I didn't get the premise, no. I got that it was before a lot of physics was known, didn't know they didn't know calculus either. 
Just stating it plainly and clearly at the start would have been good. Even with that premise, I still find it very annoying. I despise the refusal to speak clearly, the way it's constantly dancing around the bush, not saying the actual point, to me this is pretty obviously because the actual point is a nothing burger(because the analogy is bad) and by dancing around it, the text is trying to distract me and convince me of the point before I realize how dumb it is. 

Why the analogy is bad: rocket flights can be tested and simulated much more easily than a superintelligence, with a lot less risk

Analogies are by nature lossy, this one is especially so. 

personally, I found how Beth just kept saying 'not really' and not saying the actual physics very very annoying. 

Yup, I think research that studies the effect of recommendation algorithms on the brain, from various social media platforms and compares them to the effects of narcotics, would be extremely useful. 
I think we're really really lacking in decent legislation for recommendation algorithms atm - at the absolute bare minimum, platforms which use very addictive algorithms should have some kind of warning label informing users of the possibility of addiction - similarly to cigarettes - so that parents know clearly what might happen to their children. 
This is going to be even more important as things like character.ai grow. 

rather than this, there should just be a better karma system, imo. 
one way to improve it - have the voting buttons for comments be on the opposite side of the username

This is very useful, thank you. 
Something that might be interesting to add at the end of surveys such as these:
"How much has this survey changed your mind on things?" - sometimes just being asked a question about something can change your mind on it, would be interesting to see if it happens and how much so.

Clickbait still works here, just with a different language. 

Cons: Humans are opaque. Even from our inside view, it is very difficult to understand how they work, and very hard to modify. They are also the most difficult to talk about rigorously. There is also the failure mode of anthropomorphizing badly and attributing arbitrary properties of humans (and especially human goals) to AGI.

I don't think it's really correct to say that humans are opaque from an inside view, especially for people with high empathy. People who understand themselves well and have high empathy can very consistently predict and understand others.

Pretty much all of those reasons - what it's missing is that nicotine itself may also be a carcinogen- at least, it has the ability to be one: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10311-023-01668-1 
Although there aren't enough isolated studies done on nicotine in a long period to be conclusive: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5020336/ 
Some reviews disagree: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26380225/ 
 

I strongly advise against taking nicotine.

Eliezer is extremely skilled at capturing attention. One of the best I've seen, outside of presidents and some VCs.
However, as far as I've seen, he's terrible at getting people to do what he wants. 
Which means that he has a tendency to attract people to a topic he thinks is important but they never do what he thinks should be done- which seems to lead to a feeling of despondence. 
This is where he really differs from those VCs and presidents- they're usually far more balanced.

For an example of an absolute genius in getting people to do what he wants, see Sam Altman.