Comment by kraf

4 days ago

When I think of rationalist blog posts, I think LessWrong and ACX. There is probably more to know. Across 46,000 posts on LW the average word length is 1,300 words as of May 2026. That doesn't seem too bad.

Regarding the varying degree of quality I wanted to note that this is a public forum where anyone is allowed to create an account and post public articles. Anyone is allowed to call themselves a "rationalist" if they want to. I wonder if most who read articles there and post occasionally do label themselves though. I know some who don't.

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kraf

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tumdum_  4 days ago

What about average word length of ACX posts?

  • kraf  4 days ago

    Much longer I'm sure, but that's a single author with occasional guest posts. The guest posts are mostly thorough book reviews AFAIK at the moment.

    Personally I think the length is often justified by the attention to detail but I must admit I only read some of the classics and a few recent posts when they caught my interest. I even scroll past certain paragraphs if I'm uninterested but I don't mind then being there.

    It's also such a mix of things over there. What OP mentioned in particular looked to me like original investigative journalism and those kind of undertakings often enough result in whole books.