Open Thread: Promoting and Spreading Fallible Ideas

Another idea:

Go after the people who resist TCS and FI, like Unschoolers, but who are in the best position to spread it (raise awesome children).

This can be done through a parenting site showing comparing Unschooling without FI with Unschooling with FI through little comics and why it's better with FI. Help them see it because they hate theoretical discussion. Cater for the preferences of your target some, VISUALLY. You don't have to be an environmentalist to like flower.

for the unschool site, the hardest part is what text to write on it that will change their minds, etc, etc

> Make FI list hard to get into. Make it precious. Make people play a very hard game to get in.

if it's not public that means less discussion for me, harder to recruit people, less ability for everyone to reference arguments with permalinks

> for the unschool site, the hardest part is what text to write on it that will change their minds, etc, etc

don't think text. they get bored of text. they'd be like "i don't want theory i want practice" and "my phil is to do what works for us"

THAT'S IT! TITLE THE WEBSITE "WHAT WORKS FOR US" make it like an interactive picture book with parenting advice THROUGH PRACTICAL EXAMPLES which are little stories of possible scenes.

to show how awesome TCS is with hypotheticals.

think simple stories comparing problems being solved with unschooling and problems being solved with tcs.

>> Make FI list hard to get into. Make it precious. Make people play a very hard game to get in.

>

> if it's not public that means less discussion for me, harder to recruit people, less ability for everyone to reference arguments with permalinks

no, it's in full view still. but to participate they gotta win the game.

> TITLE THE WEBSITE "WHAT WORKS FOR US"

and when they ask if i'm a parent and whether i've done all the things on the website with my kid(s) and what the results actually were?

> no, it's in full view still. but to participate they gotta win the game.

oh that makes more sense. still would make recruiting harder, harm activity levels. what kind of game?

>> Start a comic serial magazine for kids with FI ideas relevant to kids that parents will want to read (not offend them greatly so no huge controversial stuff).

>

> i don't know how to persuade people while leaving out principles and their implications. without serious philosophy ideas, how will i argue various things are true?

i don't mean leaving out principles but more specific political stuff or PUA or whatever can have parents running and not letting their kids read the comic.

this is just to introduce ppl to FI. it's not a full course.

and in the comic parents characters will be sharing principles with kid characters while problem solving with their kids, right? through speech bubbles.

>> no, it's in full view still. but to participate they gotta win the game.

>

> oh that makes more sense. still would make recruiting harder, harm activity levels.

this idea is more to find super awesome ppl that will WANT to be on FI and will WANT to participate. as you could see from facebook having ppl join a group is easy. invite all your friends and have them invite theirs. but then ppl don't want to be there, nothing happens.

> what kind of game?

you had that hard platformer. maybe that one? or maybe not that hard or not as long. something that challenges persistence. or challenges WANTING to think. a puzzle.

did Rami ever show you the scenes he wrote for a comic that then he gave up and didn't go forward because i was a bitch? they were good and it was tcs but nothing controversial.

comic characters are not criticizing the reader directly. they are not even criticizing, they are living their lives, solving their problems. it's different than you on TCS list criticizing a parent.

it's not going to be a comic about a guy going round criticizing parents lol.

it's about parents doing tcs.

> FI list already kind of has a test to keep the riff raff out: learn quote formatting or fuck off.

learning quoting is not as rewarding as like a winning a super hard game.

> learning quoting is not as rewarding as like a winning a super hard game.

It's more rewarding since you get to play the hardest game of all: philosophy!

> @rami: no and i'm kinda skeptical b/c i don't think rami understands tcs much

neither do i. i think it was good. you can correct the story mistakes.

> if people other than me want to write comics, that's fine. maybe it'll help. i don't think it's my thing. i think specialization is good.

i didn't tell you to do it yourself. hire ppl.

> A nice hard game test is to beat all the levels in Toki Tori (1, not 2). However, there are spoilers online, so people can easily cheat. Also it's rather long.

>

> One issue is, different people who'd be good posters have different preferences for games and puzzles.

true, forget that idea.

> low quality posters are not particularly welcome/wanted even if they, say, beat Toki Tori. shrug.

k.

i think i can't hire experts in general, b/c they aren't familiar with TCS and won't learn it. i think understanding the ideas is crucial to working with them for comics, marketing, etc

What do you mean by material to be effective? It's just ads to bring people to the FI site and list?

