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mwengler comments on The Singularity Institute's Arrogance Problem - Less Wrong Discussion

63 Post author: lukeprog 18 January 2012 10:30PM

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Comment author: XiXiDu 19 January 2012 10:08:26AM *  38 points [-]

Since EY claims to be doing math, he should be posting at least a couple of papers a year on arxiv.org...

Even Greg Egan managed to copublish papers on arxiv.org :-)

ETA

Here is what John Baez thinks about Greg Egan (science fiction author):

He's incredibly smart, and whenever I work with him I feel like I'm a slacker. We wrote a paper together on numerical simulations of quantum gravity along with my friend Dan Christensen, and not only did they do all the programming, Egan was the one who figured out a great approximation to a certain high-dimensional integral that was the key thing we were studying. He also more recently came up with some very nice observations on techniques for calculating square roots, in my post with Richard Elwes on a Babylonian approximation of sqrt(2). And so on!

That's actually what academics should be saying about Eliezer Yudkowsky if it is true. How does an SF author manage to get such a reputation instead?

Comment author: mwengler 19 January 2012 03:55:49PM 4 points [-]

To be fair Eliezer gets good press from Professor Robin Hanson. This is one of the main bulwarks of my opinion of Eliezer and SIAI. (Other bulwarks include having had the distinct pleasure of meeting lukeprog at a few meetups and meeing Anna at the first meetup I ever attended. Whatever else is going on at SIAI, there is a significant amount of firepower in the rooms).

Comment author: ScottMessick 21 January 2012 11:47:14PM 5 points [-]

Yes, and isn't it interesting to note that Robin Hanson sought his own higher degrees for the express purpose of giving his smart contrarian ideas (and way of thinking) more credibility?