Spreading the word?

I'll have a go at this. I don't think I'm in a tiny minority in anything I say here, but I'm not hugely confident of my answers; that's one reason I'm setting them out explicitly.

• There is a word, or rather, there's a programme
• the word is that there's such a thing as rationality (epistemic and instrumental)
• it is amenable to mathematical modelling
• but it is different in important systematic ways from our natural reasoning capacity (biases)
• since that is the result of natural selection, not design
• science can tell us a lot about these biases
• we can rationally correct for these biases, by understanding the model and the psychology
• the skill of making these corrections is communicable
• Eliezer Yudkowsky has written a lot of essays that are helpful in this task
• greater rationality has the potential to ameliorate not only all sorts of harm and suffering, but also existential risk
• so it's worth trying to talk to people who might be receptive to these ideas
• and trying to craft materials that will help bring people on board
• increasing world rationality is a subgoal of other programs for participants here, including one important one that cannot be named.

Where it goes from there is more controversial. I can imagine us going down a road in which we create organisations with paid staff who push for rationalism to be taught in schools and universities; others have discussed the idea of formal rationalism courses ("dojos") that we could join ourselves and encourage others to join. Or, we could decide that informal word-of-mouth combined with making materials available online is the best way forward.

I mention Eliezer's essays specifically, which might be controversial. Here and on Overcoming Bias, there is a lot of excellent writing about rationality, but it seems to me that Eliezer is the only one who is explicitly trying to develop a complete and coherent programme for advancing the art, and though we get a lot out of all the authors, it's his writings that are actually bringing us together around a programme here. This of course can and must change if the programme is to succeed; I wanted to say it explicitly because it feels like a bit of an elephant in the room otherwise.

Some people are very skeptical about the very idea of spreading the word, but it seems to me like one of the more plausible ideas I've heard for saving the world, so I'm surprised more folk aren't for it.

On several occasions I've wanted to introduce people to Eliezer's writings (and OB/LW aswell), but due to its disorganized and heavily-dependent-on-other-material-in-a-great-messy-web-like nature, I have feared that just a "hey check this guy out" would most likely just result in the person reading a few random essays, saying "yeah I guess that's pretty interesting" and then forgetting about it. Right before LW launched, I seem to recall Eliezer talking about how the LW architecture would allow better organization and that maybe he would do something to make his material more accessible. I haven't heard anything since then, but if something like that would be done I think that would be great.

(sorry if I'm being rude by focusing on just Eliezer's material when we're discussing the greater LW picture, but this is just a situation that I've found myself in a few times and I think it's still relevant to this topic. I also second ciphergoth's point about the elephant)

One other quick remark.

We have talked about it quite a bit, and I don't believe that we're a cult. However, in every conversation I play out in my head where I try to talk about what we're doing here with someone who's not part of it, they start to think we're a cult within about thirty seconds. I'm almost thinking of using "I've joined a cult" as my opening line, to get it out of the way.

I don't know if "spread the word about rationalism" is itself a rational edict, but "tell people about fun sites that may interest them" is an Internet edict. Today I sent a link here to a former professor, for instance.

I think works of fiction are the most effective way of spreading the word (logic and rationality). Personally, if it hadn't been for being exposed to rationalism from science fiction at an early age, I doubt I'd have ever come to this site.

The word is "rationality", and we should be trying to spread it, because rationality (in ourselves and in others) is useful (to ourselves and others).

The proper way to spread it is to show others how rationality can benefit them, and assist them in their development as rationalists.

Don't think about people as divided into two groups: those who are rationalists and those who are not. Rather, think of them as practicing rationalists or potentially practicing rationalists.

There is not a single strategy for spreading the word; the number of techniques needed to help people to become practicing rationalists is almost as large as the number of people there are.

Just as it would make no sense to bury a duckling in the soil and pour water on it, or to throw bits of bread at a turnip seed, it may make no sense to attempt to intellectually nourish your grandparents by giving them a link to this blog, or to try to awaken the rationalist within your significant other by challenging them to a game of chess.

So, rationality enjoins us to spread the word, but, as with all things, it enjoins us to spread the word rationally. In essence, all preaching should be personalized.

I'm not entirely clear on what you're hoping to accomplish. Get more people reading this particular blog/forum? Get more people to think rationally in general? Yes to both?

I think you realize that this blog simply will not gain in popular appeal. The posts are too long, too complicated, fairly dry, very academic-sounding, and very connected to a complex series of other posts that require too much research and link following/retracing in order to puzzle out what one does not understand or with which one does not have much experience.

I think it might be more fruitful to focus on ways of introducing rationality in other venues, or sneaking it out there through other means, rather than trying to get more people to come here and read these posts.

Should we be trying to spread the word?

To the extent that there is a 'we' that is being 'shoulded' I distance myself.

I find OB and LW valuable resources for expanding my mind and LW is a useful place to find discussions that are slightly less stupid than most that our species can manage. I don't use it to define my identity or as a source of social obligation.

Bayes rule doesn't include a 'should' function.

Should we be trying to spread the word?

No. The people who value 'intrinsic rationality', who accept the various premises and ideas that are prerequisites for liking LW/OB stuff - they are mostly being reached already. It may not look like it, but there aren't a whole lot of them.

Vastly many more people value utilitarian rationality, but LW/OB stuff doesn't seem to help very much in that respect, and the good things we do have like the near/far view are either unconvincingly new, or taken from elsewhere. If we were to push LW/OB to such people, they would reject it as being useless, conclude it is a failed program, and never ever come near it again. (This is akin to software releases; you don't want to push a buggy release as 1.0, because people will never ever forget.)

I'm curious about why you asked the second question. It seems obvious that "the word" you're talking about is human rationality, that being the whole focus of this community. So why ask people what the word you're asking about is? Is there something more subtle going on here?

I'd rather spread the meme.

Should we be trying to spread the word? If so, what is the word, and how should we be trying to spread it?

Why are you asking whether the word should be spread before determining what it is?

If you're already convinced that you have a message potentially worth spreading, at least have the good grace to admit so -- and to know what it is.