He used to be a frequent commenter on Overcoming Bias before Hanson and Yudkowsky split blogs, and he clearly dazzled readers with his refined brand of contrarianism. I wasn’t around to watch, but his comments are occasionally seen under 2007-2008 posts, and later on too. His handle there is/was simply Mencius, search for it.
That matches my (extremely vague) memories much better. I was reading OB back before Yudkowsky created this site. Some of the OB posts and their comments were transferred here, but I didn’t remember Mencius/Yarvin commenting, let alone posting, here too.
Before my time. He was banned years ago.
I’ve been here for years tho and I don’t remember him ever posting, or even commenting.
How do you know he was here or banned?
Querying the search feature for “Mencius”, it looks like he commented exactly once in November 2007. (On Overcoming Bias, the account and comment having been ported over in the transition to lesswrong.com.) Best wishes, Less Wrong Reference Desk.
It seems like I might have misremembered the details:
Maybe edit the footnote in the post to clarify that Mencius was discussed on and commented at OB before LW ‘split off’?
Updated.
That matches my (extremely vague) memories much better. I was reading OB back before Yudkowsky created this site. Some of the OB posts and their comments were transferred here, but I didn’t remember Mencius/Yarvin commenting, let alone posting, here too.