> What do you mean by material to be effective? It's just ads to bring people to the FI site and list?

like, intro material to get them to write good posts or see why FI matters or try to learn. to get them to see what FI is about and then be able to participate productively (productive for themselves, and for others too).

and by hiring us you get to correct us

my counter offer: do it for free.

do what for free?

>> TITLE THE WEBSITE "WHAT WORKS FOR US"

>

> and when they ask if i'm a parent and whether i've done all the things on the website with my kid(s) and what the results actually were?

say the stories are based in real life scenarios but they were fictionalized to safeguard family privacy.

People want results. They want achievements.

You could add an achievements system and give them a gold dollar for each achievement they reach.

Like:

"Achievement: Your first post!"

"Achievement: You used correct quote formatting!"

"Achievement: You realised you're lying to yourself!"

"Achievement: You changed your mind!"

Gold dollars can be spent on nothing at all, like most game achievements, but they're shiny!

lol

agreed

But I think there's a nugget of value to that pile of shit.

People do stuff because they gain for it.

That sort of thing uses faux-achievements to help people lie to themselves about the value of what they're doing.

Helping people lie to themselves would be anti-FI ofc

But persuading people that engaging with FI is worthwhile means they need substantial gains. Why should they do FI instead of eg their career, their hobby, their social life? They learn from those things too (not as well as they think they do, but they have low standards and can't tell). They get useful relevant learning from those things, that applies to what they're already doing (ie getting better at their job, hobby, friends). They get mini-achievements when they a .1% pay rise, or someone gives them a compliment on their hobby, or they get laid, or whatever.

FI needs to compete with that for anyone to even notice it. I don't think it competes in a way people can easily grok the reach of.

> Lots of people aren't gonna waste a bunch of time getting to grips with the benefits of FI when there's a bazillion other things they could be doing all competing for their attention and giving them more enjoyment for less effort.

and how will joining that competition, competing on the same terms, help us?

this is just like the discussion about SENS fundraising, where they should play to their strengths instead of be just another generic charity competing at the same game as everyone else (a game where they have no fundamental advantage, and others are more experienced, established, etc).

Mises in Liberalism:

> The liberals were of the opinion that all men have the intellectual capacity to reason correctly about the difficult problems of social cooperation and to act accordingly. They were so impressed with the clarity and self-evidence of the reasoning by which they had arrived at their political ideas that they were quite unable to understand how anyone could fail to comprehend it. They never grasped two facts: first, that the masses lack the capacity to think logically and secondly, that in the eyes of most people, even when they are able to recognize the truth, a momentary, special advantage that may be enjoyed immediately appears more important than a lasting greater gain that must be deferred. Most people do not have even the intellectual endowments required to think through the—after all very complicated—problems of social cooperation, and they certainly do not have the will power necessary to make those provisional sacrifices that all social action demands. The slogans of interventionism and of socialism, especially proposals for the partial expropriation of private property, always find ready and enthusiastic approval with the masses, who expect to profit directly and immediately from them.

> and how will joining that competition, competing on the same terms, help us?

The thing you need to compete for (the appeal of personal gain) does not require competing on the same terms (instant gratification from empty reward systems).

Find a way to compete for the same thing in a better (real, honest) way. Find a better way to explain the rewards from the effort.

FI is offputting because:

1) super-harsh with crit, everything will be criticised, a lot (yes, it's mostly true, but it's a lot to take on for someone who's quite new to truth-seeking)

2) recommendations (if any are given at all) often involve "read a book", which takes hours, people already have things they'd like to do for hours, they're not going to read a book because FI asserts that it will improve their life or help them get more involved in FI (this thing they're not sold on yet)

possible solutions:

An alternative FI-lite group:

takes criticism more step-by-step, criticise one thing at a time, still crit all the mistakes but give the reader less total number of things critted at once

Generally:

Explain the value of referenced books better, be more specific about the gains of the books, maybe give quotes you think are particularly relevant to the issue being discussed

or write shorter books and essays on specific subjects (eg the Paths Forwards summary is I think a handy way of giving someone a taster of Paths Forward, they can read that quickly and then decide whether to continue to the full essay), or intros to subjects, that can then say "for more explanation/examples, read eg BoI"

New people don't know all that and aren't all good at that yet. It doesn't help to treat them like they know all the best skills already and can manage everything well already.

