I commented on the blog, but will reproduce my comment here too since maybe not everyone will click the link.
I suspect that some of the negative reaction was from a combination of (1) the methodology being flimsy and (2) the subject matter being somewhat controversial. Out there in the non-EA world, billionaires are extremely controversial. I suspect some of the people who read your post thought there’s a cost in seeming to approve of billionaires and as a consequence that, if we do want to state our approval of them, we should better be sure that we’re right.
I commented on the blog, but will reproduce my comment here too since maybe not everyone will click the link.
I suspect that some of the negative reaction was from a combination of (1) the methodology being flimsy and (2) the subject matter being somewhat controversial. Out there in the non-EA world, billionaires are extremely controversial. I suspect some of the people who read your post thought there’s a cost in seeming to approve of billionaires and as a consequence that, if we do want to state our approval of them, we should better be sure that we’re right.