Bongo comments on Open Thread: July 2010, Part 2 - Less Wrong

6 Post author: Alicorn 09 July 2010 06:54AM

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Comment author: Bongo 10 July 2010 09:30:05PM *  12 points [-]

Heard on #lesswrong:

<a> BTW, I figured out why Eliezer looks like a cult leader to some people. It's because he has both social authority (he's a leader figure, solicits donations) and epistemological authority (he's the top expert, wrote the sequences which are considered canonical).

<a> If, for example, Wei Dai kicked Eliezer's ass at FAI theory, LW would not appear cultish

<b> This suggests that we should try to make someone else a social authority so that he doesn't have to be.

(I hope posting only a log is ok)

Comment author: Will_Newsome 16 July 2010 12:13:42AM 3 points [-]

Hopefully this provides incentive for people to kick Eliezer's ass at FAI theory. You don't want to look cultish, do you?