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HughRistik comments on Should I believe what the SIAI claims? - Less Wrong
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If so... is that request bad?
If you are running a program where you are trying to convince people on a large scale, then you need to be able to provide overviews of what you are saying at various levels of resolution. Getting annoyed (at one of your own donors!) for such a request is not a way to win.
Edit: At the time, Eliezer didn't realize that XiXiDu was a donor.
I don't begrudge SIAI at all for using Less Wrong as a platform for increasing its donor base, but I can definitely see myself getting annoyed sooner or later, if SIAI donors keep posting low-quality comments or posts, and then expecting special treatment for being a donor. You can ask Eliezer to not get annoyed, but is it fair to expect all the other LW regulars to do the same as well?
I'm not sure what the solution is to this problem, but I'm hoping that somebody is thinking about it.
Me too. The reason I upvoted this post was because I hoped it would stimulate higher quality discussion (whether complimentary, critical, or both) of SIAI in the future. I've been hoping to see such a discussion on LW for a while to help me think through some things.
In other words, you see XiXiDu's post as the defector in the Asch experiment who chooses C when the group chooses B but the right answer is A?
To be fair, I don't think XiXiDu expected special treatment for being a donor; he didn't even mention it until Eliezer basically claimed that he was being insincere about his interest. (EDIT: Thanks to Wei Dai, I see he did mention it. No comment on motivations, then.)
I think that Eliezer's statement is not an expression of a desire to give donors special treatment in general; it's a reflection of the fact that, knowing Xi is a donor and proven supporter of SIAI, he then ought to give Xi's criticism of SIAI more credit for being sincere and worth addressing somehow. If Xi were talking about anything else, it wouldn't be relevant.
He mentioned it earlier in a comment reply to Eliezer, and then again in the post itself: