I'll state my own experience and perception, since it seems to be different from that of others, as evidenced in both the post and the comments. Take it for what it's worth; maybe it's rare enough to be disregarded.

The first time I heard about SIAI -- which was possibly the first time I had heard the word "singularity" in the technological sense -- was whenever I first looked at the "About" page on Overcoming Bias, sometime in late 2006 or early 2007, where it was listed as Eliezer Yudkowsky's employer. To make this story short, the whole reason I became interested in this topic in the first place was because I was impressed by EY -- specifically his writings on rationality on OB (now known as the Sequences here on LW). Now of course most of those ideas were hardly original with him (indeed many times I had the feeling he was stating the obvious, albeit in a refreshing, enjoyable way) but the fact that he was able to write them down in such a clear, systematic, and readable fashion showed that he understood them thoroughly. This was clearly somebody who knew how to think.

Now, when someone has made that kind of demonstration of rationality, I just don't have much problem listening to whatever they have to say, regardless of how "outlandish" it may seem in the context of most human discourse. Maybe I'm exceptional in this respect, but I've never been under the impression that only "normal-sounding" things can be true or important. At any rate, I've certainly never been under that impression to such an extent that I would be willing to dismiss claims made by the author of The Simple Truth and A Technical Explanation of a Technical Explanation, someone who understands things like the gene-centered view of evolution and why MWI exemplifies rather than violates Occam's Razor, in the context of his own professional vocation!

I really don't understand what the difference is between me and the "smart people" that you (and XiXiDu) know. In fact maybe they should be more inclined to listen to EY and SIAI; after all, they probably grew up reading science fiction, in households where mild existential risks like global warming were taken seriously. Are they just not as smart as me? Am I unusually susceptible to following leaders and joining cults? (Don't think so.) Do I simply have an unusual personality that makes me willing to listen to strange-sounding claims? (But why wouldn't they as well, if they're "smart"?)

Why can't they just read the darn sequences and pick up on the fact that these people are worth listening to?