Less Wrong lacks direction

I think the issue you are seeing is that Less Wrong is fundamentally a online community / forum, not a movement or even a self-help group. "Having direction" is not a typical feature of such a medium, nor would I say that it would necessary be a positive feature.

Think about it this way. The majority of the few (N < 10) times I've seen explicit criticism of Less Wrong, one of the main points cited was that Less Wrong had a direction, and that said direction was annoying. This usually refereed to Less Wrong focusing on the FAI question and X-risk, though I believe I've seen the EA component of Less Wrong challenged as well. By its nature, having direction is exclusionary - people who disagree with you stop feeling welcome in the community.

With that said, I strongly caution about trying to change Less Wrong to import direction to the community as a whole (e.g. by having an official "C.E.O"). With that said, organizing a sub-movement within Less Wrong for that sort of thing carries much less risk of alienating people. I think that would be the most healthy direction to take it, plus it allows you to grow organically (since people can easily join/leave your movement and you don't need to get the entire community mobilized to get started).

Agreed that LW is in a kind of stagnation. However, I think that just someone writing a series of high-quality posts would suffice to fix it. Now, the amount of discussion in comments is quite good, the problem is that there aren't many interesting posts.

If a group said that they thought A was an important issue and the solution was X, most members would pay more attention than if a random individual said it. No-one would have to listen to anything they say, but I imagine that many would choose to. Furthermore if the exec were all actively involved in the projects, I imagine they'd be able to complete some themselves, especially if they choose smaller ones.

It isn't quite a good thing; many people noticed that LW is somewhat like Eliezer's echo chamber. Actually, we should endorse high-quality opinions different from LW mainstream.

I'm not really sure the issue is about "direction", but more about people who have enough time and ideas to write awesome (or at least, interesting) posts like the Sequences (the initial ones by Eliezer or the additional ones by various contributors).

What I would like to see are sequences of posts that build on each other, starting from the basics and going to deep things (a bit like Sequences). It could be collective work (and then need a "direction"), but it could also be the work of a single person.

As for myself, I did write a few posts (a few in main and a few in discussions) but if I didn't write recently is mostly because of three issues :

1. Lack of time, like I guess many of us.

2. The feeling of not being "good enough", that's the problem with a community of "smart" people like LW, with high quality base content (the Sequences), it's a bit intimidating.

3. The "taboo" subjects (like politics) which I do understand and respect, but they limit what I could write about.

There are a few things I would like to write about, but either I feel I lack the skill/knowledge to do it at LW level (point 2) or they border too much the "taboo" subjects (point 3).

These roles would take significant work, but I imagine people would be motivated to do this by altruism or status.

If someone's goal is status, why write on LW instead of writing a personal blog?

I think the greatest issue with Less Wrong is that it lacks direction.

I'm not sure "direction" is the right phrase. It's not like Eliezer told other people what posts to write--he had a goal and a thing to explain, and then he explained it. People didn't read his posts because he had authority; they read his posts because someone recommended them as being useful and interesting.

And similarly, I don't think the absence of roles is the issue: I think it's the absence of time and topics. Maybe there are people with something to write who aren't writing it because of some block that a clearly visible person could help remove--but it seems more likely to me that there are people with something to say but no time to say it, or with the time to write posts but little to talk about, and there are fewer intersections of those two as time goes on.

I don't think the site as a whole needs a "new" direction. It needs continued conversation, new sub-projects, and for the members to engage with the community.

Less Wrong has developed its own conventions for argument, reference points for logic, and traditions of interpretation of certain philosophical, computational, and every day problems. The arguments all occur within a framework which implicitly furnishes the members with a certain standard of thinking and living (which we don't always live up to).

Maybe what you really want is for people in the community to find a place where they can excel and contribute more. What we need most is to continue to develop ways people can contribute. Not force the generation of projects from above.

this was an unhelpful comment, removed and replaced by the comment you are now reading