Now that I’ve read the article, I do think it’s actually worth discussing.
The anchor text is critically misleading, by conflating Eric Klien with the Lifeboat Foundation; the substance of the linked article is an exposé on how Klien is basically playing the Foundation to further his neoconservative agenda.
The article is a little too well-sourced to easily blow off; notably, it includes a link to a Google-cached copy of Klien’s blog in which he says, among other things:
I have developed Lifeboat Foundation with a Trojan Horse meme that tries to wrap our goals in the Religion of Science memes.
The anchor text is critically misleading, by conflating Eric Klien with the Lifeboat Foundation;
Eric Klein is founder and president of the Lifeboat Foundation. The article does bash the foundation independently from its bashing of Eric—as follows:
It is worth adding that the Lifeboat Foundation is also spectacularly ineffectual. All it seems to do is have a discussion list where a few people argue occasionally, and a set of boards where (as far as I can see) nothing happens.
Or, looking at it another way, the Lifeboat Foundation is very effective indeed. It raises money, and it supplies a very high profile to its founder, Eric Klien. As far as I can see, that is all it has ever done.
When I read it in its entirety, the linked article didn’t really worry me with respect to secret motives. I am, though, worried about effectiveness. The tone of Klien’s post was self-indulgent and melodramatic, and I’m not sure that’s the best way to attract effective allies who can help with material gains. Anyone have more info on how effective the lifeboat foundation is at promoting existential risk mitigation?
it includes a link to a Google-cached copy of Klien’s blog in which he says, among other things:
I have developed Lifeboat Foundation with a Trojan Horse meme that tries to wrap our goals in the Religion of Science memes.
I’m not yet convinced that Klien actually wrote the Trojan horse bit. Geller says he did. But see this 2007 article from Geller’s blog in which Klien talks about “Religion of Science” but not about “Trojan horses”.
Geller leaves me totally disgusted for her hate-mongering, and Klien strikes me as a complete creep for publicly fantasizing about using nanotech to spy on women in the shower. But I don’t see any real anti-science agenda on Klien’s part.
Perhaps we should see what Geller and Klien say. Did Geller really mess with Klien’s article? It does seem strange to leave such an self-incriminating document just lying around on the internet for years.
You surely have to be nuts to write “TROJAN HORSE” on the side of your Trojan horse.
Now that I’ve read the article, I do think it’s actually worth discussing.
The anchor text is critically misleading, by conflating Eric Klien with the Lifeboat Foundation; the substance of the linked article is an exposé on how Klien is basically playing the Foundation to further his neoconservative agenda.
The article is a little too well-sourced to easily blow off; notably, it includes a link to a Google-cached copy of Klien’s blog in which he says, among other things:
Eric Klein is founder and president of the Lifeboat Foundation. The article does bash the foundation independently from its bashing of Eric—as follows:
When I read it in its entirety, the linked article didn’t really worry me with respect to secret motives. I am, though, worried about effectiveness. The tone of Klien’s post was self-indulgent and melodramatic, and I’m not sure that’s the best way to attract effective allies who can help with material gains. Anyone have more info on how effective the lifeboat foundation is at promoting existential risk mitigation?
I’m not yet convinced that Klien actually wrote the Trojan horse bit. Geller says he did. But see this 2007 article from Geller’s blog in which Klien talks about “Religion of Science” but not about “Trojan horses”.
Geller leaves me totally disgusted for her hate-mongering, and Klien strikes me as a complete creep for publicly fantasizing about using nanotech to spy on women in the shower. But I don’t see any real anti-science agenda on Klien’s part.
Perhaps we should see what Geller and Klien say. Did Geller really mess with Klien’s article? It does seem strange to leave such an self-incriminating document just lying around on the internet for years.
You surely have to be nuts to write “TROJAN HORSE” on the side of your Trojan horse.
Ah, I’d missed earlier that the blog where that was cached from wasn’t actually Klien’s website.
We already know he’s neoconservative. It’s not that much of a stretch.