Related to: Building rationalist communities, Lessons from Latter-day Saints, Holy Books (Or Rationalist Sequences) Don't Implement Themselves, Designing rationalist projects.

I'm beginning a new subseries of posts, trying to answer the following question: what should be the roles in a rationalist community?           

In this post and the next one, I will outline the roles in Latter-day Saint communities. In the following posts, I will draw more conclusions as to which roles would be ideal for rationalist communities.

I should note that these sets of responsibilities are designed to function in congregations where 100 to 150 people come to church every week. They are slimmed down when the congregations are smaller. I’m going to outline all the roles, and as I go, I’ll note which ones are the most important.

The Main Roles

There are four main groups of “callings,” responsibilities in the church. I will discuss the first two groups in this post.

First, there are the teachers, who speak, teach and lead discussions in Sunday church meetings.

Second, there are auxiliaries, responsible for ensuring the well-being of the various segments of the congregation. In each congregation, there is a women’s organization, a men’s organization, as well as young women’s, young men’s, and children’s organizations.

In smaller groups, the leaders and more-committed members often wear multiple hats.

Hello fellow Less Wrongians!

Given your comments on my organizing communities series, I get the feeling that many of you are wondering why:

• a returned Mormon missionary would even come to Less Wrong in the first place.
• why I find religion plausible at all
• why I would identify with Mormonism in particular (several people have used the word 'cult')

I'm happy to hold discussions about any of these questions or related ones. However, I haven't responded to many comments on the main series of posts because:

• they could eat up each thread
• the threads aren't supposed to be about Mormonism. They're supposed to be about about making a movement work effectively. But being a missionary is where I got my experience.

I wanted to created this thread as a center for questions you might have about my faith. This is not an attempt to preach -- I would be perfectly happy not having a discussion purely about religion at all. But since there seem to be many comments, well, fire away.

Some basic facts: I am a student at Stanford. I am 22. I converted to Mormonism when I was 19. I used to be atheist/agnostic. I am very much a believer, not just in it for the social perks.

Well, as it is written, AMA (= Ask Me Anything)

(Thanks Kevin for the suggestion.)

Edit: Wow, there are a lot of comments. This has been a helpful chance to clarify my thinking. I hope you have learned something useful -- perhaps using the question is 'Is there anything surprising here that he said?'.

Edit 2: Here are some answers to repeated questions. Again, this really helped me distill and clarify myself and I've enjoyed the discussion.

Why do you believe? It's a combination of

• "wow, this seems to be a really functional community in producing good people." 
• "wow, these doctrines are really amazing."[1]

• personal spiritual experiences (experiences-which-I-interpret as spiritual if you prefer) and other positive experiences from doing church things, like emotional growth from going on a mission.

I would estimate that before this all happened, my odds ratio was about 2000:1, and now it's about 1:10. I would ballpark the odds ratios of each of the above 3 events as ~12.5:1, ~25:1, and ~62.5:1. (I was considering likelihood but didn't think in that precise of terms at the time, so any concretization is open to charges of ex post facto. And these are still ballparks.)

There are lots of arguments against Mormonism on factual and historical grounds; there are also counterarguments which I feel pretty much balance them out. (The feeling of balancing each other out was contemporaneous.)

What things could make you consider leaving the faith?

• Undermining any of the above: negative experiences from doing church things, better arguments against Mormonism, the church repudiating the doctrines I love, experiencing it as much less functional, etc.  

Why do you think your conversion story is disappointing to many of us?

Several possible reasons:

• You might have been looking for a more rationalist narrative. 
• Your priors are like (say) 100,000:1 on this. So maybe something I say sounds plausible (1:2). But you're still at 50,000:1 and extremely skeptical.
• It took a lot of experiences and arguments to persuade me; this is just the tip of the iceberg.
• A lot of my conversion was experiential. An analogy would be that I ate a certain fruit which others haven't. We are discussing descriptions of the fruit; the only way to be truly convinced (or unconvinced) would be to taste it.  [2]

Related to: Lessons from Latter-day Saints, Building Rationalist Communities overview, Holy Books (Or Rationalist Sequences) Don't Implement Themselves

My thesis:

It doesn’t matter what ideas are conveyed on Less Wrong, or in LW meetings -- the subset that matters is what group members resolved to do. Discussion of these 'resolves', and people's experience doing them, is useful in creating an expectation that people level up their skills.

Intelligent discussion of ideas is always refreshing. But translating that into action is more difficult.

Our learned reflexes are deep. They need to be overridden. How? Practice.

One woman I taught in India, we’ll call her Girija, was 35 years old, extremely intelligent and really wanted to change her life but had incredibly low levels of self-confidence. Every time we met Girija, we’d have a really sharp discussion, followed by her pouring her heart out to us. It was the same every time, and though we enjoyed the visits, and the food she would feed us, she never seemed to be getting anywhere.

If she really wanted to fundamentally change her life, our weekly meetings weren’t enough. (Similarly, weekly meetups are a good start, but if you really want to be learning rationality you should be practicing every day.)

