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BrianScurfield comments on On Debates with Trolls - Less Wrong
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I had in mind myths like these:
Has anybody here said, yes, these are myths and should be retracted?
I think that's the only one with a serious problem.
I do not trust that they are accurate. Consequently I discount them when I encounter them. I am currently reading The Beginning of Infinity (which is hard to obtain in the US as it is not to be published until summer, though inexplicably I was able to buy it for the Kindle, though inexplicably my extensive highlights from the book are not showing up on my highlights page at Amazon), and trust Deutsch much more on the topic of Popper. I trust Popper still more on the topic of Popper, and I read the essay collection Objective Knowledge a few weeks ago.
I do not trust myself on the topic of Popper, which is why I will not declare these to be myths, as such a statement would presuppose that I am trustworthy.
Occasionally you make valid points and this is one of them. I agree that most of what you've quoted above is accurate. In general, Eliezer is somewhat sloppy when it comes to historical issues. Thus, I've pointed out here before problems with the use of phlogiston as an example of an unfalsifiable theory, as well as other essentially historical issues.
So we should now ask should Eliezer read any Popper? Well, I'd say he should read LScD and I've recommended Popper before to people here before (along with Kuhn and Lakatos). But there's something to note: I estimate that the chance that any regular LW reader is going to read any of Popper has gone down drastically in the last 1.5 weeks. I will let you figure out why I think that and leave it to you to figure out if that's a good thing or not.
LScD is not the correct book to read if you want to understand Popper's philosophy. C&R and OK are better choices.
What do you mean "along with" Kuhn and Lakatos? They are dissimilar to Popper.
Popper's positions aren't important as historical issues but because there is an epistemology that matters today which he explained. It's not historical sloppiness when Eliezer dismisses a rival theory using myths; it's bad scholarship in the present about the ideas themselves (even if he didn't know the right ideas, why did he attack a straw man instead of learning better ideas, improving the ideas himself, or refraining from speaking?)
BTW I emailed Eliezer years ago to let him know he had myths about Popper on his website and he chose not to fix it.
As in they are people worth reading.
You've asserted this before. So far no one here including myself has seen any reason from what you've said to think that. LScD has some interesting points but is overall wrong. I fail to see why at this point reading later books based on the same notions would be terribly helpful. Given what you've said here, my estimate that there's useful material there has gone downwards.
LScD is Popper's first major work. It is not representative. It is way more formalistic than Popper's later work. He changed on purpose and said so.
He changed his mind about some stuff from LScD; he improved on it later. LScD is written before he understood the justificationism issue nearly as well as he did later.
LScD engages with the world views of his opponents a lot. It's not oriented towards presented Popper's whole way of thinking (especially his later way of thinking, after he refined it).
The later books are not "based on the same notion". They often take a different approach: less logic, technical debate, more philosophical argument and explanation.
Since you haven't read them, you really ought to listen to experts about which Popper books are best instead of just assuming, bizarrely, that the one you read which the Popper experts don't favor is his best material. We're telling you it's not his best material; don't judge him by it. It's ridiculous to dismiss our worldview based on the books we're telling you aren't representative, while refusing to read the books we say explain what we're actually about.
I'm not dismissing your worldview based on books that aren't representative. Indeed, earlier I told you that what you were saying especially in regards to morality seemed less reasonable than what Popper said in LScD.
So you are saying that he does less of a job making his notions precise and using careful logic? Using more words and less formalism is not making more philosophical argument, it is going back to the worst parts of philosophy. I don't know what you think you think my views are, but whatever your model is of me you might want to update it or replace it if you think the above was something that would make me more inclined to read a text. Popper is clearly quite smart and clever, and there's no question that there's a lot of bad or misleading formalism in philosophy, but the general trend is pretty clear that philosophers who are willing to use formalism are more likely to have clear ideas.