He has found cogent things to repeat. Big difference.
Let's stipulate that for a minute. I wasn't making any claim about novelty: I just wanted to show that non-experts are sometimes able to make points worth listening to.
I think readers here on LW might have cogent things to repeat about AGI, and I urge them to do so in those cases, even if they aren't working on the topic professionally.
able to make points worth listening to.
Make again implies creation.
Repeating cogent points is not automatically useful; an anti vaccination campaigner too can repeat some cogent things (for example it is the case that some vaccine preservatives really are toxic); the issue is in which things he chooses to repeat, and the unknown extent of cherry picking easily makes one not worth listening to (given that there is a huge number of sources to listen to).
The presentation of MWI issue is very biased and one sided. By the way, I have nothing against MWI; if...
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).