We felt that if Girija spent some time every day with her 9 year old daughter and live-in boyfriend, reading the scriptures together, they would be happier. We explained this to her frequently, and she said she would start -- but she never did it.

One week, through cleverly calling Girija and chatting for 10 minutes every day, we got her to do it. After the week was over, we asked her how it went.

“You know, it was really good,” she said. “Sandeep and I have been getting along a lot better this week because we did that.”

It was like a light had turned on in her head. Because we followed up, she did it, and was far more motivated to do more things afterwards.[1] 

Let me give two simple examples of goal, project, and follow-up.[2]

• GOAL: To become better at noticing logical fallacies as they are being uttered
• PROJECT: A certain Less Wrong group could watch a designated hour of C-SPAN -- or a soap opera, or a TV show -- and try to note down all the fallacies.
• FOLLOW-UP: Discuss this on a designated thread. Afterwards, compile the arguments and link to the file, so that anyone in the LW community can repeat this on their own and check against your conclusions. Reflect communally at your next LW meeting. 

• GOAL: To get into less arguments about definitions.
• PROJECT: “Ask, "Can you give me a specific example of that?" or "Can you be more concrete?" in everyday conversations.” Make a challenging goal about how much you will do this – this is pretty low-hanging fruit.
• FOLLOW-UP: Write instances in your journal. Share examples communally at your next LW meeting.

I came up with these in about five minutes. Having spent more time in the community than me, you will all be able to generate more and better possibilities.

Some points about Projects:

• Here are some ideas that can easily be made into Projects. Thanks commenters on the last post.
• Projects don't have to be group-based, but groups motivate doing stuff.
• Projects should be more short than the above linked posts. The above Goal/Project/Follow-Up kernels are 85 and 57 words, respectively. Brevity is key to implementation.
• There is currently no central database of Rationality Projects or people's experiences trying to implement them. (Correct me if I'm wrong here.)
• Feedback on implementation is essential for improving practices.

Finally, a really 'low-cost' way to make a project and follow up. Right before the conclusion of a Less Wrong group, give everyone a slip of paper and ask them to write down one thing they are going to do differently next week as a result of the discussion. For two minutes (total) at the beginning of the next meeting, let people tell what they did.

Some notes and warnings:

Doing this in a fraternalistic manner, not a paternalistic manner, will be a key to success.[3] Community agreement that We Should Do This is important before launching a Project.

Beware of the following tradeoff:

•  implementing Projects will alienate some people. Even if projects are determined by consensus, there will be some people who don’t want to do any Project, and they will feel marginalized and excluded.
• not implementing Projects, people will improve their Rationality skills at a far slower pace. [4] You will thus run afoul of Bhagwat’s Law of Commitment: “The degree to which people identify with your group is directly proportional to the amount of stuff you tell them to do that works." But ultimately, commitment drives growth. More leadership to organize stuff, more people bringing friends, and so on.

I will discuss this more later, along with possible solutions. Latter-day Saints, with a large emphasis on doing things, have high levels of commitment; however, there are definitely people who would come to church more if they were expected to do less.

Please post any ideas you have for Projects in the comments.

Related to: Lessons from Latter-day Saints, Building Rationalist Communities overview

This is my basic thesis:

Marx needed a Lenin. Fermi, Hahn and Meitner needed a Manhattan Project. EY and the Sequences need more clearly- and simply-defined rationality skills and methods for improving them.

Using Eliezer’s levels scheme, these are the three descending levels on which belief systems operate: theology, norms, and implementation.

I’ll give some examples. Here’s a general example, again from the Latter-day Saints:

• Theology: God knows everything. Your purpose on earth is to become like God;
• Norms: You should pursue as much education as possible.
• Implementation: Create and operate a really big, cheap university system.[1]

Here’s one that I often dealt with as a missionary:

• Theology: God is really good at making decisions. Your purpose on earth is to become like God.
• Norms: You shouldn’t take alcohol, tobacco, tea, coffee, or addictive substances. Taking addictive substances impairs your ability to make correct decisions.
• Implementation: We are going to bring you candy every week so that when you’re tempted to buy a cigarette, you can eat the strawberry toffee instead. (Or, we are going to stop by your house every day at 8:30pm to give you a boost, because going from 7 cups of coffee a day to 0 is tough.)

I did both of these (with different people), and they worked.

Norms and Implementation

As a missionary for the Church, my basic role was to:

•  find people who were willing to try something out
• design individualized “commitment systems” for each person, and
• support them in implementing them.

There’s a lifestyle change here.

The “basic package,” (my terminology), which is a prerequisite to joining the church, includes: a strong focus on strengthening the family, daily family prayer and scripture study, the aforementioned health code, and sex only inside marriage. The glue is weekly church attendance, ensuring membership in a community that shares the same values.

