Nice post, but I think even that may not go far enough. Eliezer's original post didn't distinguish carefully between gratuitous "digs" and using political examples to illustrate a point. In this thread, if the issue of the success of political commentators in making predictions is a topic perpetualpeace1 knows well, it isn't necessarily wrong for him to use it as an example.
If a substantial portion of LW readers are stopping reading when the encounter a thought on politics they dislike, might be worth confronting that problem directly.
One reason not to use political examples to illustrate a (nonpolitical) point is that it invites a lot of distracting nitpicking from those who identify with the targeted political group.
But another is that if you're trying to make a normative point to a broad audience, then alienating one subset and elevating another — for no good reason — is a losing strategy.
For instance, if you want to talk to people about improving rationality, and you use an example that revolves around some Marxists being irrational and some Georgists being rational, then a lot of t...
I blew through all of MoR in about 48 hours, and in an attempt to learn more about the science and philosophy that Harry espouses, I've been reading the sequences and Eliezer's posts on Less Wrong. Eliezer has written extensively about AI, rationality, quantum physics, singularity research, etc. I have a question: how correct has he been? Has his interpretation of quantum physics predicted any subsequently-observed phenomena? Has his understanding of cognitive science and technology allowed him to successfully anticipate the progress of AI research, or has he made any significant advances himself? Is he on the record predicting anything, either right or wrong?
Why is this important: when I read something written by Paul Krugman, I know that he has a Nobel Prize in economics, and I know that he has the best track record of any top pundit in the US in terms of making accurate predictions. Meanwhile, I know that Thomas Friedman is an idiot. Based on this track record, I believe things written by Krugman much more than I believe things written by Friedman. But if I hadn't read Friedman's writing from 2002-2006, then I wouldn't know how terribly wrong he has been, and I would be too credulous about his claims.
Similarly, reading Mike Darwin's predictions about the future of medicine was very enlightening. He was wrong about nearly everything. So now I know to distrust claims that he makes about the pace or extent of subsequent medical research.
Has Eliezer offered anything falsifiable, or put his reputation on the line in any way? "If X and Y don't happen by Z, then I have vastly overestimated the pace of AI research, or I don't understand quantum physics as well as I think I do," etc etc.