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I know there are more than twenty people visiting the site. Do they not read comments? Do they not vote on them?
I usually don't vote because I don't feel comfortable enough in my own understanding of these discussions to have an opinion about the relative value of a particular comment. Probably if I saw something that gave me an immediate and strong reaction, I'd be more likely to vote one way or another.
I know someone else who reads posts but seldom reads the comments.
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.
I think it's time for rationality to find its way into romance novels. (I'm not just being glib.)
- Handle: MorgannaLeFey
- Name: Siobhan
- Location: Central Vermont (via Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Iowa, Minnesota, and Alaska)
- Age: At this point, I'm 43. I expect that to change.
- Occupation: database and web applications developer
- Education: I studied theatre arts and communications (no degree). Eleven years later I studied psychology, women's studies, and community development (primarily online and non-academic). Again, no degree.
When I registered I didn't consider that my handle might not be the most apt for this community, it is simply who I have been online for over fifteen years (though I have been participating in online communities since 1983). The original reasons for my handle have faded, but my attachment to the name has remained. So please, don't read more into my handle than my having a preference for the way it sounds.
I was pushed away from mathematics and the sciences from an early age by the limitations of our public school system, though I had the ability to excel in both. I was not encouraged to develop the habits of intellectual discipline that would have carried me beyond those limitations. I was content to glide through my classes, doing only the minimum necessary to maintain my A average without bothering to push much beyond that. My social life, outside activities, and connections were more important to me. This isn't something I have any regrets over, I bring it up to somewhat explain my intellectual inertia and lack of familiarity with certain standard concepts found here.
The immediate circumstance that led me to LW is that a close friend found this site and forwarded the link to my husband. My husband forwarded the link to me. However, the path that led me here started much earlier. I was of a skeptical nature from an early age, though I have only come to realize this in the course of years of self-examination. I go through periods of studying things, then leaving them behind in favor of other, less stringent pursuits. Yet, as I age my brain gets mushy more easily, so I've been looking for ways to stave that off. In researching the issue, I found that the effects of aging on the brain can be mitigated through intellectual exercise. Not much of a surprise, really. So that has me poking around for ways to exercise my brain.
There is, of course, so much more to the story of how I got here. I could fill pages that I suspect most would find uninteresting. So I'll stop here.
I was sitting here thinking "Wow, I think I'm older than anyone here" and wondering if I might be dismissed in some way. Funny, that.
I've only just come into contact with this place, and normally I avoid commenting the day I start somewhere, but this post was compelling considering how I found LW.
A very good friend of ours sent a link to LW to my husband, but not to me. Usually he will send links to both of us he believes we'll both be interested in, and links only to me that he feels I'll be interested in but not my husband, and vice versa.
So clearly he felt I wouldn't be interested in this place, despite knowing that I am fond of rational discourse. Fortunately, my husband knew I would, and so I am here. I just found it an interesting data point in the context of this particular conversation.
Edit: Though this makes me wonder, why didn't I come across LW myself? Why didn't I bother searching for such things?