While not doubting the accuracy of the assertion, why precisely do you believe Kurzweil isn't taken seriously anymore, and in what specific ways is this a bad thing for him/his goals/the effect it has on society?

Right, but what damage is really being done to GE? Does all the FUD stop the people who go into the science from understanding the dangers? If uFAI is popularized, the academia will pretty much be forced to seriously address the issue. Ideally, this is something we'll only need to do once; after it's known and taken seriously, the people who work on AI will be under intense pressure to ensure they're avoiding the dangers here.

Google probably already has an AI (and AI-risk) team internally that they've just had no reason to publicize their having. If uFAI becomes widely worried about, you can bet they'd make it known they were taking their own precautions.

Ask all of MIRI’s donors, all LW readers, HPMOR subscribers, friends and family etc, to forward that one document to their friends.

There has got to be enough writing by now that an effective chain mail can be written.

ETA: The chain mail suggestion isn't knocked down in luke's comment. If it's not relevant or worthy of acknowledging, please explain why.

ETA2: As annoying as some chain mail might be, it does work because it does get around. It can be a very effective method of spreading an idea.

Is "bad publicity" worse than "good publicity" here? If strong AI became a hot political topic, it would raise awareness considerably. The fiction surrounding strong AI should bias the population towards understanding it as a legitimate threat. Each political party in turn will have their own agenda, trying to attach whatever connotations they want to the issue, but if the public at large started really worrying about uFAI, that's kind of the goal here.

People also wrote unrealistic books about magicians flying through the air and scrying on each other with crystal balls. Yet we have planes and webcams.

Naturally, some of the ideas fiction holds are feasible. In order for your analogy to apply, however, we'd need a comprehensive run-down of how many and which fictional concepts have become feasible to date. I'd love to see some hard analysis across the span of human history. While I believe there is merit in nano-scale technology, I'm not holding my breath for femtoengineering. Nevertheless, if such things were as readily predictable as people seem to think, you have to ask why we don't have the technology already. The answer is that actually expressing our ideas onto physical reality is non-trivial, and by direct consequence, potentially non-viable.

The human mind is finite, and there are infinitely many possible concepts.

I need backing on both of these points. As far as I know, there isn't enough verified neuroscience to determine if our brains are conceptually limited in any way. Primarily because we don't actually know how abstract mental concepts map onto physical neurons. Even ignoring that (contrary to memetic citation) the brain does grow new neural cells and repair itself in adults, even if the number of neurons is finite, the number of and potential for connections between them is astronomical. We simply don't know the maximum conceptual complexity of the human brain.

As far as there being infinitely many concepts, "flying car" isn't terribly more complicated than "car" and "flying." Even if something in the far future is given a name other than "car," we can still grasp the concept of "transportation device," paired with any number of accessory concepts like, "cup holder," "flies," "transforms," "teleports," and so on. Maybe it's closer to a "suit" than anything we would currently call a "car;" some sort of "jetpack" or other. I'd need an expansion on "concept" before you could effectively communicate that concept-space is infinite. Countably infinite or uncountably infinite? All the formal math I'm aware of indicates that things like conceptual language are incomputable or give rise to paradoxes or some other such problem that would make "infinite" simply be inapplicable/nonsensical.

This doesn't actually counter my argument, for two main reasons:

1. That wasn't my argument.
2. That doesn't counter anything.

Please don't bother replying to me unless you're going to actually explain something. Anything else is disuseful and you know it. I want to know how you justify to yourself that LessWrong is anything but childish. If you're not willing to explain that, I'm not interested.

What, do you just ignore it?

What, and you just ignore it?

No, I suppose you'll need a fuller description to see why the similarity is relevant.

1. LessWrong is sci-fi. Check what's popular. Superintelligent AI, space travel, suspended animation, hyper-advanced nanotech...
2. These concepts straight out of sci-fi have next to zero basis. Who is to say there even are concepts that the human mind simply can't grasp? I can't visualize in n-dimensional space, but I can certainly understand the concept. Grey goo? Sounds plausible, but then again, there is zero evidence that physics can create anything like stable nanites. How fragile will the molecular bonds be? Are generation ships feasible? Is there some way to warp space to go fast enough that you don't need an entire ecosystem on board? If complex information processing nanites aren't feasible, is reanimation? These concepts aren't new, they've been around for ages. It's Magic 2.0.
3. If it's not about evidence, what is it about? I'm not denying any of these possibilities, but aside from being fun ideas, we are nowhere near close to proving them legitimate. It's not something people are believing in because "it only makes sense." It's fantasy at it's base, and if it turns out to be halfway possible, great. What if it doesn't? Is there going to be some point in the future where LessWrong lets go of these childish ideas of simulated worlds and supertechnological abilities? 100 years from now, if we don't have AI and utility fog, is LessWrong going to give up these ideas? No. Because that just means that we're closer to finally realizing the technology! Grow up already. This stuff isn't reasonable, it's just plausible, and our predictions are nothing more than mere predictions. LessWrong believes this stuff because LessWrong wants to believe in this stuff. At this moment in time, it is pure fiction.
4. If it's not rationa—No, you've stopped following along by now. It's not enough to point out that the ideas are pure fiction that humanity has dreamed about for ages. I can't make an argument within the context that it's irrational because you've heard it all before. What, do you just ignore it? Do you have an actual counter-point? Do you just shrug it off because "it's obvious" and you don't like the implications?

Seriously. Grow up. If there's a reason for me to think LessWrong isn't filled with children who like to believe in Magic 2.0, I'm certainly not seeing it.

That's true. The process does rely on finding a solution to the worst case scenario. If you're going to be crippled by fear or anxiety, probably a very bad practice to emulate.