I do disagree. LessWrong isn’t the mouthpiece of SIAI, that would be the SIAI blog. I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect top-level posts on LessWrong to represent the SIAI’s views, and even less to expect that of discussion posts, comments and voting patterns.
There may be a fair amount of SIAI-oriented posts by Eliezer or others on LessWrong, but I don’t see that as using LessWrong as a platform, but rather “the SIAI talking to LessWrong people”.
LessWrong may be The SIAI’s most popular advertisement platform, but that’s because the quality of Eliezer’s writings and the community attract more audience than the SIAI website does.
Eliezer needs nerds for the SIAI; instead of going through the effort of hunting nerds in the wild, he created LessWrong in the hope of having a self-sustained place where nerds like to hang out and are already familiar with his ideas. But LessWrong isn’t supposed to represent the SIAI, apart from the fact that it was shaped with the features that make it a good hunting ground for the kind of nerds Eliezer needs. A lot of features required for having a functional internet community (moderation, karma, openness) have nothing to do with the SIAI’s goals themselves.
I’m rambling a bit, but I still think that LessWrong is the wrong place to come to complain about things you don’t like about SIAI. Information flow is mostly SIAI → LessWrong. And also the issues of “what the SIAI should do to reach it’s goals” is very different from “What features should LessWrong have to be a valuable community”.
I still think that LessWrong is the wrong place to come to complain about things you don’t like about SIAI.
I don’t necessarily agree but I will do you all a favor and from now on send any criticism directly to the SIAI, via e-Mail or otherwise. Except someone else starts a discussion about the SIAI here, in which case I might post a comment.
I do disagree. LessWrong isn’t the mouthpiece of SIAI, that would be the SIAI blog. I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect top-level posts on LessWrong to represent the SIAI’s views, and even less to expect that of discussion posts, comments and voting patterns.
There may be a fair amount of SIAI-oriented posts by Eliezer or others on LessWrong, but I don’t see that as using LessWrong as a platform, but rather “the SIAI talking to LessWrong people”.
LessWrong may be The SIAI’s most popular advertisement platform, but that’s because the quality of Eliezer’s writings and the community attract more audience than the SIAI website does.
Eliezer needs nerds for the SIAI; instead of going through the effort of hunting nerds in the wild, he created LessWrong in the hope of having a self-sustained place where nerds like to hang out and are already familiar with his ideas. But LessWrong isn’t supposed to represent the SIAI, apart from the fact that it was shaped with the features that make it a good hunting ground for the kind of nerds Eliezer needs. A lot of features required for having a functional internet community (moderation, karma, openness) have nothing to do with the SIAI’s goals themselves.
I’m rambling a bit, but I still think that LessWrong is the wrong place to come to complain about things you don’t like about SIAI. Information flow is mostly SIAI → LessWrong. And also the issues of “what the SIAI should do to reach it’s goals” is very different from “What features should LessWrong have to be a valuable community”.
I don’t necessarily agree but I will do you all a favor and from now on send any criticism directly to the SIAI, via e-Mail or otherwise. Except someone else starts a discussion about the SIAI here, in which case I might post a comment.
You’re correct.
Relevant LW post.