Too provincial. The Singularity isn't important because thinking about it clearly and doing something to make it come out well were things SI/LW were involved in early on and this is a feather in our cap that speaks well for our "rationality" and may speak well for others if "they" agree with "us"... because the really interesting things aren't the particular current players, but where the game is headed.

SI/LW were and are important to the degree that they are an educated and good faith source of optimization pressure on the outcome of the singularity. Think of a sort of consequentialist litany... If it brings about better aggregate time-integrated outcomes for mainstream audiences to take the singularity seriously then I want mainstream audiences to take the singularity seriously. If it brings about worse aggregate time-integrated outcomes for mainstream audiences to take the singularity seriously then I do not want mainstream audiences to take the singularity seriously.

The real question is how and when contact with "real politics" will affect the trajectory and outcome of the singularity. If "serious" attention is predicted by sound methods to have bad consequences, the people involved could start wearing clown noses and talking about geek rapture (or whatever). If "serious" attention were good the people involved could do otherwise.

I suspect (but am not sure) that part of why Eliezer has been doing the Harry Potter schtick is to hold off seriousness for as long as possible. In the creation of this community he's shown himself to have interesting levels of socio-political foresight. You don't need to be face-to-face with someone to "aumann update" on their apparent conclusions.

Not much to almost any of these except possibly the last. Singularity related ideas are getting a lot more press than they did a few years ago especially through a Kurzweillian lens. Kurzweil's book was a best seller.