Ten years ago today this blog began with this post. Since then we’ve had 3,772 posts, 104 thousand comments, & over 15 million page views. This started as a group blog, and later became my personal blog, and I’ve been posting less the last few years as I focused on writing books.
Here's an idea if you want maximum reach AND influence....self-publish books and articles, and offer it all for free online via your blog. Best of both worlds...of course, you won't make so much money, but you don't make money from blogging either, but then again it is a tool to get your name out to sell books...
I am tempted to say that most academic blogs are just a form of intellectual masturbation, but then again, so are most scholarly articles and academic books! But since we can't predict ahead of time which academic articles, books, or blog posts will have an impact on future work, we are (collectively) better off by having as many new ideas as possible ...
Blogs are often responsible for other people's books, so if books can have a large effect, blogs can do so as well. For example, Bostrom's book is mainly responsible for the idea of AI risk being popular (which is unfortunately a bad thing, since there is no risk to speak of), but Eliezer was responsible for Bostrom's opinions without having to write any books or articles.
I think you do underestimate the importance of blogs.
I know an offhand comment I made here led to a NY times story about betting markets and elections (adanthar confirmed the story was inspired by this blog):
"My hope is even if the fraction of blog readers who also do this is small, it is large enough to make a comparable total number."
A simple way to make the fraction larger: link to anyone who responds to a blog post of yours in an intelligent way. You get what you incentivize. For most bloggers, traffic is an incentive.
I think you underestimate the impact your blog has had. Seems to me a lot of your ideas have seen wide adoption.
Congratulations. Reading this blog the first time was like following young Einstein. Just like TC, I think you are one of our most important thinkers. I wish you would get more coverage.
I think one of the great things about blog is that it can be linked, and knowledge can be spread. I don't know whether for better decisions of human kind, we need small academic to know the better answers, or public to be better informed.
I appreciate all the public posts over the years. Maybe the IRS will let you write it off as a charitable deduction. OB is an important countervailing force against the overwhelming stupidity/ shortsightedness of the human species.
Without this blog I would have never come up with the ideas in my academic article "The Fermi paradox, Bayes’ rule, and existential risk management" published in Futures.http://www.sciencedirect.co...
If you want your ideas to be generally discussed, you want them easily accessible for people to read and talk about. Especially if your ideas are controversial in academia.
Here's an idea if you want maximum reach AND influence....self-publish books and articles, and offer it all for free online via your blog. Best of both worlds...of course, you won't make so much money, but you don't make money from blogging either, but then again it is a tool to get your name out to sell books...
I am tempted to say that most academic blogs are just a form of intellectual masturbation, but then again, so are most scholarly articles and academic books! But since we can't predict ahead of time which academic articles, books, or blog posts will have an impact on future work, we are (collectively) better off by having as many new ideas as possible ...
Blogs are often responsible for other people's books, so if books can have a large effect, blogs can do so as well. For example, Bostrom's book is mainly responsible for the idea of AI risk being popular (which is unfortunately a bad thing, since there is no risk to speak of), but Eliezer was responsible for Bostrom's opinions without having to write any books or articles.
I think you do underestimate the importance of blogs.
I know an offhand comment I made here led to a NY times story about betting markets and elections (adanthar confirmed the story was inspired by this blog):
http://forumserver.twoplust...
http://www.nytimes.com/2008...
I also "commissioned" "Thinking Fast and Slow" in Cowen's dream book thread back in '08: http://marginalrevolution.c...
(I think Cowen commented once that that thread was at least partly responsible for the book, but I might be misremembering.)
It's crazy how ideas spread. Do you even get to do "Age of Em" without this blog (and even if so, does anyone notice?)
My impression is that your blogging almost single-handedly popularized signaling theory in popular sociology.
Your blogging is also good marketing for your books.
Great work Robin.
"My hope is even if the fraction of blog readers who also do this is small, it is large enough to make a comparable total number."
A simple way to make the fraction larger: link to anyone who responds to a blog post of yours in an intelligent way. You get what you incentivize. For most bloggers, traffic is an incentive.
I think you underestimate the impact your blog has had. Seems to me a lot of your ideas have seen wide adoption.
Congratulations. Reading this blog the first time was like following young Einstein. Just like TC, I think you are one of our most important thinkers. I wish you would get more coverage.
I think one of the great things about blog is that it can be linked, and knowledge can be spread. I don't know whether for better decisions of human kind, we need small academic to know the better answers, or public to be better informed.
I would love it if you wrote more books. I would find it less useful if you only wrote academic papers, as they're usually intentionally inaccessible.
As for the edifice of insight, it's more of an iceberg or rhizome - much deeper than the visible set of responses.
I appreciate all the public posts over the years. Maybe the IRS will let you write it off as a charitable deduction. OB is an important countervailing force against the overwhelming stupidity/ shortsightedness of the human species.
Without this blog I would have never come up with the ideas in my academic article "The Fermi paradox, Bayes’ rule, and existential risk management" published in Futures.http://www.sciencedirect.co...
If you want your ideas to be generally discussed, you want them easily accessible for people to read and talk about. Especially if your ideas are controversial in academia.
You are hopefully not saying that my reading of your blog is a waste? Through my optics: One person saved is one person saved.