next welcome post; a new post is a good perennial way to encourage newcomers and lurkers to introduce themselves. (Step-by-step, foolproof instructions here; takes <180seconds.)
If there's anything I should add or update on this post (especially broken links), please send me a private message—I may not notice a comment on the post.
Finally, a big thank you to everyone that helped write this post via its predecessors!