I’m not sure about the premise that people are opposed to Hanson’s ideas because he said them. On the contrary, I’ve seen several people (now including you) mention that they’re fans of his ideas, and never seen anyone say that they dislike them.
My model is more that some ideas are more viral than others, some ideas have loud and enthusiastic champions, and some ideas are economically valuable. I don’t see most of Hanson’s ideas as particularly viral, don’t think he’s worked super hard to champion them, and they’re a mixed bag economically (eg prediction markets are valuable but grabby aliens aren’t).
I also believe that if someone charismatic adopts an idea then they can cause it to explode in popularity regardless of who originated it. This has happened to some degree with prediction markets. I certainly don’t think they’re held back because of the association with Hanson.
Hmm I was mainly thinking of the”redistribute sex” phrasing fiasco, slatestarcodex being contra hanson on healthcare, tyler cowen being contra hanson on the self evaluated property tax, and the brutal quote tweets. But maybe these are in fact symptoms of success and I have it partially backwards… Hmm
That case (I didn’t follow the others) seemed like it was mostly about confusion over what Hanson’s position even is. Maybe because Hanson and/or people misunderstanding him tried to compress it into short tweets.
Tyler regularly disagrees with his colleagues. If he were one of them he might think to himself “Alex is the best truth-tracker, so I should check what he thinks on the issue”, but Tyler doesn’t regard truth as something to optimize for.
I’m not sure about the premise that people are opposed to Hanson’s ideas because he said them. On the contrary, I’ve seen several people (now including you) mention that they’re fans of his ideas, and never seen anyone say that they dislike them.
My model is more that some ideas are more viral than others, some ideas have loud and enthusiastic champions, and some ideas are economically valuable. I don’t see most of Hanson’s ideas as particularly viral, don’t think he’s worked super hard to champion them, and they’re a mixed bag economically (eg prediction markets are valuable but grabby aliens aren’t).
I also believe that if someone charismatic adopts an idea then they can cause it to explode in popularity regardless of who originated it. This has happened to some degree with prediction markets. I certainly don’t think they’re held back because of the association with Hanson.
Hmm I was mainly thinking of the”redistribute sex” phrasing fiasco, slatestarcodex being contra hanson on healthcare, tyler cowen being contra hanson on the self evaluated property tax, and the brutal quote tweets. But maybe these are in fact symptoms of success and I have it partially backwards… Hmm
That case (I didn’t follow the others) seemed like it was mostly about confusion over what Hanson’s position even is. Maybe because Hanson and/or people misunderstanding him tried to compress it into short tweets.
Tyler regularly disagrees with his colleagues. If he were one of them he might think to himself “Alex is the best truth-tracker, so I should check what he thinks on the issue”, but Tyler doesn’t regard truth as something to optimize for.
Who is the new charismatic leader of prediction markets?
Not a direct answer to your question but:
One article I (easily) found on prediction markets mentions Bryan Caplan but has no mention of Hanson
There are plenty of startups promoting prediction markets: Manifold, Kalshi, Polymarket, PredictIt, etc
There was a recent article Why prediction markets aren’t popular, which gives plenty of good reasons but doesn’t mention any Hanson headwind
Scott Alexander does regular “Mantic Monday” posts on prediction markets