Eliezer is an incredible case of hero-worship—it’s become the norm to just link to jargon he created as though it’s enough to settle an argument.
I think that you misunderstand why people link to things.
If someone didn’t get why I feel morally obligated to help people who live in distant countries, I would likely link them to Singer’s drowning child thought experiment. Either during my explanation of how I feel, or in lieu of one if I were busy.
This is not because I hero-worship Singer. This is not because I think his posts are scripture. This is because I broadly agree with the specific thing he said which I am linking, and he put it well, and he put it first, and there isn’t a lot of point of duplicating that effort. If after reading you disagree, that’s fine, I can be convinced. The argument can continue as long as it doesn’t continue for reasons that are soundly refuted in the thing I just linked.
I link people to things pretty frequently in casual conversation. A lot of the time, I link them to something posted to the EA Forum or LessWrong. A lot of the time, it’s something written by Eliezer Yudkowsky. This isn’t because I hero-worship him, or that I think linking to something he said settles an argument—it’s because I broadly agree with the specific thing I’m linking and don’t see the point of duplicating effort. If after reading you disagree, that’s fine, I can be convinced. The argument can continue as long as it doesn’t continue for reasons that are soundly refuted in the thing I just linked.
There are a ton of people who I’d like to link to as frequently as I do Eliezer. But Eliezer wrote in short easily-digested essays, on the internet instead of as chapters in a paper book or pdf. He’s easy to link to, so he gets linked.
There’s a world of difference between the link-phrases ‘here’s an argument about why you should do x’ and ‘do x’. Only Eliezer seems to regularly merit the latter.
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/LvwihGYgFEzjGDhBt/?commentId=x5zqnevWR8MQHqqvd—link to Duncan Sabien, “I care about the lives we can save if we don’t rush to conclusions, rush to anger, if we can give each other the benefit of the doubt for five freaking minutes and consider whether it’d make any sense whatsoever for the accusation de jour to be what it looks like,” seems pretty darn ‘do x’-y. I don’t necessarily stand behind how strongly I came on there, I was in a pretty foul mood.
I think that mostly, this is just how people talk.
I am not making the stronger claim that there are zero people who hero-worship Eliezer Yudkowsky.
I think that you misunderstand why people link to things.
If someone didn’t get why I feel morally obligated to help people who live in distant countries, I would likely link them to Singer’s drowning child thought experiment. Either during my explanation of how I feel, or in lieu of one if I were busy.
This is not because I hero-worship Singer. This is not because I think his posts are scripture. This is because I broadly agree with the specific thing he said which I am linking, and he put it well, and he put it first, and there isn’t a lot of point of duplicating that effort. If after reading you disagree, that’s fine, I can be convinced. The argument can continue as long as it doesn’t continue for reasons that are soundly refuted in the thing I just linked.
I link people to things pretty frequently in casual conversation. A lot of the time, I link them to something posted to the EA Forum or LessWrong. A lot of the time, it’s something written by Eliezer Yudkowsky. This isn’t because I hero-worship him, or that I think linking to something he said settles an argument—it’s because I broadly agree with the specific thing I’m linking and don’t see the point of duplicating effort. If after reading you disagree, that’s fine, I can be convinced. The argument can continue as long as it doesn’t continue for reasons that are soundly refuted in the thing I just linked.
There are a ton of people who I’d like to link to as frequently as I do Eliezer. But Eliezer wrote in short easily-digested essays, on the internet instead of as chapters in a paper book or pdf. He’s easy to link to, so he gets linked.
There’s a world of difference between the link-phrases ‘here’s an argument about why you should do x’ and ‘do x’. Only Eliezer seems to regularly merit the latter.
Here are the last four things I remember seeing linked as supporting evidence in casual conversation on the EA forum, in no particular order:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/LvwihGYgFEzjGDhBt/?commentId=HebnLpj2pqyctd72F—link to Scott Alexander, “We have to stop it with the pointless infighting or it’s all we will end up doing,” is ‘do x’-y if anything is. (It also sounds like a perfectly reasonable thing to say and a perfectly reasonable way to say it.)
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/LvwihGYgFEzjGDhBt/?commentId=SCfBodrdQYZBA6RBy—separate links to Scott Alexander and Eliezer Yudkowsky, neither of which seem very ‘do x’-y to me.
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/irhgjSgvocfrwnzRz/?commentId=NF9YQfrDGPcH6wYCb—link to Scott Alexander, seems somewhat though not extremely ‘do x’-y to me. Also seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to say and I stand by saying it.
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/LvwihGYgFEzjGDhBt/?commentId=x5zqnevWR8MQHqqvd—link to Duncan Sabien, “I care about the lives we can save if we don’t rush to conclusions, rush to anger, if we can give each other the benefit of the doubt for five freaking minutes and consider whether it’d make any sense whatsoever for the accusation de jour to be what it looks like,” seems pretty darn ‘do x’-y. I don’t necessarily stand behind how strongly I came on there, I was in a pretty foul mood.
I think that mostly, this is just how people talk.
I am not making the stronger claim that there are zero people who hero-worship Eliezer Yudkowsky.