said on #lesswrong
00:18 BTW, I figured out why Eliezer looks like a cult leader to some people. It’s because he has both social authority (he’s a leader figure, solicits donations) and an epistemological authority (he’s the top expert, and wrote the sequences which are considered canonical).
00:18 If, for example, Wei Dai kicked Eliezer’s ass at FAI theory, LW would not appear cultish
00:18 This suggests that we should try to make someone else a social authority so that he doesn’t have to be.
said on #lesswrong 00:18 BTW, I figured out why Eliezer looks like a cult leader to some people. It’s because he has both social authority (he’s a leader figure, solicits donations) and an epistemological authority (he’s the top expert, and wrote the sequences which are considered canonical). 00:18 If, for example, Wei Dai kicked Eliezer’s ass at FAI theory, LW would not appear cultish 00:18 This suggests that we should try to make someone else a social authority so that he doesn’t have to be.
(I hope posting only a log is okay)