Rationalist check-list:

  1. Incorrect use of analogy? Check.
  2. Pseudoscientific nonsense used to make your point seem more profound? Check.
  3. Tortured use of probability estimates? Check.
  4. Over-long description of a point that could just have easily been made in 1 sentence? Check.

This email by SBF is basically one big malapropism.

  • @maol
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    101 year ago

    I used to read fanfiction, and by the standards of Harry Potter fanfiction, it’s not even good fanfiction.

    (insert “Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy” joke here)

    Maybe it’s just a matter of taste, but I couldn’t get through more than a chapter. I wonder if most of the audience for it were people who didn’t normally read fanfiction. Actually, I just looked it up on fanlore to see what fandom people have said about it, and the reviews are mixed…

    “I read it longer than I planned to because I kept expecting it to turn into Harry/Draco slash […] But then I realized the author was just a weird neckbeard who had some kind of strange Draco fixation but was probably not going to make them go gay. Also it was just a really bad fic.”

    Lots of gold in there. Apparently Eliezer was bullied by a Harry Potter fan forum, to the point that some of the users set up a blog called “Methods of Rationality sucks”.

    • David GerardMA
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      101 year ago

      Apparently Eliezer was bullied by a Harry Potter fan forum, to the point that some of the users set up a blog called “Methods of Rationality sucks”.

      His reaction was where Sneerclub got its name

      • @gerikson
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        71 year ago

        That quote has always been mildly amusing but learning it’s from a fanfic beef makes it hilarious.

      • @maol
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        41 year ago

        And people gave this man money. Lots of money. My God.

      • @maol
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        31 year ago

        With the amount of lies, scams, cults and frauds that have been perpetuated in online fandoms, particularly big ones like Harry Potter, I suppose HP fans could spot a cult leader at 10 paces. They certainly had Yudkowsky’s number pretty quickly

    • @dingleberry@discuss.tchncs.de
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      61 year ago

      It’s as if /r/iamverysmart sat down to write it. So clearly it’s Eliezer self-inserting himself into a children’s book as a Jimmy Neutron wannabe and trying to pass is as a legitimate improvement.