I agree that Luke’s post might cause some people to update too much in the direction of “the Sequences aren’t original”. He was wrong or overstated things in the couple of bullet points that I checked out (and pointed out in my earlier comment). He probably should have showed it to you for error-checking and making sure it’s being fair before posting it.
I do think having an index of related works is very valuable, for people wanting to do further readings, or figuring out exactly which parts of the Sequences are original.
So they won’t actually read the literature and find out for themselves that it’s not what they’ve already read.
I read Spohn right away, and I’m at least planning to read some of the other references. But I’m not sure how typical I am in this regard.
I do think having an index of related works is very valuable, for people wanting to do further readings, or figuring out exactly which parts of the Sequences are original.
The reader really shouldn’t have to figure it out; it’s a bit intellectually dishonest to impose that burden on the reader—to the author’s reputational benefit.
In general, Eliezer did a fairly good job of citing things that he actually was drawing from, ie he didn’t plagiarize often. Much of LukeProg’s post was simply providing references to similar or independently invented ideas in academia, which were not directly relevant and would have been somewhat inappropriate to put in the posts.
I agree that Luke’s post might cause some people to update too much in the direction of “the Sequences aren’t original”. He was wrong or overstated things in the couple of bullet points that I checked out (and pointed out in my earlier comment). He probably should have showed it to you for error-checking and making sure it’s being fair before posting it.
I do think having an index of related works is very valuable, for people wanting to do further readings, or figuring out exactly which parts of the Sequences are original.
I read Spohn right away, and I’m at least planning to read some of the other references. But I’m not sure how typical I am in this regard.
The reader really shouldn’t have to figure it out; it’s a bit intellectually dishonest to impose that burden on the reader—to the author’s reputational benefit.
In general, Eliezer did a fairly good job of citing things that he actually was drawing from, ie he didn’t plagiarize often. Much of LukeProg’s post was simply providing references to similar or independently invented ideas in academia, which were not directly relevant and would have been somewhat inappropriate to put in the posts.