The first stop to overcoming a problem is to admit you have one. So: I admit I’m addicted to blogging. In terms of total interesting intellectual insight, I’m actually pretty proud of my 5.5 years of blogging – I doubt I would have produced more insight had I blogged less. But my friends, colleagues, academia, patrons, etc. don’t want me to just find insights, they want me to gain prestige and have influence. And at this point in my life, they are right — intellectual influence *is what I should want. My insights will matter little if I can’t package them in a form that will tempt others to assimilate and build on them.
David Friedman blogs infrequently, and in spurts; he has 10 posts since the end of March, with one month-long gap and one three-week gap. His signal-to-noise ratio is very high, though. Since I follow the blogs I follow in an RSS aggregator, this works well for me; if I tried to follow by going to the site every now and then to check in, it would be fairly annoying. I think whether a reader cares (much) about frequency is likely to be a function of how s/he reads your blog.
Of course, if you can increase signal without increasing noise, all the better.
This is great! Just yesterday I was thinking that I would comment here from today with the name 'Robin Hanson, please write a book'. And he decides to write a book. I can't wait...
It's about time you wrote a book, you're practically the only GMU econ blogger who hasn't, and almost none of them are nearly as insightful.I thought you were a better blogger when it was a group blog. But that may have been because you restricted yourself to talking more about bias and how to think rather than issues of the day or pet theories on farmers/foragers or near/far (not that those haven't been interesting).
> So, I am writing a book (which I’ll say more about in due time)Great news. If Robin needs to prove there is a market could he sell preorders or have a kickstarter campaign or something?
I'd like to see you develop careful predictive models of status and near/far. I'm a little afraid that these concepts are still at the phlostogon stage where they can be used to explain any possible outcome.
I'd also like to see you differentiate your statements more with the degree to which they actually are supported by the scientific literature versus mainly being your own speculation.
Take your time, make sure it's polished and well thought out. Critics are going to be afraid of your larger ideas and themes. 99% of them won't have the intellectual capacity to counter them, so they're going to try to nitpick and attack you over minor details. A lot of the more pathetic ones will probably resort to ad hominem as well.
So make sure you proof and fact check the hell out of the book. Get a lot of your sympathetic but disagreeable friends, like Tyler, to be as critical before you release it. Given the uniqueness and clarity of your insights it has the potential to ultimately be one of the most influential works of our era. But they'll be a lot of small minded people who violently oppose it, so you have to be make sure you're correct about every detail.
Katja Grace is a major upgrade -she's asymptotically closer to the archetypal unbiased thinker than some of your past co-bloggers.
Don't count your books until they're actually published! I'd update upwards, of course, but not as much as one might expect.
(No pressure though!) ;)
David Friedman blogs infrequently, and in spurts; he has 10 posts since the end of March, with one month-long gap and one three-week gap. His signal-to-noise ratio is very high, though. Since I follow the blogs I follow in an RSS aggregator, this works well for me; if I tried to follow by going to the site every now and then to check in, it would be fairly annoying. I think whether a reader cares (much) about frequency is likely to be a function of how s/he reads your blog.
Of course, if you can increase signal without increasing noise, all the better.
Self recommending.
Apparently, gwern and I will need to update our subjective probabilities:http://predictionbook.com/p...
Will Katla also be posting? :D
This is great! Just yesterday I was thinking that I would comment here from today with the name 'Robin Hanson, please write a book'. And he decides to write a book. I can't wait...
Looking forward to the opportunity to share my ideas with more people! Also very glad Robin is going to get his vision together in a polished form.
It's about time you wrote a book, you're practically the only GMU econ blogger who hasn't, and almost none of them are nearly as insightful.I thought you were a better blogger when it was a group blog. But that may have been because you restricted yourself to talking more about bias and how to think rather than issues of the day or pet theories on farmers/foragers or near/far (not that those haven't been interesting).
3 years of daily insightful commentary is astounding. You've made my days more interesting. Thanks.
OK Robin, here's the deal: I'll buy a copy of your book, but only if you autograph it. :)
> So, I am writing a book (which I’ll say more about in due time)Great news. If Robin needs to prove there is a market could he sell preorders or have a kickstarter campaign or something?
This is fantastic news. Onward and upward!
I'd like to see you develop careful predictive models of status and near/far. I'm a little afraid that these concepts are still at the phlostogon stage where they can be used to explain any possible outcome.
I'd also like to see you differentiate your statements more with the degree to which they actually are supported by the scientific literature versus mainly being your own speculation.
Yes, finally a Hanson book!
Take your time, make sure it's polished and well thought out. Critics are going to be afraid of your larger ideas and themes. 99% of them won't have the intellectual capacity to counter them, so they're going to try to nitpick and attack you over minor details. A lot of the more pathetic ones will probably resort to ad hominem as well.
So make sure you proof and fact check the hell out of the book. Get a lot of your sympathetic but disagreeable friends, like Tyler, to be as critical before you release it. Given the uniqueness and clarity of your insights it has the potential to ultimately be one of the most influential works of our era. But they'll be a lot of small minded people who violently oppose it, so you have to be make sure you're correct about every detail.