Some of the comments here are addressing the wrong problem. For example the idea of "what to do with the kids while the parents attend".
it's an important question, to be sure.... but it's stage- 2: after you've already attracted the parents, how to keep the kids entertained so the parents can attend.
You still need stage 1: how to actually attract the parents in the first place.
I am a mid-30s female who is getting ready to have kids in the not-too-distant future. I also have lots of friends who already have kids. I am in just inside your target demographic, so let me tell you what I'd like to get out of LW WRT my age-group and family aspirations. FWIW
There's a hell of a lot of stuff here on the site for me personally, ie how do I, personally change myself to become more rational.
The thing that's missing for parents, is how to educate their kids into rationality.
The articles on this site are way too high level for young kids. I'd estimate you'd need a teenager - or extremely smart tween, to read any of them... and not every kid will match this profile.
Simply dumbing it down may be part of the answer... but there's also the aspect of when kids are ready to learn certain &quo...
Cynicism aside, churches looking to attract parents with children have -- as calcsam observes -- the advantage of a prevailing assumption that taking your children to church will help them to find an identity and a set of moral guidelines. This is all very well from a group that benefits from that assumption. It isn't so useful for one that doesn't. So even if calcsam's advice were good (which seems very doubtful to me) it's not so clear how to take it.
Member of proselytizing religious organization proposes that rationalists direct their attention away from people of an age at which they actually change their minds.
Suspicions of ulterior motives aside, I think this is a really important point: there is a huge cognitive difference between getting someone to join a religious group and training someone in rationality. The former depends almost entirely on social factors, whereas the latter requires a lot more effort from the inductee and depends on their mental state. We should definitely be accounting for this when trying to do rationality outreach, because it suggests that some of the "conventional" religious methods won't work as well.
Yes. And this is one of my (and I think others') big problems with calcsam's series here: the whole thing seems to presuppose that the goal is to attract as many people and keep them as long as possible and as committed as possible, regardless of whether we're actually providing them with value, informing or misinforming them, messing with their heads in good or bad ways, etc. Which may well be a "good" way for a religious group to think about outreach, though I feel pretty cynical saying that too, but really seems More Wrong for this particular context.
Now, doubtless there's an opposite error -- of expecting millions of people to take one look, be overwhelmed by the extraordinary levels of rationality and insight displayed here, and leap into our arms -- and that would be a good thing to avoid too. (Religious groups have their own version of that error too, of course.) But there is such a thing as overreaction.
I think it's unlikely that we've been targeted deliberately; I think we're getting some people in or near the transhumanist Mormon subculture.
Probably many of those things, especially the not having enough in common, but I'm guessing we're primarily looking at garden-variety conformity here... when I find myself in a group of people who are strikingly different from myself, even if I'm made welcome, I feel silly. When I realized there aren't many other married women on LessWrong, my immediate reaction was literally, "Why aren't there others? Am I doing something stupid? Am I a bad wife? Should I be doing housework right now?" This all happened within seconds. I was able to recognize these thoughts as maybe not totally rational only because the housework thing sounded silly, and I still did some vacuuming.
As a thirty-something who has sometimes avoided twenty-something groups, I can add a couple of mostly hard-to-admit ones. For instance, it's hard to keep up with the energy of the youngsters, you feel old in comparison, but also you feel like you're going to be expected to, and you know you'll fail... and possibly then be branded a flake-out. So it's easier to avoid going in the first place.
It's kinda silly in some ways. You see, twenty-somethings have not only more energy (and resilience and ability to stay up and not need to sleep as much), but more time (due to, on average, fewer Hard commitments)... so there's no way we should feel bad about not being able to keep up... but we do.
I see the NY group is really gung-ho - making motivation-pacts and working towards goals and moving in together and everything... and while I sort of look at that in an envious way.. I also much prefer the more relaxed, less-commitment-essential approach of the London group.
I am certain that if I was part of the NY group, nobody would actually think less of me for not participating as much as the more committed members... but I would still feel bad by comparison.
What counts as "making the others present feel uncomfortable"? Do you mean actively saying anti-sex things, or just being too old?
I match the general LW meetup demographic in age, race, and religious beliefs, but not in gender, occupation, or hobbies. I recently started attending the Cambridge MA meetup, and I'll be interested to see how it goes. I'm a married woman with zero experience in math or hard science, who works with people rather than data, who plans to have kids, and who attends church for the community and comfort of it. No one at the meetup has yet indicated they can't accept these things (except the word "church", which elicited actual cries of dismay.)
I think it would be a loss to this community if we preemptively discourage people because they don't resemble the rest of the group in outward ways. A lot of people from other walks of life have never been exposed to the idea of polyamory, or transhumanism, or what have you. That doesn't mean they have no capacity to think about them.
These are good insights on how communities function... but I'm a bit lost.
What is the purpose of a "rationalist community?"
I'm a bit new here, and often the essays seem to rest upon some prior understanding that I do not have. For this particular article, there seems to be some previous discussion about rationalist communities and why they are desirable... but I don't see it in the linked articles or on the main page.
So can you tell me why I would want to participate in a "rationalist parenting club" rather than a regular one. Why not engage with mainstream institutions and try to make them as pro-reason as possible?
