Eliezer says loudly that he is a moral realist and not any sort of relativist
Yes, he loudly says he's not a relativist, but he doesn't loudly talk about realism. If you ask him whether he's a moral realist, he'll say yes, but if you ask him for a self-description, he'll say cognitivist w̶h̶i̶c̶h̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶o̶f̶t̶e̶n̶ ̶g̶r̶o̶u̶p̶e̶d̶ ̶a̶g̶a̶i̶n̶s̶t̶ ̶r̶e̶a̶l̶i̶s̶m̶. Moreover, if asked for detail, he'll say that he's an anti-realist. (though not all cognitivists are anti-realists)
Let me try that again: Eliezer loudly claims to be cognitivist. He quietly equivocates on realism. He also loudly claims not to be relativist, but practically everyone does.
cognitivist, which is often grouped against realism
Is it? That seems backwards to me: non-cognitivism is one of the main varieties of non realism. (The other being error theory.) What am I missing?
There seems to be a widespread impression that the metaethics sequence was not very successful as an explanation of Eliezer Yudkowsky's views. It even says so on the wiki. And frankly, I'm puzzled by this... hence the "apparently" in this post's title. When I read the metaethics sequence, it seemed to make perfect sense to me. I can think of a couple things that may have made me different from the average OB/LW reader in this regard: