I believe he could do much more than censoring certain ideas, namely show that they are bogus.
I’m not a big fan of Eliezer, but that complaint strikes me as completely unfair. There is far less censorship here than at a typical moderated blog. And EY does expend some effort showing that various ideas are bogus.
I’m not an insider, or even old-timer, but I have reason to believe that the one single forbidden subject here is censored not because it is believed to be valid or bogus, nor because it casts a bad light on EY and SIAI, but rather because discussing it does no good and may do some harm—something a bit like a ban on certain kinds of racist offensive speech, but different.
And in any case, the “forbidden idea” can always be discussed elsewhere, assuming you can even find anyone that can become interested in the idea elsewhere. The reach of EY’s “censorship” is very limited.
I’m not a big fan of Eliezer, but that complaint strikes me as completely unfair. There is far less censorship here than at a typical moderated blog. And EY does expend some effort showing that various ideas are bogus.
I’m not an insider, or even old-timer, but I have reason to believe that the one single forbidden subject here is censored not because it is believed to be valid or bogus, nor because it casts a bad light on EY and SIAI, but rather because discussing it does no good and may do some harm—something a bit like a ban on certain kinds of racist offensive speech, but different.
And in any case, the “forbidden idea” can always be discussed elsewhere, assuming you can even find anyone that can become interested in the idea elsewhere. The reach of EY’s “censorship” is very limited.