An excellent piece. I just saw it again, after skimming through the sequences once more today, having nothing better to do on New Year's Eve, and had a thought. What if Less Wrong could do a... mildly cultish thing and, when preaching rationality to random technically inclined folks, start not from its utility, beauty and necessity, but from its ability to make oneself *truer?*

Appeal to idealism, or, as the correct term here goes, to terminal values! If an ape desires to be an angel and, seeing no way to become one but many ways to make the pain bearable, abuses all kinds of opium for the masses, don't just come on to him like a boring ol' rehab worker when you can start the conversation by promising him actual grafted wings, and explain how it's in his interest to at least survive while they're being tested - oh, and take some theoretical flight lessons. Imagine if LW was disguised as a transhumanist propaganda resource first and foremost. It could ignite people's imagination with quality fiction and passionate calls to arms... then explain that there's only one way, twisting and narrow, way forward, and you need St. Bayes to hold your hand even if you want to make the first step.

You stumble in here, and are made to envision and clarify your core values, to become more aware of your actual highest desires - the ones that most ordinary people are probably ashamed to even display: they will likely involve ending all misery, grasping for the stars, casting off the shackles of biology, growing up in the best way possible. And *then* you're shown the path, step by step, to the launch pad where the ships are being built, so you can, too, contribute. Couldn't this get a certain subset of people - like some science fiction fans - seriously motivated?

Yeah, I'm just a little high on cough syrup. Is this incoherent?

tl;dr: what if We The LW had a full transhumanist side to us, as a source of cohesion and inspiration.