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ciphergoth comments on That other kind of status - Less Wrong
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Eliezer has said that "it seems pretty obvious to me that some point in the not-too-distant future we're going to build an AI [...] it will be a superintelligence relative to us [...] in one to ten decades and probably on the lower side of that." ---- http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/21857
The vast majority of very smart and accomplished people (e.g. Nobel prize winners in sciences, Fields medalists, founders of large tech corporations) do not subscribe to the view that the "singularity is near." This raises a strong possibility that people like Eliezer who think that it's pretty obvious that "the singularity is near" are deluded for the same reason that the 9-11 Truthers are. As Yvain says, it's a boost to one's self esteem to feel that one has "figured out a deep and important secret that the rest of the world is too complacent to realize."
Has there been any discussion of this matter in the Less Wrong archives?
Most unpopular beliefs are false. However, if everyone subscribed to strict majoritarianism and never took up unpopular beliefs, intellectual progress would cease completely. There must come a point at which cost we pay in wasted effort because of false unpopular beliefs is worth the payoff in progress through new ideas, which of course all start off unpopular. So while I'd like 9-11 truthers to see the error of their beliefs, I'd like to achieve that through argument based on fact, rather than through simply pointing out that everyone disagrees with them.
Also, of course, strict majoritarianism is self-defeating, since it's a pretty unpopular stance in itself.
People could (at least in principle) entertain and advocate for unpopular beliefs without actually believing them. (I think Robin Hanson wrote a post about this in the early days of OB.)
Yep.