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A Map That Reflects the Territory: Essays by the Lesswrong Community
This is a collection of our best essays from 2018, as determined by our 2018 Review. It contains over 40 redesigned graphs, packaged into a beautiful set of 5 books with each book small enough to fit in your pocket.
Featuring essays from 24 authors including Eliezer Yudkowsky, Scott Alexander and Wei Dai, as well as comment sections and shorter interludes from even more.
This book set is one of the best introductions to the latest thinking of the rationality community. It is a whirlwind tour through topics ranging from art to AI, introspection to integrity, software to social science, and beyond.
Overall, A Map that Reflects the Territory promises an intellectual adventure that is both inviting and challenging, for anyone curious about the art of thinking clearly.
They can be appreciated without any previous LessWrong experience.
Featuring essays from 24 authors including Eliezer Yudkowsky, Scott Alexander and Wei Dai, as well as comment sections and shorter interludes from even more.
This book set is one of the best introductions to the latest thinking of the rationality community. It is a whirlwind tour through topics ranging from art to AI, introspection to integrity, software to social science, and beyond.
Overall, A Map that Reflects the Territory promises an intellectual adventure that is both inviting and challenging, for anyone curious about the art of thinking clearly.
They can be appreciated without any previous LessWrong experience.
- GenresPhilosophy
720 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2020
17 people are currently reading
146 people want to read
About the author
LessWrong
3 books9 followersLessWrong is an online forum and community dedicated to improving human reasoning and decision-making. We seek to hold true beliefs and to be effective at accomplishing our goals. Each day, we aim to be less wrong about the world than the day before.
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Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 28, 2023
This is the first collection of best essays of 2018 from the LessWrong.com community which centers on rationality/EA topics. I also bought the collections of 2019 and 2020 (I think they didn't print after 2020 or I couldn't find it). Mostly I wanted to support the community, but also I'm glad to have an opportunity to read some of the best essays without really searching for it. I liked the format, it's very small books ideally fit in my purse so I could have it with me everywhere. But because the books are small, the font is hilariously small as well (just be ready!).
The books itself very diverse, I rate it one by one:
Epistemology - 4/5, I loved Babble&Prune essays, honestly most of the works here are good.
Agency - 4/5, quite interesting, without a lot of math or too many words for the simple ideas.
Curiosity - 3/5, okayish, can't really remember anything outstanding.
Alignment - 2/5, most of the book was about an argument between Yudkowsky and Christiano, it made me feel like if I unexpectedly walked into a room where the parents were fighting. Really I didn't want to read this.
Coordination - 3/5, okayish.
I think my main problem with many essays is that sometimes it feels like they have a competition who can use the most amount of words to explain the idea. Because otherwise I cannot explain why some of the authors mulling over and over and over and over and over the simplest concept that could have been explained with 2 phrases.
The books itself very diverse, I rate it one by one:
Epistemology - 4/5, I loved Babble&Prune essays, honestly most of the works here are good.
Agency - 4/5, quite interesting, without a lot of math or too many words for the simple ideas.
Curiosity - 3/5, okayish, can't really remember anything outstanding.
Alignment - 2/5, most of the book was about an argument between Yudkowsky and Christiano, it made me feel like if I unexpectedly walked into a room where the parents were fighting. Really I didn't want to read this.
Coordination - 3/5, okayish.
I think my main problem with many essays is that sometimes it feels like they have a competition who can use the most amount of words to explain the idea. Because otherwise I cannot explain why some of the authors mulling over and over and over and over and over the simplest concept that could have been explained with 2 phrases.
December 30, 2022
A collection of essays from the LessWrong wrong community; an internet clubhouse and blog for certain EA/rationalist/SF types.
2 stars for content. 3 stars for the snazzy printing and small formfactor, can carry around in your jeans pocket all day.
My advice: if you're looking for a taste of this community, and want a print format, skip this collection entirely and head straight to the Slate Star Codex Volume I by Scott Alexander.
About LessWrong
LW started in 2009 anchored around posts by Eliezer Yudkowsky, a popular emerging AI researcher and computer scientist, and grew from there. Scott Alexander cut his teeth at LW before launching his own SlateStarCodex blog which became a cult hit and pulled a lot of the community and attention away from LW starting around 2014.
About this book
The author/curator here took the 40 most-popular essays/posts from the LW 2018 archives, and packaged them up as a set of print books. Would have been much stronger and more compelling as a "best of the decade" set; taking the top 40 posts from around only ~100 isn't much of a filter, and 2o18 is past the prime of LW era.
Epistemology --> Loose.
Agency --> Mostly about truth, honesty. A lot of "hiding someone from the gestappo" thought experiments.
Curiosity --> All over the board, not much of a shared thread or theme.
Alignment --> AI safety, dry
Coordination --> The best of the set. Start here.
2 stars for content. 3 stars for the snazzy printing and small formfactor, can carry around in your jeans pocket all day.
My advice: if you're looking for a taste of this community, and want a print format, skip this collection entirely and head straight to the Slate Star Codex Volume I by Scott Alexander.
About LessWrong
LW started in 2009 anchored around posts by Eliezer Yudkowsky, a popular emerging AI researcher and computer scientist, and grew from there. Scott Alexander cut his teeth at LW before launching his own SlateStarCodex blog which became a cult hit and pulled a lot of the community and attention away from LW starting around 2014.
About this book
The author/curator here took the 40 most-popular essays/posts from the LW 2018 archives, and packaged them up as a set of print books. Would have been much stronger and more compelling as a "best of the decade" set; taking the top 40 posts from around only ~100 isn't much of a filter, and 2o18 is past the prime of LW era.
Epistemology --> Loose.
Agency --> Mostly about truth, honesty. A lot of "hiding someone from the gestappo" thought experiments.
Curiosity --> All over the board, not much of a shared thread or theme.
Alignment --> AI safety, dry
Coordination --> The best of the set. Start here.
May 17, 2021
A collection of essays from LessWrong.org from 2019. I think you are better off going to Less Wrong and reading the essays that you want. I liked some of articles, some were complete off my interests. Also, the font size in the books is terribly small so they are fairly hard to read.
September 19, 2022
One of the best compilation of blog posts I have read. The book is amazing.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews