Tyler Emerson is a real person, but Robin Hanson has never co-authored a paper with him. Vassar was probably thinking of Are Disagreements Honest? by Robin Hanson and Tyler Cowen.
In 2004, Michael Vassar gave the following talk about how humans can reduce existential risk, titled Memes and Rational Decisions, to some transhumanists. It is well-written and gives actionable advice, much of which is unfamiliar to the contemporary Less Wrong zeitgeist.
... (read 2967 more words →)Although transhumanism is not a religion, advocating as it does the critical analysis of any position; it does have certain characteristics which may lead to its identification as such by concerned skeptics. I am sure that everyone here has had to deal with this difficulty, and as it is a cause of perplexity for me I would appreciate it if anyone who has some suggested guidelines for interacting honestly with non-transhumanists share
The person behind this account is not at all new to the Less Wrong community. He has read all of the sequences multiple times, as well as much of the output of many non-Eliezer figures associated with or influenced by LW, and has been around for more than half the time the site has existed. Suffice it to say he knows his stuff. He used to comment and then stopped for reasons which remain unclear.
The obvious question is, why the new account, especially since I'm not trying to hide who I was? I decline to answer.
Less Wrong is important to me. Reading the sequences caused in me a serious upgrade. LW inspired... (read more)
This is the sort of link that should have been quietly down voted and not commented upon.
I read the entire WBW series on Musk and his companies. The first three articles are very good, well-researched and thorough. The fourth is fairly generic self-help speculation that doesn't meet the standard LW might have had.