gp, conceded

also how about some easily-accessible writing/advice on advice about common problems, such as prioritising which criticism to focus on, not taking it personally?

paths forward is good but it's also not obvious how to apply it, something more focused on practical stuff about FI might help

I think the problem needs to be more precise than "marketing, promoting and spreading Fallible Ideas" to produce some ideas that could make a serious go at solving it

how much help is worth giving? what is the target audience? is the goal to make it easily-accessible to everyone? if not, what set of people with what pre-existing knowledge are the target?

also what ideas would stop someone from engaging with FI? could people with those ideas be targeted? is it worth it? (I'm guessing not, but I think worth considering the angle)

>unschoolers are pretty terrible. unschoolers hate criticism and objective knowledge.

ya, they don't like to analyze ideas and learn. they don't try to improve their ideas (they admit this). they are not open minded. they appeal to authority.

rather than go for precise posts which address substance and details and arguments and quotes in an honest way. they like emotional and flowery posts, which they can call beautiful and feel warm and fuzzy about.

> An alternative FI-lite group:

splintering discussion is a problem.

who will join it?

how will it actually be run to make the goals of less criticism happen? how will the ethos be established?

if someone thinks this is a good idea, why don't you make it?

> Explain the value of referenced books better, be more specific about the gains of the books, maybe give quotes you think are particularly relevant to the issue being discussed

FI people ROUTINELY do provide relevant quotes on list.

What about a YouTube video about paths forward?

if other people want to help with stuff like introducing FI, what i think they should do is write intros themselves and comment on my material. actually help make progress in the field.

> What about a YouTube video about paths forward?

are suggestions like this implicitly meaning "made by Elliot" or do they mean made by anyone?

cuz if made by anyone, GREAT, SURE, GO AHEAD.

if made by me: so, if i had a great idea for the script, i'd make it. i'm already working on figuring out how to explain paths forward to people. it reads to me a bit like "well, explain it to them better and in more formats" which is like, sure that'd be nice, but what'd really help is ideas about the topic, like if someone wrote part of a video script with some ideas, maybe i could use something from it or find it helpful.

> I don't think it's a good idea to dilute FI so that it's palatable to lots and lots of people. ya know?

right, FI is purer than Oism, will be MORE offensive.

there have been a lot of claims blaming communication style, blaming how Elliot communicates, blaming criticism, blaming meta discussion, blaming being impolite, blaming being informal (e.g. complaints about not capitalizing first words of sentences). lots of stuff.

but fundamentally, BY FAR, the most offensive stuff is the content itself, and usually when people get offended the main thing going on is COMMUNICATION ACTUALLY WORKED. it's usually when you actually SUCCEED and get some point across that they react the worst.

yeah like some ppl on OO openly, explicitly hated me for thinking i was right and being who i am and not being shaken by an irrational mob disagreeing with my sense of life.

and i think for everyone who says something about that, dozens more think or feel something along those lines a bit. the problem must be way way more common than ppl expressing it with any kind of clarity.

it's kinda like peter keating being offended by roark.

Keating had come here prepared to exercise caution and tact to the limit of his ability; he had achieved a purpose he had not expected to achieve; he knew he should take no chances, say nothing else and leave. But something inexplicable, beyond all practical considerations, was pushing him on. He said unheedingly:

“Can’t you be human for once in your life?”

“What?”

“Human! Simple. Natural.”

“But I am.”

“Can’t you ever relax?”

Roark smiled, because he was sitting on the window sill, leaning sloppily against the wall, his long legs hanging loosely, the cigarette held without pressure between limp fingers.

“That’s not what I mean!” said Keating. “Why can’t you go out for a drink with me?”

“What for?”

“Do you always have to have a purpose? Do you always have to be so damn serious? Can’t you ever do things without reason, just like everybody else? You’re so serious, so old. Everything’s important with you, everything’s great, significant in some way, every minute, even when you keep still. Can’t you ever be comfortable—and unimportant?”

“No.”

“Don’t you get tired of the heroic?”

“What’s heroic about me?”

“Nothing. Everything. I don’t know. It’s not what you do. It’s what you make people feel around you.”

“What?”

“The un-normal. The strain. When I’m with you—it’s always like a choice. Between you—and the rest of the world. I don’t want that kind of a choice. I don’t want to be an outsider. I want to belong. There’s so much in the world that’s simple and pleasant. It’s not all fighting and renunciation. It is—with you.”

