# LessWrong Is Not about Forum Software, LessWrong Is about Posts (Or: How to Immanentize the LW 2.0 Eschaton in 2.5 Easy Steps!)

\[epistemic status: I was going to do a lot of research for this post, but I decided not to as there are no sources on the internet so I'd have to interview people directly and I'd rather have this post be imperfect than never exist.\]  
  
Many words have been written about how LessWrong is now shit. Opinions vary about how shit exactly it is. I refer you to http://lesswrong.com/lw/n0l/lesswrong\_20/ and http://lesswrong.com/lw/o5z/on\_the\_importance\_of\_less\_wrong\_or\_another_single/ for more comments about LessWrong being shit and the LessWrong diaspora being suboptimal.  
  
However, how to make LessWrong stop being shit seems remarkably simple to me. Here are the steps to resurrect it:  
  
1\. Get Eliezer: The lifeblood of LessWrong is Eliezer Yudkowsky's writing. If you don't have that, what's the point of being on this website? Currently Eliezer is posting his writings on Facebook, (https://www.facebook.com/groups/674486385982694/) which I consider foolish, for the same reasons I would consider it foolish to house the Mona Lisa in a run-down motel.  
  
2\. Get Scott: Once you have Eliezer back, and you sound the alarm that LW is coming back, I'm fairly certain that Scott "Yvain" Alexander will begin posting on LessWrong again. As far as I can tell he's never wanted to have to moderate a comment section, and the growing pains are stressing his website at the seams. He's even mused publicly about arbitrarily splitting the Slate Star Codex comment section in two (http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/04/09/ot73-i-lik-the-thred/) which is a crazy idea on its own but completely reasonable in the context of (cross)posting to LW. Once you have Yudkowsky and Yvain, you have about 80% of what made LessWrong not shit.  
  
3\. Get Gwern: I don't read many of Gwern's posts; I just like having him around. Luckily for us, he never left!  
  
After this is done, everyone else should wander back in, more or less.  
  
Possible objections, with replies:  
  
Objection: Most SSC articles and Yudkowsky essays are not on the subject of rationality and thus for your plan to work LessWrong's focus would have to subtly shift.  
  
Reply: Shift away, then! It's LessWrong 2! We no longer have to be a community dedicated to reading Rationality: From AI to Zombies as it's written in real time; we can now be a community that takes Rationality: From AI to Zombies as a starting point and discusses whatever we find interesting! Thus the demarcation between 1.0 and 2.0!  
  
Objection: People on LessWrong are mean and I do not like them.  
  
Reply: The influx of new readers from the Yudkowsky-Yvain in-migration should make the tone on this website more upbeat and positive. Failing that, I don't know, ban the problem children, I guess. I don't know if it's poor form to declare this but I'd rather have a LessWrong Principate than a LessWrong Ruins. See also: http://lesswrong.com/lw/c1/against\_online\_pacifism/  
  
Objection: I'd prefer, for various reasons, to just let LessWrong die.  
  
Reply: Then kill it with your own hands! Don't let it lie here on the ground, bleeding out! Make a post called "The discussion thread at the end of the universe" that reads "LessWrong is over, piss off to r/SlateStarCodex", disallow new submissions, and be done with it! Let it end with dignity and bring a close to its history for good.