Faith, Hope, and Singularity: Entering the Matrix with New York’s Futurist Set
To my knowledge LessWrong hasn't received a great deal of media coverage. So, I was surprised when I came across an article via a Facebook friend which also appeared on the cover of the New York Observer today. However, I was disappointed upon reading it, as I don't think it is an accurate reflection of the community. It certainly doesn't reflect my experience with the LW communities in Toronto and Waterloo.
I thought it would be interesting to see what the broader LessWrong community thought about this article. I think it would make for a good discussion.
Possible conversation topics:
- This article will likely reach many people that have never heard of LessWrong before. Is this a good introduction to LessWrong for those people?
- Does this article give an accurate characterization of the LessWrong community?
Edit 1: Added some clarification about my view on the article.
Edit 2: Re-added link using “nofollow” attribute.
Just read the article. I thought it was very nice! It takes us seriously, it accurately summarizes many of the things that LWers are doing and/or hope to do, and it makes us sound like we're having a lot of fun while thinking about topics that might be socially useful while not hurting or threatening anyone. How could this possibly be described as trolling? I think the OP should put the link back up -- the Observer deserves as much traffic as we can muster, I'd say.
At my middle school there was a sweet kid who had probably had pretty serious Aspergers. He was teased quite a bit but often it would take him a while to figure out that the other kids were sarcastically mocking him and not being friendly. He'd pick up on it eventually but by then he had replied the wrong way and looked stupid, leading to even more teasing.
No offense, but if you thought the article was taking us seriously you are somewhat socially tone-deaf.