I just did a search for "liberating minds" in Google and this forum came up third; the first two results were for a book called "Liberating Minds: The Stories and Professional Lives of Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Librarians and Their Advocates." Now that is a niche market!

I then did searches for "philosophy forum" and "philosophy forum online" and LM was not in the first three pages of each search (I didn't check result pages beyond the third). Neither was FDR, and I would have guessed that it would be a result for "philosophy forum."

What might be a search query that would find us? And how do we want to be found? Lastly, how do we go about making the terms we want to find us work to find us in Google?

I have no need to be found. I'm not lost.

- NonE

I enjoy most of the people and conversations on LM. I would not have known any of you or experienced any of these discussions if I hadn't found LM. I didn't even know LM existed when I was invited here. I would like to expand LM - I would like more like-minded people participating, more conversations from which I can learn about myself. I have invited a few people, but I think only one has joined. I don't think personal invitations to LM are very common, but if they are, LM's growth is not significant because of them. Perhaps if people had a way to learn about LM they might come and check it out, and even stay and participate. Advertising LM's URL in my email signatures and in my signature on my posts in other forums is one way to let people know about LM. Another way would be Google. There are surely other ways.

Even though you are not lost, I am. I am not trying to be found (well, I am trying to find myself), but I am trying to get LM found so that even more wonderful ideas and conversations exist to participate in.

wow, we should try to team up with the gay, lesbian and bisexual librarians... just think: what could we not achieve with our combined forces?

i think the main thing with Google is the nr. of links to the site from other sites and apart from the Lewrockwell.com article and the various places where it has been re-posted, and apart from some mentions on FDR, there are very few links to LM.

that imo need not be a bad thing. I don't envision LM as some sort of huge forum, but rather as a sort of think tank where interesting and high-quality and varied research and discussions are going on and are being produced. The forum currently is good in its own right but also instrumental in slowly developing such a think tank like organization.

so to me the next step is branching out by making videos or podcasts (presenting ideas, hosting discussions about interesting topics, doing interviews, and other stuff), producing papers, going to conferences, and so on.

naturally LM will never be able to 'compete' with e.g. the Mises Institute and we don't have to at all. Part of the think tanky idea for LM imo is by being sort of a portal to other think tanks and institutes such as mises.org & lewrockwell.com, but also for example to sites or organizations of startups, research in other fields (philosophy, Wittgenstein, cognitive therapy, etc.), developments in IT, and so on

the function of LM then would be to be sort of a one-stop kind of site where interesting ideas in all sorts of areas (though obviously not conflicting ones: no links to an organization devoted to say socialism) are discussed and linked to.

that way it is not too labor-intensive, allows for wide range of discussion, constitutes sort of like a Bildungs thing where LM links to excellent research in the most important intellectual fields and thus provides you with sort of an all-round education...

I'll stop now. do the abov ideas seem too cranky or ambituous/megalomanical?

To make a slightly less smartassed remark... , I think that there is an optimal size for a community. I'm not saying what that is, I just know that more members often equate with declining quality. Diversity can sometimes be a benefit, but may also be a detriment in that it takes small resources (my brain) and spreads them so thinly that the electrons can no longer find their protons, or something like that.

I'm not saying I don't want more people, I'm just saying that the goal should not be more people. The goal should be the quality of the conversation.

- NonE

totally agreed!

I don't know, ever since I started studying philosophy I've had this vague ideal of having some place where the great intellectual traditions in all sorts of areas, philosophy, psychology, economics, political philosophy, art, religion/mythology/spirituality, etc. 'come together' and where the best schools of these traditions are presented and, in a small non-reductionist way, unified...

again, that would make it sort of the homepage of an allround education process with the best of what the intellectual world has to offer, and that's pretty damn cool

for some time I thought FDR might be able to approximate this ideal, but that was before Stef went bat. shit. insane.

Hey, I'm with you Conrad. I like the idea of a real home on the net, with a (for me small) family of like-minded truth-seekers. I mean, with that idea in mind I feel like I could really unpack my bags and move in, instead of feeling a little like I'm visiting someone else's coffeehouse.

I also like the idea of attempting to provide one-stop shopping for those seeking an intellectual education.

Its sort of a romantic idea of the old 'schools' I've read about, where great creative or analytic minds interacted and invented whole new disciplines, just for having occupied the same space together with a few common things in mind.

Its kind of what I want my blog(s) to be like, but I never quite have gotten it organized. A little hard to have a school of one, so that makes sense.

The thing about FDR is that its always been seen by Stef as a place to discuss his ideas, not a place to discuss ideas in general. Y'know, like a real-time feedback system. So he sees his disciples as merely being voluntary disseminators so that more people can have questions answered, etc..

I don't see anything fundamentally wrong with that model, just that I didn't realize that's what the FDR boards were about until later in the day. I just assumed it was a place for people to discuss relevant ideas, since that what it was explicitly saying about itself. But if it had been explicitly labeled as 'Customer Support' for Stef's podcasts, I would have left too early. So its a good thing in a twisted sort of way.

For me LiMi is already the ideal size. I need to really get to know people to unwind fully. But bigger wouldn't be horrible either.

As to article-writing and the like, I feel only at the beginning stages of knowledge. I'm not comfortable disseminating ideas when I'm not done thinkin' 'em yet.

Heh. I hurry! I hurry! Many bags in the car, but it will be a big feast when I get them all to the kitchen and start the cooking!

"Liberating Minds: The Stories and Professional Lives of Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Librarians and Their Advocates."
Wow, those cliches about librarians were actually true.

I like Google Chrome, but god it hates LiMi.