I expect that most people (with an opinion) evaluated Yudkowsky’s ideas prior to evaluating him as a person. After all, Yudkowsky is an author, and almost all of his writing is intended to convey his ideas. His writing has a broader reach, and most of his readers have never met him. I think the linked post is evidence that omnizoid in particular evaluated Yudkowsky’s ideas first, and that he initially liked them.
It’s not clear to me what your hypothesis is. Does omnizoid have a conflict of interest? Were they offended by something? Are they lying about being a big fan for two years? Do they have some other bias?
Even if someone is motivated by an epistemic failure mode, I would still like to see the bottom line up front, so I can decide whether to read, and whether to continue reading. Hopefully the failure mode will be obvious and I can stop reading sooner. I don’t want a norm where authors have to guess whether the audience will accuse them of bias in order to decide what order to write their posts in.
I expect that most people (with an opinion) evaluated Yudkowsky’s ideas prior to evaluating him as a person. After all, Yudkowsky is an author, and almost all of his writing is intended to convey his ideas. His writing has a broader reach, and most of his readers have never met him. I think the linked post is evidence that omnizoid in particular evaluated Yudkowsky’s ideas first, and that he initially liked them.
It’s not clear to me what your hypothesis is. Does omnizoid have a conflict of interest? Were they offended by something? Are they lying about being a big fan for two years? Do they have some other bias?
Even if someone is motivated by an epistemic failure mode, I would still like to see the bottom line up front, so I can decide whether to read, and whether to continue reading. Hopefully the failure mode will be obvious and I can stop reading sooner. I don’t want a norm where authors have to guess whether the audience will accuse them of bias in order to decide what order to write their posts in.