Back in 2009, Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote about a dream of rationality dojos devoted to perfecting the art of human rationality.
In 2010, the Less Wrong meetups in New York became a tight-knit community — not quite a rationality dojo, but a human community with rational group norms. For many, the New York group is the exemplar of the future of the modern rationality movement.
Now Less Wrong meetup groups are popping up all over the place.
Yes, I'm married and 59. My son is introduced me to LessWrong. I don't go to meetups because 1-I'm busy with other things, 2- They aren't terribly convenient to where I live 3-I think I'd be an embarrassment to my son 4-I don't think I'd really fit in. That's partially because of age and sex, but also interests. I find some of the things discussed here interesting, but am not interested in some of the topics. Some of the postings make my brain ache.
Alternate short term solution: have rationalist meetings at places with good views of popular playgrounds.
I have noticed that parents are, on average, more grown-up than non-parent adults. I guess it has to do with having something to protect, and needing to make many sacrifices and decisions where failure is unacceptable.
I have been to rationalist meetups with children running around — they took place at the family's home. Parents with babies might be happy to attend meetups at homes or at parks. But I don't see parents taking their older, less-easily-amused children to meetups unless they're more like church: There should be more than one child; and space fo...
It’s one of the standard stories – a couple isn’t really religious, but they have a kid and think their children needs religion so they start going to church. What are they looking for? An identity; a set of moral guidelines for their children. Less Wrong needs to move into this market space.
The problem with this is that rationality is not warm, fuzzy, or comforting. In the example you give, parents are seeking religion so that they don't have to tell their children things like this. Quite frankly, some people just don't want to face the truth if that t...
Related to: Building rationalist communities, Lessons from Latter-day Saints, Holy Books (Or Rationalist Sequences) Don't Implement Themselves, Designing rationalist projects, Community roles: teachers and auxiliaries, Committees and Leadership
In the previous posts, I listed the main roles in Latter-day Saint communities. In this post and one to follow, I will outline possible roles and implications for rationalist communities.
I previously mentioned the issue of teacher selections: the balance between selecting the more natural teachers and giving the less outgoing and articulate contingent a chance.
The latter is important, because it’s a route to long-term skill development for all members.[1] But, like most investments, it requires long time horizons. It’s not viable to invest in developing talent if your embryonic talent is going to pack up and leave.
So how do you establish a long time horizon? How do you create a norm, an expectation, a common practice of sticking around in the group?
Unsurprisingly, this takes time to develop.
Reducing Turnover
Wherever the church is newly established, growth is fast, but turnover is high. This is caused (at least, immediately caused) by higher levels of infighting and quarreling. A commonly-told story is of an early church leader named Thomas B. Marsh dissatisfied over increased militarization and hostilities against neighbors. As a result, he signed an affidavit which helped trigger the forcible expulsion of Mormons from the state of Missouri.
I’ll repeat that: where the church is new, growth is fast, but turnover is high.
Many of the church members in India were in their late teens or early 20’s, looking for more direction in life. We were glad they joined, but there was a problem. The stability of the church organization in India was inversely proportional to the proportion of church members who were young, single adults.
One set of problems stemmed from romances gone awry, unwanted male attention, and resulting gossip. Another set of problems stemmed from simple unreliability – they often wouldn’t take their organizational responsibilities seriously, or wouldn’t prepare for classes they were supposed to teach.[2] And they generally weren’t as useful in teaching other members, because they weren’t as mature.
Of course families got in disagreements and quarrels too. But I certainly heard less about those.
Raise the Age Demographic
A commonly-cited Less Wrong norm is to raise the sanity waterline. I propose a new norm: raise the age demographic.
Functionally, parenthood encourages long-time-horizon thinking, and stabilizes one's self-defined identity as a member of group X. This is especially true in memes that require you to perform actively organizational tasks.
First, marriage. Consider Mormonism, and remember the lay clergy and everyone-has-a-role norms. A big problem for the church in India was gender imbalance – there were too many guys and so they would marry girls who weren’t in the church. Then when they had to choose between spending time at church or helping to run the church, and spending time with their wife, they chose the latter.
This is true for other time-intensive memetic groups – I picked up some Amway promotional materials once and noticed that most of featured people were married couples. (And yes, I do think Amway is Dark Side-ish.)
Second, children. It’s one of the standard stories – a couple isn’t really religious, but they have a kid and think their children needs religion so they start going to church. What are they looking for? An identity; a set of moral guidelines for their children.
Less Wrong needs to move into this market space.
Right now, the median demographic of Less Wrongians is a teenage to mid-20s, unmarried, male; it’s a group that includes me. But a good way to find long-term committed people and reduce turnover is to reach out to a slightly older demographic – parents with children.[3]
In the church, sure, the Young Women’s organization exists for the teenager girls; and the Primary organization exists for the smaller children. But the adults involved in each organization, and the parents of the children, are tied more closely into the church community. Each of them receives a (another) definite, concrete reason to come to church each Sunday.
In a rationalist parenting club, the children running around would provide a constant reminder and justification for the group’s existence.
[1] Personally, I’m far more articulate in my conversation and public speech due to numerous occasions where I led classes, gave speeches, and so forth.
[2] This wasn’t universal, but it was a general trend.
[3] I’m not sure exactly how to do this, but I am sure that it is desirable.