To give you some context: I just registered this account after lurking for a time and reading much of the sequences.

I saw Eliezer's Bayes' Theorem article about four years ago, read it, learned some, and moved on. A year ago I came upon a link in a forum poster's signature to HPMoR which I got into immediately (I had heard of it once before, but dismissed it as "fan fiction") and then ended up here. The point where I knew I would stay was the quantum mechanics article which was a hundred times more insightful than any of the popular science treatments of it I had read before.

I had been reading similar ideas, presented much more casually, in places such as the webcomic Dresden Codak. Particularly in the very humorous article at the bottom of this page, I have used this article a couple of times to try to introduce friends to the ideas of the singularity. This short story was another that got me truly interested in topics of a similar nature to the singularity. This short story is another good way to introduce people to some unusual thinking. For a Bayes's theorem introduction, this New Scientist piece was the first time it really clicked for me.