I suspect a lot of problems came from the influx of HPMOR and FiO readers into LW without any other grounding point. Niplav thankfully avoided this wave, and I buy that the empirical circles like Ryan Greenblatt’s social circle isn’t relying on fiction, but I’m worried that a lot of non-experts are so bad epistemically speaking that they ended up essentially writing fanfic on AI doom, and forget to check whether the assumptions actually hold in reality.
This seems unlikely to me, since HPMOR peaked in popularity nearly a decade ago.
I mean, it was published between 2010 and 2015, and it’s extremely rare for fanfiction (or other kinds of online serial fiction) to be more popular after completion than while it’s in progress. I followed it while it was in progress, and am in fact one of those people who found LessWrong through it. There was definitely an observable “wave” of popularity in both my in-person and online circles (which were not, at the time, connected to the rationality community at all); I think it probably peaked in 2012 or 2013.
This seems unlikely to me, since HPMOR peaked in popularity nearly a decade ago.
Where did you get that from, exactly? I’d be a little surprised if this was right.
I mean, it was published between 2010 and 2015, and it’s extremely rare for fanfiction (or other kinds of online serial fiction) to be more popular after completion than while it’s in progress. I followed it while it was in progress, and am in fact one of those people who found LessWrong through it. There was definitely an observable “wave” of popularity in both my in-person and online circles (which were not, at the time, connected to the rationality community at all); I think it probably peaked in 2012 or 2013.
Thanks for chiming in, I remember hearing that there was an influx of HPMOR readers fairly recently.