I agree with 'more testing and evidence, please', but you often come across as adversarial and I think that generally makes it harder for you to convince the people you want to convince.
Well, I hope they're not relying on "Silas is a meanie" as their intellectual "covering fire" for not substantiating this claim. And it's not that I want more testing and evidence, I just want to see what they think proves its success.
As an aside, remember that the minicamp was a relatively unplanned event; it came about because SIAI had extra time and space.
True, but I wouldn't be asking for any of this if leaders didn't try to paint it afterwards as a major success. If they want to take a risky venture, fine. If they want to play, "I meant to do that", let's see what it accomplished.
I'm not talking about 'covering fire'. If your goal is to win an argument or appear righteous, then your strategy is alright. If your goal is to actually get SIAI to change their behavior, then your language is hurting your cause. You want to make it as easy as possible for them to change their behavior, and it's psychologically much easier to do something because an ally asks than because an adversary asks.
You have seen evidence: both Guy (link) and I (link) posted 'lessons learned' for the minicamp. You are right to say this is not especially strong evid...
Singularity Institute desperately needs someone who is not me who can write cognitive-science-based material. Someone smart, energetic, able to speak to popular audiences, and with an excellent command of the science. If you’ve been reading Less Wrong for the last few months, you probably just thought the same thing I did: “SIAI should hire Lukeprog!” To support Luke Muelhauser becoming a full-time Singularity Institute employee, please donate and mention Luke (e.g. “Yay for Luke!”) in the check memo or the comment field of your donation - or if you donate by a method that doesn’t allow you to leave a comment, tell Louie Helm (louie@intelligence.org) your donation was to help fund Luke.
Note that the Summer Challenge that doubles all donations will run until August 31st. (We're currently at $31,000 of $125,000.)
During his stint as a Singularity Institute Visiting Fellow, Luke has already:
As a full-time Singularity Institute employee, Luke could:
If you’d like to help us fund Luke Muehlhauser to do all that and probably more, please donate now and include the word “Luke” in the comment field. And if you donate before August 31st, your donation will be doubled as part of the 2011 Summer Singularity Challenge.