“What have I ever renounced?”

“Oh, you’ll never renounce anything! You’d walk over corpses for what you want. But it’s what you’ve renounced by never wanting it.”

“That’s because you can’t want both.”

“Both what?”

“Look, Peter. I’ve never told you any of those things about me. What makes you see them? I’ve never asked you to make a choice between me and anything else. What makes you feel that there is a choice involved? What makes you uncomfortable when you feel that—since you’re so sure I’m wrong?”

“I ... I don’t know.” He added: “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” And then he asked suddenly:

“Howard, why do you hate me?”

“I don’t hate you.”

“Well, that’s it! Why don’t you hate me at least?”

“Why should I?”

“Just to give me something. I know you can’t like me. You can’t like anybody. So it would be kinder to acknowledge people’s existence by hating them.”

“I’m not kind, Peter.”

oops - sent too soon

> It could result in the best people turning away from FI because of the stupid gamification

Yeah. Do you think gamification would impress Szasz or Reisman, say? Would gamification have impressed Elliot or Alan or DD?

> Yeah. Do you think gamification would impress Szasz or Reisman, say? Would gamification have impressed Elliot or Alan or DD?

it's about status instead of truth. truth-seekers avoid status like oil avoids water.

> aim to convince themselves that the stuff they claim is impossible actually IS impossible

i think this is important. and it reminds me of how people react to Mises and liberalism (and Rand). you can quote them stuff about the harmony of men's rational interests, and there aren't any conflicts of interest among rational me. you can tell them about how we can have peace and people need not fight. you can tell them about TCS and how coercion and suffering are unnecessary.

and then they just get mad and reject it out of hand and won't think about it. they don't go "wow that's the most wonderful thing i've ever heard. it sounds false, but if there's even the slightest chance, i've got to investigate. and there are a bunch of books on it by authors that a bunch of people think are amazing, so that does qualify for the slightest chance"

>All the witnesses have told the truth. But not the whole truth. I am merely filling in the omissions. They spoke of a threat and of hatred. They were right. The Stoddard Temple is a threat to many things. If it were allowed to exist, nobody would dare to look at himself in the mirror. And that is a cruel thing to do to men. Ask anything of men. Ask them to achieve wealth, fame, love, brutality, murder, self-sacrifice. But don't ask them to achieve self-respect. They will hate your soul. Well, they know best. They must have their reasons. They won't say, of course, that they hate you. They will say that you hate them. It's near enough, I suppose. They know the emotion involved. Such are men as they are. So what is the use of being a martyr to the impossible? What is the use of building for a world that does not exist?

similar to the Stoddard Temple, ideas like TCS or Objectivism. or people like Rand or Elliot can elicit this hatred. Cuz like Rand says here, it's a cruel thing to ask man to look at himself in the mirror and actually honestly question some of his fundamental ideas about who he is and what ideas he has chosen to believe.

It's threatening to them to even consider alternative ideas like TCS or Oism as *actual* possibilities.

> They won't say, of course, that they hate you. They will say that you hate them.

Oh man, people totally do that with me, and I hadn't connected it with that quote. good point

> people don't know basic stuff about how to deal with reference material, how to use it productively.

start a post about this?

> Parents are easily offended by real life discussions but in the context of a comic, they might tolerate certain things and learn from certain things.

Lots of parents are evil. If you're trying to promote good ideas and not offending evil people, you're doing it wrong and wasting time.

no, i think other communities are even worse than Objectivism.

>> similar to the Stoddard Temple, ideas like TCS or Objectivism. or people like Rand or Elliot can elicit this hatred. Cuz like Rand says here, it's a cruel thing to ask man to look at himself in the mirror and actually honestly question some of his fundamental ideas about who he is and what ideas he has chosen to believe.

>

> It's threatening to them to even consider alternative ideas like TCS or Oism as *actual* possibilities.

thinking in the case of unschoolers, is it really this or just that they get scared off by the political ideas? i was. but still like the idea of raising kids without doing things against their will. it's how i would have liked to be raised.

and i liked the educational games Number Munchers and Mario Teaches Typing which i played at home.

if someone is scared off by the political ideas (which are connected to the other ideas in lots of ways, and come from the same underlying type of thinking and way of approaching ideas), then i think that shows they are closed minded.

