I'm increasingly impressed by the power of Zach Wiener's comic to demonstrate in a few images why hard problems are hard. It would be a vast task, but perhaps it would be useful to create an index of such problem-demonstrating comics to add to the Wiki, giving us something to point newbies at which would be less intimidating than formal Sequence postings. I get the impression that a common hurdle is just to get people to accept that problems of AI (and simulation, ethics, what have you) are actually difficult.
Weiner talks about things that may make other people bitter and so those other people may expect him to be bitter because he acknowledges those bad things. Instead I see Weiner see the world as it is, exaggerate it for the sake of satire and then delight in it. You don't need rose coloured glasses to be content.