Dale’s blog apparently doesn’t have many readers, judging by how few comments his posts have. But I find it interesting because he has uncritically bought into the Enlightenment’s wishful thinking about democracy, equality, human fungibility and so forth, while he dismisses “robot cultism” as a competitive utopianism based on other people’s fantasies he doesn’t share.
I find it very useful to have posts like these as an emotional counter to the echo chamber effect. Obviously this has little or no effect on the average LW reader’s factual standpoint, but reminds us both of the heuristical absurdity of our ideas, and how much we have left to accomplish.
More because I think his assessment of the effects and motivations of libertarianism-in-practice and the ideological and mythological underpinnings of singulatarianism are more often than not spot on, and the name calling based on that is just funny. Other posts on the blog I tend not to notice.
Dale’s blog may have low readership, but it’s worth noting that H+ magazine, a prominent transhumanist news source which has reported favorably on Superintelligence in the past, ran a very similar story recently.
Dale’s blog apparently doesn’t have many readers, judging by how few comments his posts have. But I find it interesting because he has uncritically bought into the Enlightenment’s wishful thinking about democracy, equality, human fungibility and so forth, while he dismisses “robot cultism” as a competitive utopianism based on other people’s fantasies he doesn’t share.
I find it very useful to have posts like these as an emotional counter to the echo chamber effect. Obviously this has little or no effect on the average LW reader’s factual standpoint, but reminds us both of the heuristical absurdity of our ideas, and how much we have left to accomplish.
I don’t think LW’s ideas are heuristically absurd. If you look at the comments on the CNET article, people seem pretty evenly divided for and against.
(Criticism is still very valuable though.)
I, for one, love that guy’s blog.
Because you’re a connoisseur of insipid name-calling and delirious political grandstanding on non-political issues?
More because I think his assessment of the effects and motivations of libertarianism-in-practice and the ideological and mythological underpinnings of singulatarianism are more often than not spot on, and the name calling based on that is just funny. Other posts on the blog I tend not to notice.
Dale’s blog may have low readership, but it’s worth noting that H+ magazine, a prominent transhumanist news source which has reported favorably on Superintelligence in the past, ran a very similar story recently.
It takes years of study to write as poorly as he does.