"i heard Republicans are evil 500 times. i heard something right wing on FI list. therefore fuck FI". if they think like that, i'm deeply skeptical they were going to be much good on other issues

>People want results. They want achievements.

You could add an achievements system and give them a gold dollar for each achievement they reach.

Like:

"Achievement: Your first post!"

"Achievement: You used correct quote formatting!"

"Achievement: You realised you're lying to yourself!"

"Achievement: You changed your mind!"

They DON'T want achievement according to their own judgment and values, like a Roark would.

People like that gamification stuff cuz it’s like external validation rather than them having to pick their own values and goals for something, and judge accomplishment-worthiness for themselves. So appeasing that desire via gamification is kinda like partially-automating second-handedness.

>> if they are not being directly criticized, they will not be offended.

>

> i think this is factually false. why do you believe this?

they have no reason to take it personally.

(i was going to explain more about the effect of characters and stories on ppl but need to think about it more)

> but the purpose of Myst is not to learn how to write English.

wtf? i haven't played Myst much but i don't think it even has very many words in it. really picture based. using it for learning English writing seems super bizarre. (what would most make sense to me is just like to write stories in that universe, i guess. Myst fanfics. but i don't get the sense that's what you're talking about.)

> i guess the prob is... the child's purpose vs the teacher or parent purpose. the kid wants to do his own stuff on minecraft, the parent wants him to learn maths using his love of minecraft... etc.

i think my sister played Number Munchers little or none, and i don't think my parents had a problem with that. i think this is evidence i played it because i wanted to and liked it, rather than my parents have an agenda that i needed to learn that material. (this also seems plausible given my other interests and activities). (trying to work things out here despite hazy memory). i can easily see it being a really horrible thing for someone pressured to play it.

>They DON'T want achievement according to their own judgment and values, like a Roark would.

>

>People like that gamification stuff cuz it’s like external validation rather than them having to pick their own values and goals for something, and judge accomplishment-worthiness for themselves. So appeasing that desire via gamification is kinda like partially-automating second-handedness.

How can people who live second-hand learn not to, without taking on "not being second hand" second-handedly?

I don't think most people will even admit to themselves that they do it.

There's an important distinction here. The difference between living second hand, and seeking criticism and learning from it. They can both superficially seem the same.

So eg A sees this:

B believes x

C believes y

B talks to C

B believes y

and can't tell the difference between B having been persuaded of y by C, and having accepted the opinion uncritically because they respect C/want C to like them/think they should do what C does/whatever

so they look at terrible places like OO where people are just copying each other blindly, and places like FI where people are actually learning from each other, and can't tell the difference

so they go to the one where they get validation and never learn

what does "holding frame" mean?

So much projection on this page. All FI does is copy each other blindly.

Love how obsessed his is with OO though. The butthurt is glorious.

in this moment elliot is euphoric

>Where did this obsession come from? I mean, how did Elliot even get wind of OO?

Lulie

> what does "holding frame" mean?

not losing your perspective on life due to social pressure. not getting affected by other people's reality distortion fields.

> So much projection on this page. All FI does is copy each other blindly.

How is that even possible?

Like, if 2 people are interacting with each other, and since they have some disagreements, how can BOTH of them copy the other blindly? Wouldn't that mean switching positions to the other guy?

So, like person A and person B have a disagreement. Person A has position 1 and person B has position 2.

Now person A blindly copies person B and person B blindly copies person A. So now person A has position 2 and person B has position 1.

Did you even think about what you said? I don't think so.

if you have a criticism of an idea, share it. if not, what are you trying to say?

OO is Open Oxford, a facebook group (with some IRL socializing) that purports to have something to do with free speech but actually bans people for e.g. being an Objectivist. they also dox people.

what short bursts? OO people harassed me for one time period and then left. there was not stop and restart.

you can search "open oxford" on facebook. they actually made the group closed and then got mad at people who quoted things from it (cuz free speech! or maybe it was cuz fear [1]). there's some spinoff groups now too, most of which are also closed groups. but they mostly are closed in name only – when you let in any random stranger from the public who tries to join then the content is public.

[1] http://curi.us/1784-fear-of-future-employers

it was some angry haters coming here for one time period and commenting in more than one thread.

i don't recommend reading OO stuff except on my blog e.g. http://curi.us/1783-free-speech-takes-thought-and-effort and http://curi.us/1791-standards