After the “basic package,” it gets a bit more complex, as there are lots of higher-level elements of this lifestyle. To sample a few in no particular order:

• Loving others. Developing gratitude. Keeping a journal. Following Church leaders. Inviting other people to church. Serving others, especially by accepting responsibilities in church. Pursuing education. Forgiving others.
• Understanding that you have innate self-worth. Not gossiping. Dressing modestly. Being a good parent. Honoring and respecting parents. Keeping a budget. Doing family activities and not shopping on Sunday. Staying out of debt.
• For the doubting, to continue living these habits, until they develop (expected) greater belief through experience.[2]

Obviously these are different than rationalist norms, but my point is that they are fairly comprehensive. Though each topic is fairly regularly discussed in church, it’s impossible to implement them into your life all at once. It’s easy to seem overwhelmed by the flood of new information. (Sound familiar?)

And that is why we were there, to design mini-programs for each person.[3] We would isolate a couple of specific standards that would be effective for person X, and assist in implementation. If they liked it and wanted more, we helped them implement the “basic package” lifestyle.

This decision, that they liked it and wanted more, was the single most crucial decision that someone could make. It is directly related to Bhagwat’s Law of Commitment: “The degree to which people identify with your group is directly proportional to the amount of stuff you tell them to do that works.” I will discuss this further on a subsequent post.

Okay, so how does this apply to Less Wrongians?

Less Wrong has its version of a theological framework – the Sequences. They give a comprehensive set of statements about the way the world works, drawn from evolutionary psychology, anthropology, Bayesian statistics, etc.

But rationalism doesn’t have a well-defined set of norms/desirable skills to develop. As a result, we Less Wrongians unsurprisingly also lack a well-developed practical system for implementation.

You may cite lukeprog’s guide. That’s good, but it’s only six posts. Less Wrong needs a lot more of it!

Or maybe you’ll say that if you read the Sequences carefully, etc, etc. Well, I did. Mysterious Answers to Mysterious Questions is 51 dense pages in Word, or about 25,000 words. This is an (extremely good) foundational text. It is not a how-to manual.[4]

Brevity is key to implementation.

For Latter-day Saints, the basic explanation of family standards is about 6000 words (95% of the important stuff is from page 4 to 15). The basic guide for teenagers is about 4000 words, and the basic guide for running a church organization is about 12000 words. And each one is very clear about what to do. (The teenage guide most clearly illustrates this point about brevity.)

The easiest way to begin building a how-to manual is for LW members to post specific, short personal examples of how they applied the principles of rationality in their day-to-day lives. Then they should collect all of the links somewhere, probably on the wiki.

If this sounds salesman-y or cheesy to you, or if you're extremely skeptical about religion, I quote a commenter on my last post. “If this works for people that are obviously crazy," said Vaniver, "that suggests it'll work for people who are (hopefully obviously) sane.”

Related to: How to build rationalist communities

"Tell 'em what you're going to tell 'em," as it is written:

-       Holy Books Don’t Implement Themselves

o      Marx needed a Lenin. Fermi, Hahn and Meitner needed a Manhattan Project. The Bible needs a Rick Warren.

o      EY and the Sequences need:

§       a Distiller that generates Rationality Projects.

§       some Organizers to help people embark on these Projects.

-       Getting People To Do Stuff

o      It doesn’t matter what ideas were conveyed in group meeting, the subset that matters is what group members resolved to do

o      It doesn’t matter what group members resolved to do, the subset that matters is what you, the Organizer, followed up with.

-       Bhagwat’s Law of Commitment

o      The degree to which people identify with the group is directly proportional to the amount of stuff you tell them to do that works.

-       Head in the Clouds < Making It Rain

o      If someone is unable to articulate how they are going to implement a principle into their day-to-day lives, they are unlikely to implement it.

-       Herding Cats

o      If you don’t let people do something meaningful, they will never be any help.

o      Feeling needed as a part of a community is a powerful motive to keep coming to meetings.

o      Know the name and face of every newcomer. Have a good conversation with each. Afterwards, send them an e-mail showing them you are glad they came.

-       "The Four People Who Do Everything" organization problem

o      When you focus on doing stuff, some fandom members become core members.

o      Others leave or detach themselves.

o      But if you don’t have competent core members who organize, the group falls apart or stagnates.

o      Attrition is the organization-killer. Spending tons of time training new people, only to have your old people leave, is a recipe for frustration and stagnation.

-       Living Organisms Grow Naturally

o      The idea isn’t, ‘how can Less Wrong meetups expand’

o      It’s, ‘how can we remove the barriers stopping them?’

What are you all most interested in?

Or: How I Learned Everything I Know About Group Organization By Spending Two Years on a Mormon Mission in India.

The official name is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You may know us as ‘Mormons.’ We like to call ourselves ‘Latter-day Saints.’

If you’re a Less Wrongian and trying to organize a rationalist community, you should be interested in the Latter-day Saint organizational model for four reasons:

-       it’s a nonprofit, but franchise-based and designed to propagate itself,

-       everyone has a responsibility,

-       no one is paid, and

-       it works.

This is an introductory post. I'm not trying to persuade you to join, but rather that there’s something to learn here.

Here, I will give you some basic details about what the LDS Church is.  In later posts, I will explain more how it works. A series overview is here.