[ExI] Eliezer S. Yudkowsky, Singularitarian Principles. Update?

[Richard Loosemore]

Ben Zaiboc wrote:
> Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com> exclaimed:
> 
>> On 11/12/2010 11:09 PM, Richard Loosemore wrote:
>>
>>> (Example:   in the context of human
>> reasoning research,
>>> he claimed comprehensive knowledge of the area but
>> then had to look in
>>> Wikipedia, in the middle of our argument, to find out
>> about one of the
>>> central figures in that field (Johnson-Laird)).
>> That *is* dismaying!
>>
> 
> 
> Hm.
> 
> I'm rather surprised to hear anyone on this list call the outsourcing of knowledge "dismaying".
> 
> What /would/ be dismaying is if he didn't know how to quickly find relevant information.

Well, yes, using Wikipedia to quickly find relevant information is a 
good thing, in general.

But that wasn't the issue.

He had been claiming to have comprehensive knowledge of the field, and 
was also claiming that his opponent was so ignorant of the field that he 
should go back and start reading the most elementary textbook on the 
subject.

Imagine a guy who starts a vitrolic argument about quantum mechanics, 
claiming to be an expert (and claiming that his opponent was a rank 
amateur), and then half way through the argument he admits that he just 
had to look up the name "Schrodinger" on Wikipedia.

And then (I know this sounds unbelievable, but this is what happened), 
imagine that he then claimed that Schrodinger was a fringe player whose 
work was not really relevant to quantum mechanics .....

I think you might agree that that would count as "dismaying".



Richard Loosemore


P.S.  In case anyone considers anything I have said in this or other 
posts to be unsubstantiated opinion, feel free to contact me and I will 
supply references to the SL4 archive.