I have news for you. The rest of the world considers the community surrounding Eliezer Yudkowsky to be a quasi-cult comprised mostly of people who brainwash each other into thinking they are smart, rational, etc., but who are in fact quite ignorant of a lot of technical facts, and incapable of discussing anything in an intelligent, coherent, rational manner.
[citation needed]
In all seriousness, as far as I know, almost no one in the world-at-large even knows about the Less Wrong community. Whenever I mention “Less Wrong” to someone, the reaction I get is “What are you talking about?” So I’m not sure how the rest of the world logically could have an opinion about Eliezer Yudkowsky, or people who believe the same things as him.
If you really want to convince people whom you believe are in a cult that Eliezer Yudkowsky is a deluded lunatic, you shouldn’t make false assertions without evidence, or true statements worded in a way that could easily be interpreted as conveying something fairly obviously false.
As for me personally, if Eliezer is a deluded lunatic, then I am a deluded lunatic, and I would like to know that as soon as possible if that is the case. If you were mistaken, and Eliezer knew what he was talking about, would you prefer to know the same, and publicly retract your previously statements? If that happened, and you did, I know I for one would congratulate you publicly.
[citation needed]
In all seriousness, as far as I know, almost no one in the world-at-large even knows about the Less Wrong community. Whenever I mention “Less Wrong” to someone, the reaction I get is “What are you talking about?” So I’m not sure how the rest of the world logically could have an opinion about Eliezer Yudkowsky, or people who believe the same things as him.
If you really want to convince people whom you believe are in a cult that Eliezer Yudkowsky is a deluded lunatic, you shouldn’t make false assertions without evidence, or true statements worded in a way that could easily be interpreted as conveying something fairly obviously false.
As for me personally, if Eliezer is a deluded lunatic, then I am a deluded lunatic, and I would like to know that as soon as possible if that is the case. If you were mistaken, and Eliezer knew what he was talking about, would you prefer to know the same, and publicly retract your previously statements? If that happened, and you did, I know I for one would congratulate you publicly.