I didn't get this impression from the article. I'm sure that some people read it as taking the moral superiority of our age for granted simply because they can't imagine that someone smart and respectable could do otherwise. However, this seems like a very superficial and careless reading -- the article clearly takes a dig at this feeling of superiority, claiming that it's due to the same cognitive strategy that would have lead people in past ages to align with the prevailing values of their time. It doesn't seem to me that the majority, let alone everyone, could have read it so negligently; the OB/LW audience is normally better than that.
read it as taking the moral superiority of our age for granted ... this seems like a very superficial and careless reading
I think it's an accurate reading. I think based on Eliezer's other writings, he believes that, while modern morality is wrong on many points, on those issues where modern and ancient morality differ, it's generally because moderns understand things that ancients did not.
Today's post, Archimedes's Chronophone was originally published on March 23, 2007. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):
This post is part of the Rerunning the Sequences series, where we'll be going through Eliezer Yudkowsky's old posts in order so that people who are interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was Useless Medical Disclaimers, and you can use the sequence_reruns tag or rss feed to follow the rest of the series.
Sequence reruns are a community-driven effort. You can participate by re-reading the sequence post, discussing it here, posting the next day's sequence reruns post, or summarizing forthcoming articles on the wiki. Go here for more details, or to have meta discussions about the Rerunning the Sequences series.