Low-Commitment Less Wrong Book (EG Article) Club

Jeremy

Low-Commitment Less Wrong Book (EG Article) Club

Jeremy

1 min readFeb 10, 2022

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Jeremy

So I think I spent too much time thinking about the name, but, in the end I think it works well to have something simple and short that gets the basic idea across, with more details given in the post body/tag description.

I think "Less Wrong for EA" accomplishes this. Each post title can be of the format "LW4EA: Post Title from Less Wrong" and the tag "Less Wrong for EA" isn't overly long either.

Below is what I plan to write in the post body (I will also edit/rewrite the tag). I would love any feedback.

This link post is part of Less Wrong for EA, a Less Wrong repost & low-commitment discussion group (inspired by this comment). Each week I will revive an EA-relevant post from the Less Wrong Archives, more or less at random, from a list I started from the comments here (additional suggestions welcome via PM or in the comments).

Please feel free to,

Discuss in the comments
Subscribe to the Less Wrong for EA tag to be notified of future posts
Tag other Less Wrong reposts with Less Wrong for EA.

Initially, I talked about hosting Zoom discussion for those that were interested, but I think it’s a bit more than I can take on right now (not so low-commitment). If anyone wants to organize one, comment or PM me and I will be happy to coordinate for future posts.

Jeremy

For the tag description, I am thinking something like

"Any EA-relevant LessWrong post, including posts from the weekly Less Wrong repost & low-commitment discussion group."

mlc

I was just wondering about the existence of such a project. Fantastic that you're taking initiative! There are many old posts still holding contemporary relevance that might benefit from such "revivals". Suggestions:

Maybe a title like "LW Post (Revival) Club" might be more accessible?
You could also think of connecting this to the book club/s to gain more traction there, since this represents a large overlap and is essentially the main target audience.
This seems obvious, but putting an 80/20 effort into some promotion might really be worth it/a deciding factor for this project's success or failure (e.g. putting it up on the EA newsletter)

Jeremy

I will put a bit more thought into the title/tag.

Can you point me to book club information? I am not familiar.

I agree about promotion, and am grateful for suggestions, but I may focus on doing a post or two to refine the concept before delving into much promotion.

Jeremy

My current plan is (see main post)

Vaidehi Agarwalla

I really like the idea of experimenting with different kinds of engagement via the Forum, especially the idea of a drip ! Suggestions:

Rename the tag name a bit more intuitive e.g. "LW Article Club 2022" or something. (Make people more likely to participate)
In each linkpost :
1. A top level post explaining the idea / project (make it as easy as possible for people to participate)
  1. I could help draft something / give comments)
2. In the post:
  1. Explain what you'll do (post every monday)
  2. Explain how people can participate (comment on post / linkpost posts they think are valuable and they think there should be more engagement with)
  3. Suggest subscribing to the tag so they can get email notificatons when a new post is published
(Once finalized) Edit the tag description with 2 lines explaining what the club is (format, goals)

As for the zoom calls I don't have any thoughts on that - I think you'd probably get enough interest to host them. I'm personally more excited about experimenting with this new format.

Jeremy

I will put a bit more thought into the title/tag and comment here with my ideas for them.

I already had something like #2 in mind. I will also post here/pm you for feedback.

Did you see the tag description I wrote? I will think about it more after final title/tag. Feel free to suggest changes/additions.

Vaidehi Agarwalla

(Suggesting adding this to the top-level post so people can quickly see the update!)

Jeremy

I think I misunderstood what you meant here at first. Adding it now.

CatGoddess

I would be interested in a Zoom discussion.

Jeremy

Noted. I think I will hold off on the Zoom thing for the first post or two so I can focus on getting them right. I will put a note in each post about signing up for Zooms once I am doing them. I am considering how to handle it (encouraging others to organize Zooms?) if there are more than ~5 people interested.

Jeremy

It seems like getting the name/tag details right is going to be important and I don't have too much time to think about that before Monday, so I will probably wait to do the first post. I expect to be able to iron those details out next week.

Vaidehi Agarwalla

Also interested, and I like the idea of link-posting with comments! Very low-energy and hopefully can allow more people to get involved and expose people to new ideas over time.

markov_user

I'd be up for the reading and comment writing part (will see if it works out time-wise), probably not so much for zoom. Nice idea and thanks for taking the initiative!

George T.

I would be interested. I am part of an EA The Precipice reading group right now, but going forward I would enjoy some conversations around some other books/ideas. I am all about the low commitment in life.

TheMatAllen

I'm interested as well, for participating or helping with organization.

Idea when project is up to speed; if multiple groups are operating at the same time, have a central theme that all each group focuses on and at the end of a "sequence" of these a larger article could be written on the collective insights developed. Something along those lines.

Jeremy

I guess I was using the term "group" in a loose sense - maybe it's not the right word, as my plan would not require signing up or joining or anything (keeping in the spirit of low commitment), just an article posted each week that people can comment on freely.

That's about all I have time for at the moment. If someone wants to do something more formal in parallel, I am all for it. You are welcome to use the tag (which I will update soon), or I am happy to coordinate if that would be useful. If there's not much engagement with the posts, that might indicate something more structured would have more success.

TheMatAllen

Ah, I see. Well, I'm all in for the lower commitment at this point. Will you be advertising the start on this post?

Jeremy

Sure thing!

Jeremy

The first post is here.

CatGoddess

I would also be interested. I haven't read very many LW articles and I don't know very many people here, so it would be nice to get caught up in the context of a discussion.

Jeremy

First post is here.

Sarah Cheng

I believe I've converted this to a normal post - please let me know if you see any issues.

Jeremy

Looks good thanks!

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