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Less Wrong is We’re an online community for people who trydedicated to think rationally. the study of human rationality, the general field of improving our decisions. LessWrong pulls together a variety of material from mathematics, economics, cognitive science, and other disciplines which can all be relevant when considering how we think. We’re also interested in technology, the long-term future of humanity, and philosophy.
Here'LessWrong dates back to 2006 when Eliezer Yudkowsky starting writing about rationality on economist Robin Hanson's blog Overcoming Bias. In February 2009, those posts were used as the seed material for Less Wrong. Since 2006 we have collected many friends.
The best introduction to the ideas on this website is "The Sequences", a collection of posts that introduce cognitive science, philosophy, and mathematics. An abridged and edited epub version called Rationality: From AI to Zombies is also available for download. Eliezer is also well known for writing Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (HPMOR), one of the world’s most popular Harry Potter fanfictions.
Less Wrong makes heavy use of previously introduced topics for leverage, so you may need to consult the Concepts and Jargon pages on the Less Wrong Wiki. You can also do keyword searches of past posts using the search tool near the top right corner of every page.
The Discussion board on LessWrong is active, and includes links to other posts around the internet that we find interesting, as well as user-submitted essays on varying topics. Main has been closed since mid-2016, and was reserved for posts that were elevated from the discussion forum for their quality. There are still many posts there of high quality but it no longer updates.
If you are new here we like to encourage you to post in the latest welcome thread to introduce yourself and start a conversation, more instructions are in that thread.
You can find a map of our physical meetups on the homepage. If you are in a city with a meetup, it’s a great experience and we love new participants!
If you want to put yourself on the map, we would be delighted if you would join us!
There is active conversation on the LessWrongersslack and in the IRCchat room. We also have a Russianslack if you speak Russian.
If you need a place to commit to studying alongside others - our Study hall is a place to visit.
Several organizations spun off from the community, such as The Center For Applied Rationality (CFAR), the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI), and the Effective Altruism movement.
Some other notable businesses include Beeminder, Complice, and Mealsquares.
Some blogs of our friends include Scott Alexander’s Slate Star Codex, Nate Soares’ MindingOurWay, Gwern’s Gwern.net and philosopher Nick Bostrom.
We can’t always keep track of all the...
Less Wrong is a large, active websitean online community for people who try to think rationally. To get a quick idea of why rationality is important and how to develop it, try reading Your Intuitions Are Not Magic, The Cognitive Science of Rationality, or What I've Learned From Less Wrong.
Interested in improving your reasoning and decision-making skills? Then you've come to the right place.
Less Wrong
Thinking is a large, active website for people who try to think rationally. To get a quick idea of why rationality is important and decidinghow to develop it, try reading Your Intuitions Are Not Magic, The Cognitive Science of Rationality, or What I've Learned From Less Wrong.
Here's a selection of other posts from the extensive Less Wrong archives that might appeal to you:
And some slightly meatier stuff:
Want to know if your doctor's diagnosis is correct? It helps to understand Bayes' Theorem. Want to make a plan for achieving your goals? It helps to know the ways in which we don't know our own desires. Want to make the world a better place? It helps to know about the cognitive bias called 'scope insensitivity', and that some charities are more efficient than others.
We discuss and practice these skills on the main blog, in the discussion area, and in regular meetups around the world.
If you want a sampling of the content on the main blog, you could read some posts on beliefs, words, cognitivebiases, evidence, probability, decision theory, excuses, task avoidance, reductionism, evolution, quantum physics, ethics, politics, disease, and procrastination.
To read Less Wrong systematically, read the Sequences, especially the Core Sequences. They are somewhat long, but highly recommended.
Less Wrong makes heavy use of previously introduced topics for...
Thinking and deciding are central to our daily lives. The Less Wrong community aims to gain expertise in how human brains think and decide, so that we can do so more successfully. We use the latest insights from cognitive science, social psychology, probability theory, and decision theory to improve our understanding of how the world works and what we can do to achieve our goals.
Some important aspects of rationality are described in the Twelve Virtues of Rationality:
Less Wrong is associated with the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford UniversityUniversity; and the Singularity Institute, where Yudkowsky is a senior researcher. The site is hosted and maintained by Trike Apps.
Thinking and deciding are central to our daily lives. The Less Wrong community aims to gain expertise in how humanshuman brains think and decide, so that we can do so more successfully. We use the latest insights from cognitive science, social psychology, probability theory, and decision theory to improve our understanding of how the world works and what we can do to achieve our goals.
Some important aspects of rationality are described in the Twelve Virtues of Rationality:
Thinking and deciding are central to our daily lives. The Less Wrong community aims to gain expertise in how human brainshumans think and decide, so that we can do so more successfully. We use the latest insights from cognitive science, social psychology, probability theory, and decision theory to improve our understanding of how the world works and what we can do to achieve our goals.
Some important aspects of rationality are described in the Twelve Virtues of Rationality:
Eliezer describes someSome important aspects of the important parts of rationality are described in the Twelve Virtues of Rationality:
ManyEliezer describes some of us believethe important parts of rationality in the importance of developing qualities described in Twelve Virtues of Rationality:
Many of us believe in the importance of developing qualities described in Twelve Virtues of Rationality:
Many of us believe in the importance of developing qualities described in Twelve Virtues of Rationality:
To read Less Wrong systematically, read the Sequences, especially the Core Sequences. They are somewhat long, but worth it. Some people considerhighly recommended the Sequences the most important work they have ever read..
Start by posting comments and discussion posts. To publish a discussion post, click 'Create New Article' and select 'Less Wrong Discussion' next to 'Post to' at the bottom of the page. As with Reddit or Digg, users can vote comments and posts up or down, and this adds or subtracts 1 point to a user's karma score. Generally, if your comment or post is on-topic and thoughtful, your comment or postit will be upvoted. You need 2 karma points to publish discussion posts. Comments downvoted below -3 will be hidden for most users; you can change this setting under 'Preferences'.
Many of us believe in the importance of developing qualities described in the Twelve Virtues of Rationality:
About Less Wrong [old]
This is an old version of the LessWrong About page. See the current page at www.lesswrong.com/about