I doubt it will much improve anyone's rationality. It does nicely illustrate a few issues on how science is done, and could be a fun way of explaining for the layman.

Well, I'll stick up for OB and Hanson.

Hanson posts about interesting things in a droll way. That's intentional, I believe: sometimes he seems to be trying to get a rise out of people, but most of the time he's trying to reduce emotional reactions to his posts.

He's really, really invested in ideas like evolution: simple theories that explain lots of different phenomena. This is why we get lots and lots of posts about signaling, near/far, and farmers/foragers. He thinks that these explain far more than people currently give them credit, so he's trying to expand their influence. If this seems boring, let me just point at that Hanson has provided or advertised:

1) Probably the best explanation for why medical expenditures in the US grow faster than health outcomes.

1.a) What I consider the best post on any blog about what economists can say about health care reform

2) An explanation for traditional scifi aesthetics

3) Why dumbed-down arguments work better in politics

4) An ev/psych hypothesis for left/right political divide

5) An ev/psych hypothesis for the appeal of adventure novels and video game settings

6) Problems with the business world and how to fix them (and why they won't be fixed)

7) The dark side of cooperation

He's also interested in experimentation and clever solutions to social problems. Hence,

1) A fantastic (but probably politically unworkable) way to solve the problem of CEO value.

2) Futarchy, of course. I doubt it would be very efficient on a large scale because of target/noise problems, but on a local government scale I think it could be amazing.

3) Other numerous applications he's come up with or advertised: solving standardization/focal point problems (like blu-ray vs hdvd), solving which movie scripts to fund, etc.

If you have seen much of this expressed better elsewhere, consider the value of originating an idea vs. explaining in different words. A lot of the LW community was around for the OB days when Eliezer and Robin blogged together and many of us have absorbed insights from both of them. And these are all just memorable posts from the top of my head. Digging for them, I found many more interesting posts.

Those political posts that seem like trolling seem to me about questioning our moral instincts, which are often very bad. I appreciate a seemingly bizarre hypothesis over another self-congratulation about why X moral theory confirms what we all already believe anyway, hooray.

Compound interest gains most of its power when large amounts have been saved. So if you don't make much money, compound interest simply won't make you rich, you won't be able to save enough (though you can still have a decent retirement). If you make a lot, it doesn't matter as much anyway. If you're middle class and willing to save half your income, then it might make you rich, but that is a painful 30-40 years. Explore the graphs and savings calculator here for examples of what you would need to do to have a million by 60.

"If you type 'AI destroyed' right now, you'll be wasting a good opportunity for a fun conversation. You'll still have 'won' if you do it later, and nobody will be impressed with you for just typing 'AI destroyed' immediately, so why not wait?"

I thought of what would work on me, were I playing the game with someone I found interesting. In general, I'd say your best bet is to make the other person laugh hard.

Most people don't usually make these kinds of elaborate things up. Prior probability for that hypothesis is low, even if it might be higher for Tuxedage than it would be for an average person. People do actually try the AI box experiment, and we had a big thread about people potentially volunteering to do it a while back, so prior information suggests that LWers do want to participate in these experiments. Since extraordinary claims are extraordinary evidence (within limits), Tuxedage telling this story is good enough evidence that it really happened.

But on a separate note, I'm not sure the prior probability for this being a lie would necessarily be higher just because Tuxedage has some incentive to lie. If it is found out to be a lie, the cause of FAI might be significantly hurt ("they're a bunch of nutters who lie to advance their silly religious cause"). Folks on Rational Wiki watch this site for things like that, so Tuxedage also has some incentive to not lie. Also more than one person has to be involved in this lie, giving a complexity penalty. I suppose the only story detail that needs to be a lie to advance FAI is "I almost won," but then why not choose "I won"?

What are "sufficiently huge stakes," out of curiosity?

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/01/extraordinary_c.html

I think it's almost certain that one "could," just given how much more time an AI has to think than a human does. Whether it's likely is a harder question. (I still think the answer is yes.)

Have you tried landing on them with shift+g instead of flying into them? If so, I got nothing. They render for me, if slowly.