I’d definitely like to have that 500 pages book in my library as reference, and give the shorter popular book as gift to friends (or my future kids?).
Only a small subset of the small group (relatively) of people who have read these blog posts as they were published will use them as reference later. Almost nobody (relatively) will be rediscovering them in a few years. That’s simply the nature of blogging. Who’s reading 3 years old BoingBoing posts right now?
I’m currently reading “Godel, Escher, Bach”, and from what I’ve read here, I think that Eliezer’s book could become something like that. Maybe not a Pulitzer (but who knows?), but certainly something special that changes the way people think.
“”Almost nobody (relatively) will be rediscovering them in a few years. That’s simply the nature of blogging. Who’s reading 3 years old BoingBoing posts right now?”″
“This is a very good point.”
I think it would be a waste, and very sad, if Eliezer had spent over a year writing enough high-quality material for a book and that material just stayed buried in Overcoming Bias’ archives, nearly forgotten in a matter of years.
For a little more effort, he can produce books that more chances of making a difference.
Tom, you say that people who are “helping” are a small group. That is true. But I don’t believe that everybody who could be convinced, who could help is already on board. Simply think about yourself; you are in now, but at some point in your life you weren’t. Something must’ve lit the fire. Imagine if back then you had seen an interesting review of Elizer’s book on Amazon and decided to check it out. I bet that would have been a great introduction.
Since that group of people is small, it means that it only takes a small number of additional people to make a relatively big difference. And besides, not everybody who’s already on board (however you define that) is thinking as clearly as Eliezer about these things. Many could learn from his book, I’m sure, and that could increase the quality of their contribution.
Another argument is that there is a chance (probably low) that the book(s) could sell a lot more than we can expect right now. Not giving that a shot when the book is almost already written would be a wasted opportunity, IMHO.