Well, I'll quibble with this claim as well:

Less Wrong is presented as a homework reading and is therefore authoritative.

I have been given homework reading (in a history class, and a class typically taken just to fulfill requirements, no less) that was not intended by the professor to be reliable, and I would expect that to be especially common in philosophy classes. Of course, I could just be wrong about that, and it may actually be rare; and regardless of whether I'm correct, the students may be new and still thinking of homework reading in general as authoritative.

Edit: I see now that a similar point has been made by other commenters who point out that this sort of bullshit tends to not be very helpful in philosophy courses, and that the students are probably still thinking in high-school mode.