Reading the Sequences before Starting to Post: Costs and Benefits

I read lots of the posts before joining, I didn't sit down to actually "Read the sequences" until I'd been here a few months.

At least it's not a terribly dense million words.

I can't say I came out of it thinking a huge amount I didn't already - to read the sequences is not, in fact, to take on board everything in them wholesale - but it was most educational in local jargon and cultural reference points. (e.g. Watching ciphergoth try to explain many-worlds decoherence to someone by moving his hands to illustrate configuration space and knowing what he was trying to depict because I remembered the precise diagrams he was attempting to render in gestures.)

I now have a browser window in which I'm slowly reading all of LessWrong in chronological order - all those posts by people who aren't EY. Again, the main result I expect from this is understanding the local lay of the land. Like reading the sequences, it's a project strictly for my "Internet as television" time. Approaching LessWrong itself as a casual cultural and anthropological study: how does this machine made of people actually work?

Note that the costs you list are mostly to the individual in question, whereas many of the benefits are to the community in general, or to other contributors. It might be worth listing the costs to the community of asking people to read the sequences, but I don't see many: To me, "might discourage some people from contributing" is a feature, not a bug, and I'd be happy if LW was considered as "a forum for people who read the sequences".

Additional benefits

Filtering: Encouraging people to read the sequences before bringing up their own ideas on Friendly AI or Morality may filter out cranks or just people who aren't very good at expressing themselves or who are a bit intellectually lazy (lacking scholarship, not willing to question their ideas, etc.).

Avoiding redundancy: Many topics have been well covered in the sequences, additional intro material on those topics is not needed (as has been done a couple of times on decision theory), unless it's really good. The same goes for "new" ideas on how to do Friendly AI, what the basis of morality is, etc.

Interdependency: Each post in a sequence requires understanding of the previous posts in that sequence, and sometimes posts from earlier sequences. As well as being a source of intimidating and annoying tab explosions, this exacerbates the problem of length. It's hard to read the sequences except going through large chunks systematically, so they can't be broken up and read in a person's spare time.

Couldn't one just start from the beginning?

Perhaps less importantly, as an average reader can understand the debate and form ver own opinion, issues like the Zombie World are still being debated by philosophers.

And on an arguably related note the existence of God is still being debated by apologists.

I don't have much to add, per se, but I hope you generate a good discussion. I really want to read the sequences, but certainly note the costs you mentioned. The interlinking nature of them does amount to some insane tab explosions sometimes, and my slightly obsessive nature has a very hard time just walking away at a given state -- I feel compelled to read every single post click on; this can cause burnout or frustration/feeling overwhelmed.

For the commenters, I'd be open hearing a sequence prioritization. I haven't heard how many chose to go about the sequences other than lukeprog's recording of reading all of them chronologically.

I just planned to start with Map & Territory, the two Core sequences, and How to Change your Mind. Is that a good start? I've read many posts out of order by now and was even taking notes at one point if something stood out to me, but I'd definitely like to read them in order.

I'm glad you made this post and look forward to reading the comments, especially as a new member.

Edit: just became aware of the original poll and found it on the original topic. I am now the sole upvoter of "still haven't read the sequences." I guess the current message of this "unscientific impromptu" poll is that I'd better get to work...

I started trying to read the squences and found them generally disjointed and difficult to get into. I think I've picked up a lot of useful content by reading the site for a few months without commenting much.

I'd like to see the sequence content presented in a more easily accessible form. Perhaps Eliezer's much talked about book?

(watch me volunteer other people for work...)

FWIW, I have not yet completely read the sequences - I'm stalled at roughly 70%. I first began sporadically commenting when I was about 5% of the way through, and began commenting regularly when I was about 30% done.

While I like the concept of someone redoing the sequences material in their own words, I have to admit that I have not done any more than sample lukeprog's efforts along this line.

"Ease of reading" is at least somewhat subjective, as different people learn and process information differently.

To the extent that the same idea may be presented in different ways, it may be beneficial to have different people write different writeups of the sequences (not necessarily shorter or less dense).