I agree with HK that SIAI is not one of the best charities currently out there. I also agree with him that UFAI is a threat, and getting FAI is very difficult. I do not agree with HK's views on "tools" as opposed to "agents", primarily because I do not understand them fully. However I am fairly confident that if I did understand them I would disagree. I currently send all my charitable donations to AMF, but am open to starting to support SIAI when I see them publish more (peer-reviewed) material.
I believe SIAI believes it needs to present its arguments better because 1) many SIAI critics say things that indicate misunderstandings or miscommunication and 2) Lukeprog has not written up descriptions of all his relevant beliefs.
I was wondering - what fraction of people here agree with Holden's advice regarding donations, and his arguments? What fraction assumes there is a good chance he is essentially correct? What fraction finds it necessary to determine whenever Holden is essentially correct in his assessment, before working on counter argumentation, acknowledging that such investigation should be able to result in dissolution or suspension of SI?
It would seem to me, from the response, that the chosen course of action is to try to improve the presentation of the argument, rather than to try to verify truth values of the assertions (with the non-negligible likelihood of assertions being found false instead). This strikes me as very odd stance.
Ultimately: why SI seems certain that it has badly presented some valid reasoning, rather than tried to present some invalid reasoning?
edit: I am interested in knowing why people agree/disagree with Holden, and what likehood they give to him being essentially correct, rather than a number or a ratio (that would be subject to selection bias).