The only point I feel the need to contest is “EY admits he is libertarian”. What I remember is EY admitting that he was previously libertarian, then stopped.
Well, and “EY is a high school dropout with no peer reviewed articles”, not because it’s untrue, but because neither of those is all that important.
The rest is sound criticism, so far as I can tell.
I started my career as a libertarian, and gradually became less political as I realized that (a) my opinions would end up making no difference to policy and (b) I had other fish to fry. My current concern is simply with the rationality of the disputants, not with their issues—I think I have something new to say about rationality.
It could be interpreted as Eliezer no longer being libertarian, but also as Eliezer remaining libertarian, just moving more meta and focusing on more winnable topics.
“EY is a high school dropout with no peer reviewed articles”, not because it’s untrue, but because neither of those is all that important.
Sure, but why does it feel (I mean, at least to the author) as important? I guess it is heuristics “if you are not a scientist, and you speak a lot about science, you got it wrong”. Which may be generally correct, if people obsessed with science usually become either scientists or pseudoscientists.
The rest is sound criticism, so far as I can tell.
The part about Julia didn’t sound fair to me—but perhaps you should see the original, not my interpretation. It starts at 8:50.
Otherwise, yes, he has some good points, he is just very selective about the evidence he considers. I was most impressed by the part about Holden’s non-criticism. (More meta, I wonder how he would interpret this agreement with his criticism. Possibly as something unimportant, or something that a cult would do to try appear non-cultish.)
The only point I feel the need to contest is “EY admits he is libertarian”. What I remember is EY admitting that he was previously libertarian, then stopped.
Well, and “EY is a high school dropout with no peer reviewed articles”, not because it’s untrue, but because neither of those is all that important.
The rest is sound criticism, so far as I can tell.
Here is a comment (from 2007) about it:
It could be interpreted as Eliezer no longer being libertarian, but also as Eliezer remaining libertarian, just moving more meta and focusing on more winnable topics.
Sure, but why does it feel (I mean, at least to the author) as important? I guess it is heuristics “if you are not a scientist, and you speak a lot about science, you got it wrong”. Which may be generally correct, if people obsessed with science usually become either scientists or pseudoscientists.
The part about Julia didn’t sound fair to me—but perhaps you should see the original, not my interpretation. It starts at 8:50.
Otherwise, yes, he has some good points, he is just very selective about the evidence he considers. I was most impressed by the part about Holden’s non-criticism. (More meta, I wonder how he would interpret this agreement with his criticism. Possibly as something unimportant, or something that a cult would do to try appear non-cultish.)
In 2011, he describes himself as a “a very small-‘l’ libertarian” in this essay at Cato Unbound.