Dave: Behaving as though objective scientific facts exist has made it possible for me to ... I am therefore content to continue behaving as though objective scientific facts exist.
I can construct a very similar argument for Christianity (or for most any religion, actually).
Usefulness of beliefs and verity of beliefs are not orthogonal but are not 100% correlated either.
I can construct a very similar argument for Christianity
That's surprising, but if you can, please do. If behaving as though the beliefs of Christianity are objective facts reliably and differentially provides benefits on a par with the kinds of scientific beliefs we're discussing here, I am equally willing to endorse behaving as though the beliefs of Christianity are objective facts.
Usefulness of beliefs and verity of beliefs are not orthogonal but are not 100% correlated either.
Sure, I agree.
There seems to be a widespread impression that the metaethics sequence was not very successful as an explanation of Eliezer Yudkowsky's views. It even says so on the wiki. And frankly, I'm puzzled by this... hence the "apparently" in this post's title. When I read the metaethics sequence, it seemed to make perfect sense to me. I can think of a couple things that may have made me different from the average OB/LW reader in this regard: