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mwengler comments on Glenn Beck discusses the Singularity, cites SI researchers - Less Wrong
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The concept of the correct amount of hostility is an interesting one to me. My post doesn't seem all that hostile to me, but I don't have many friends, maybe this is why.
Irregardless of hostility, necessary or unnecessary, in the original post I could see no indication of any reason to question Beck's editorial control over the chapter as quoted other than a distaste for being on the same team as Beck. It could just be me (which of course doesn't read on whether I'm correct or not) but I can't imagine such a comment questioning the authorship of a chapter like this if it had come from someone that isn't on the side of the "culture wars" that Beck is on.
I suppose I knew I was going to get negative karma from this post and considered not posting it for that reason, but you know, fuck it. I think its funny that essentially irrational motivations to form hypotheses about authorship are not more karma-objectionable than, more or less, laughing at the irrationality, the self-serving status self-justification of such plausibly (but not) rational objections.
Hint:
is freaking hostile.
Again, yli didn't (as far as I can tell) question Beck's editorial control over the chapter. He/she questioned Beck's authorship of the chapter, and it is entirely reasonable to do this. It's hardly unheard of for popular media figures to hire ghostwriters; in fact, I suspect it is the norm. I saw an interview of Rachel Maddow promoting her new book where she made a point of stressing that she had written it herself, an odd thing to bring up unless there is an expectation otherwise. Beck is a very busy man. It's implausible that he would have the time to sit down and write the 14 books that have come out under his name over the last 10 years.
I think speculation as to the actual author of the above is entirely vacuous. There is a person out there named Glenn Beck who has a job in radio. There is also a personality out there named Glenn Beck who says extreme things and writes lots of books and cries on TV a lot. The Glenn Beck person and the Glenn Beck personality might be the same, or they might not be. I've seen no evidence toward either conclusion, more importantly there doesn't seem to be any functional difference.
So, when someone says that the above is attributed to Glenn Beck they mean the Glenn Beck persona. Whether or not the human being who pressed the keys that caused that quote to exist had "Glenn Beck" printed on his license is unknown, but also entirely irrelevant. The one reasonable concern is that the Glenn Beck person didn't write it, so he will be more likely to shift the mind of the Glenn Beck persona. But, if this is your concern then you should just express it simply and completely "This is atypical of the Glenn Beck persona. I hope it doesn't change its mind about this" and leave it at that.