I don’t believe a Q&A is necessarily cultish—you could perfectly well ask questions to elucidate points on which you believe Eliezer to be confused, not just to gain more opinions to clone—but I have to say I’m out as well.
I agree that the way this post is written is kinda cultish (MichaelGR, wake up!), but the idea of interviews isn’t at all. On the other hand, such things should be cleared with the interviewee first.
Wake up from what? Guess I should’ve added a disclaimer about some parts of this being tongue-in-cheek to avoid the “cultish” accusations… I thought it was pretty transparent, but I guess nothing is obvious on the internet.
Anyway, I think Eliezer has a lot of interesting things to say and the BHTV episodes have left me on my appetite.
What’s cultish about wanting to set up a Q&A (something that Slashdot, Digg, etc have been doing for a long time)?
My mistake was probably to carry assumptions I have about other online communities to Less Wrong, where the rules are different. I guess next time I’ll just write:
“Anyone interested in doing a Q&A? If so, I suggest we find someone to interview and then rank questions by voting.”
I’m definitely out—the idea feels too cultish. But if many people want to participate, go ahead.
Give me a break.
I don’t believe a Q&A is necessarily cultish—you could perfectly well ask questions to elucidate points on which you believe Eliezer to be confused, not just to gain more opinions to clone—but I have to say I’m out as well.
I agree that the way this post is written is kinda cultish (MichaelGR, wake up!), but the idea of interviews isn’t at all. On the other hand, such things should be cleared with the interviewee first.
Wake up from what? Guess I should’ve added a disclaimer about some parts of this being tongue-in-cheek to avoid the “cultish” accusations… I thought it was pretty transparent, but I guess nothing is obvious on the internet.
Anyway, I think Eliezer has a lot of interesting things to say and the BHTV episodes have left me on my appetite.
What’s cultish about wanting to set up a Q&A (something that Slashdot, Digg, etc have been doing for a long time)?
That was covered by the “idea of interviews isn’t [cultish] at all”, while tongue-in-cheek part obviously didn’t register.
My mistake was probably to carry assumptions I have about other online communities to Less Wrong, where the rules are different. I guess next time I’ll just write:
“Anyone interested in doing a Q&A? If so, I suggest we find someone to interview and then rank questions by voting.”