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Oscar_Cunningham comments on LW's first job ad - Less Wrong
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Comments (94)
Um, not elementary to me. Why?
Well obviously it's either Dumbledore, Quirrel, or Glenn Beck.
Those are fake characters that are only posited for purposes of human storytelling.
Despite Glenn Beck's ability to inspire the question "Is this guy for real?", he is not a fictional character. It is however highly unlikely that he is behind the job posting.
User:JamesAndrix is likely aware that his suggestions are absurd, and most readers will be aware of this, and thus interpret his comment as a joke, made for the value of amusing absurdity rather than truth.
Oh. I only immediately recognized the first two names, so I assumed the third was another Harry Potter fake person.
I should probably add an auto-Google module.
Because Eliezer consistently overrates the value of secrecy.
Which may be simple prudence and good stewardship, when the secret in question "belongs" to someone else.
On the flip side, while I can't imagine anything bad coming out of it (it would have to be the most ridiculously inefficient scam in the history of ever), it would still make me somewhat uncomfortable to send a personal resumé and piece of writing to a completely unknown person or organisation.
An anonymous job listing triggers an entire category of red flags that a reasonable person would do well to have.
Have you never used a recruitment agency?
Direct answer: not personally, and (might be relevant) only in a non-US country. Indirect answer: recruitment agencies do not keep potential employers anonymous.
They do with their initial adverts (to prevent interested candidates from applying directly to the company and cutting them out of the deal). Obviously once you actually make contact with a potential employer you find out who they are. I imagine the same applies here.
True. This doesn't seem like it would be a concern of SIAI/Eliezer, however.
It's entirely possible that there is a finders fee. That's standard practice in my industry.
Using the readership to make money does not make this post less like spam.
Lesswrong is not a recruitment agency. Posting a job ad here is more akin to spreading word to a broad social network.
Anonymous impersonal job ads here are fairly close to spam. A post mentioning a job by an associated organisation or known individual would be far less so.
Reacting to this specific instance rather than to general principles, I think the advertised job is awesome, and I appreciate it being posted here, as it had a non-negligible chance of making my life more awesome.
Finally, I was already afraid I'm the only one to see it that way.
Though I will admit when I first read that I thought P(Elizer is messing with us) > P(Awesome job opening here).
I have no strong opinion on the appropriateness of the post. I was merely disagreeing with the claim that "An anonymous job listing triggers an entire category of red flags that a reasonable person would do well to have."
Nor do I come to think of it. I was reacting to the idea that lesswrong is free advertising for a job agency. That would be inappropriate.
I don't disagree. I do question 'elementary', particularly when it applies to telling other people what they are allowed to say. One of the reasons this is not 'elementary' is that telling people not to think, say or do something has effects that are not limited to (and don't even necessarily include) the reduction of the prohibited behaviours.
Eliezer's answer to any hotly-debated topic is remarkably often "obvious" or "elementary". (I'd elaborate, but I'm not confident I could make it not come off as an irritated rant.)
I respect that you can observe that and refrain; it's a skill not everyone has.
I hear he plans to spend time heavily studying maths once he is finished with his book. Somehow that seems appropriate... :)
No, not at all. The epistemic size of the debate about Tychonoff's theorem is many orders of magnitude smaller than the one about counterfactual mugging or torturing one vs. annoying many. Hence, while I can confidently attribute my Calculus 2 textbook's massive handwaving on the former to the author being far smarter than me (and possibly lazy), I'm a lot less inclined to be equally charitable towards Eliezer.
Your Calculus 2 textbook includes a discussion of Tychonoff's theorem?
Quirk of the Paduan university system: what Americans would call "Calculus" is treated as a part of the "[Mathematical] Analysis" course name, which very often uses the same two-part massive textbook written by a maths professor (which most people buy from older students since it's so standard) - except that applied scientists study maybe 10-15% of it to cover their MA course, which I believe more or less matches Calculus, while maths and physics students usually take MA2, MA3, MA4, and Topology 1 to finish the tome.
Ah, makes sense now. Grazie.
[off-topic]
You went to university in Padua? Are you from there? Any interesting reflections on the experience?
I was alluding to the kind of jests that are often made at the expense of mathematicians.