... That is blatantly false. There is overwhelming evidence that Eliezer could make a lot of money in other ways.
You vastly underestimate what it takes to make a lot of money. That he was lucky to get everything right in this one case doesn't mean he would be able to to do it in any other case.
The combination of strategic competence, the ability to make a lot of people to get excited about your work and the ability to persuade others to give you money are a recipe for success just about anywhere.
I don't see that. Lady Gaga wouldn't have been able to make a lot of money if she couldn't sing and looked really ugly. The success of Kurzweil is due to a broad spectrum of skills that Yudkowsky or Lady Gaga lack.
You vastly underestimate what it takes to make a lot of money. That he was lucky to get everything right in this one case doesn't mean he would be able to to do it in any other case.
Getting everything right in the actual observed case certainly constitutes evidence of capability.
Making *the amount of money you are talking about here" isn't hard. It is hard to make a 'lot' of money only when 'lot' corresponds to a whole heap more than this kind of small change. Intelligence, determination, hard work and persuassiveness are more than enough to make t...
I just watched Transcendent Man about the singularity and Ray Kurzweil in particular. It's well-made, full-length, and includes the most popular criticisms of Kurzweil: that his prediction timeframes are driven by his own hope for immortality, that the timescale of his other predictions are too optimistic, that his predictions about the social outcomes of revolutionary technology are naively optimistic, and so on. Ben Goertzel and others get much face time.
You can rent or buy it on iTunes.