JoshuaZ comments on Why is Mencius Moldbug so popular on Less Wrong? [Answer: He's not.] - Less Wrong

9 Post author: arborealhominid 16 November 2012 06:37PM

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Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 17 November 2012 07:52:39PM 27 points [-]

Politics mindkilled him; he cannot separate the normative and the descriptive.

Comment author: David_Gerard 18 November 2012 11:43:07AM 11 points [-]

And his inability to say anything in less than a zillion words. He can't get started in less than a thousand.

In general, life is too short to spend it working out what Moldbug's actual substantive point is.

Comment author: [deleted] 18 November 2012 01:05:44PM *  7 points [-]

This is in part a strategy to keep out the wrong contrarian cluster. But yes reading say Vladimir_M is a better use of time. Moldbug does have some very good essays though.

Comment author: David_Gerard 18 November 2012 02:32:39PM *  8 points [-]

That sounds very like using the reader's sunk cost fallacy as a marketing move.

I did like Moldbug's essay on the problem with academic computer science, and his rants on computer technology in general. I get more of a sense he knows what he's talking about, rather than pontificating as an interested amateur. (Even when I think he's wrong, it seems a more informed wrong.) It could just be greater subject interest on my part, of course.