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Antisuji comments on Cult impressions of Less Wrong/Singularity Institute - Less Wrong
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Ya know, if LW and SIAI are serious about optimizing appearances, they might consider hiring a Communications professional. PR is a serious skill and there are people who do it for a living. Those people tend to be on the far end of the spectrum of what we call neurotypical here. That is, they are extremely good at modeling other people, and therefore predicting how other people will react to a sample of copy. I would not be surprised if literally no one who reads LW regularly could do the job adequately.
Edit to add: it's nice to see that they're attempting to do this, but again, LW readership is probably the wrong place to look for this kind of expertise.
People who do this for a living (effectively) cost a lot of money. Given the budget of SIAI putting a communications professional on the payroll at market rates represents a big investment. Transitioning a charity to a state where a large amount of income goes into improving perception (and so securing more income) is a step not undertaken lightly.
It's at least plausible that a lot of the people who can be good for SIAI would be put off more by professional marketing than by science fiction-flavored weirdness.
That's a good point. I'm guessing though that there's a lot of low hanging fruit, e.g. a front page redesign, that would represent a more modest (and one-time) expense than hiring a full-time flack. In addition to costing less this would go a long way to mitigate concerns of corruption. Let's use the Pareto Principle to our advantage!