Comment author: ata 31 May 2010 09:50:29AM *  8 points [-]

Reply to this comment if you found LW through Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality!

A survey for anyone who cares to respond (edit: specifically for people who did find LW through HPMoR):

  1. Had you already registered an account before seeing this? (Edit: That is, had you already registered an account for a reason other than to reply to this comment?) If not, had you been planning or expecting to?
  2. Have you been reading through the sequences, or just generally looking around and lurking?
  3. What new rationality skills that you learned from HPMoR or LW have you found most useful? Most interesting? Most change-the-way-you-look-at-everything-ly?
  4. Have you referred anyone else to HPMoR? Have you referred anyone else to LW?
Comment author: BohemianCoast 05 June 2010 08:49:10AM 2 points [-]

You're not very rational for a bunch of extreme rationalists, are you? It's only possible to answer this survey if you register for the site, so excluding nearly all possible commenters (there is science on this) and presumably an even greater proportion of those who are uninterested in the ideas in LW. So that's a Big Old Fail.

So, here goes:

  1. No, I have registered purely for the purpose of replying to this comment.
  2. I started to read through the Sequences, but they rapidly set off my nutcase detectors. So you might want to do something about that. But I was interested in who had written the fan fiction; and quickly found this thread.
  3. I have learnt that there is a community of extreme rationalists who believe that humanity will soon use science to cheat death. Actually, I already knew that. But I have found one of their websites. I was already familiar with most of the philosophical tropes explored in HPMoR; I don't think it would be anything like such a good story otherwise, and I think most of the readership will be people who are already relatively rational. So in terms of 'raising the sanity waterline', an endeavour which seems to be entirely worthwhile, I am not sure it will do that.
  4. I have and will referred people to HPMoR. I have not referred anyone to LW.