I’m disappointed. Essays like this are supposed to contain at least an off-hand reference to Ayn Rand somewhere.
ETA: This comment being at −1 is making me worried that people are interpreting it as something else than a hopefully uncontroversial gripe about a rhetorical style that takes cheap shots against complicated technical claims by vaguely associating them with disliked political/cultural currents.
This may simply be because he is european, I have the feeling the she is not so well known/influential on this side of the atlantic. (My only evidence is that I first heard about her on Scott Aaronson’s blog, incidentalliy where I first heard about Overcoming Bias, too.)
He’s perfectly familiar with the works of Ayn Rand—as knb says, I guess he felt that the reference to libertarians suffices to ensure that the audience understand that singularitarians aren’t the sort of people you want to be associated with.
I’m disappointed. Essays like this are supposed to contain at least an off-hand reference to Ayn Rand somewhere.
ETA: This comment being at −1 is making me worried that people are interpreting it as something else than a hopefully uncontroversial gripe about a rhetorical style that takes cheap shots against complicated technical claims by vaguely associating them with disliked political/cultural currents.
He did attack libertarianism, though. It is hard to even see this post as an argument and not a plea to not be associated with “those crazy people”.
This may simply be because he is european, I have the feeling the she is not so well known/influential on this side of the atlantic. (My only evidence is that I first heard about her on Scott Aaronson’s blog, incidentalliy where I first heard about Overcoming Bias, too.)
He’s perfectly familiar with the works of Ayn Rand—as knb says, I guess he felt that the reference to libertarians suffices to ensure that the audience understand that singularitarians aren’t the sort of people you want to be associated with.