ADDED: Please go meta, folks. I am not trying to argue about this specific Wiki article. I am not asking for redress. Specifics about this wiki article are irrelevant. I am asking whether this is still a benevolent dictatorship.
I cannot fathom how you could possibly think this was a practical direction to move your attack. I honestly expected you to quickly backpedal from the ownership challenge and into a more productive method of bringing attention to the group selection issue and making Eliezer look silly. But now you seem to be escalating in a direction that can only end badly.
You had the potential for having a minor moral victory while influencing people about the contentious issue that has your interest. But you’re throwing it all away!
Who owns the domain?
Who created the Wiki?
Who owns the code?
Who pays for the servers?
You left off “Who cares?” Eliezer’s practical power over the website itself is not in question. If there was (another) shift of power and control at the SIAI and people there really cared then it could in theory be wrested from him. It is also conceivable that lax legal precautions could allow technical folks like, say, Tricycle to pull a defection. But this is all meaningless. What you should be interested in is the lesswrong community, which is ephemeral, social and not subject to absolute control by legal powers.
I might be stepping in over my head here, and I want to make it clear I am taking NO ONE’S side. But this seems like a legitimate concern to me. Are we really here for the community, or are we really here for the truth? Which configuration of power best serves the community, and which best serves truth?
EDIT: Given the vast amount of very clear thinking I’m seeing in these comments, I want to say I don’t really see this thread as the most appropriate place to pose a question like mine anymore. If I see a real Truth vs.Community controversy, you can expect this comment to appear there.
I cannot fathom how you could possibly think this was a practical direction to move your attack. I honestly expected you to quickly backpedal from the ownership challenge and into a more productive method of bringing attention to the group selection issue and making Eliezer look silly. But now you seem to be escalating in a direction that can only end badly.
You had the potential for having a minor moral victory while influencing people about the contentious issue that has your interest. But you’re throwing it all away!
You left off “Who cares?” Eliezer’s practical power over the website itself is not in question. If there was (another) shift of power and control at the SIAI and people there really cared then it could in theory be wrested from him. It is also conceivable that lax legal precautions could allow technical folks like, say, Tricycle to pull a defection. But this is all meaningless. What you should be interested in is the lesswrong community, which is ephemeral, social and not subject to absolute control by legal powers.
I might be stepping in over my head here, and I want to make it clear I am taking NO ONE’S side. But this seems like a legitimate concern to me. Are we really here for the community, or are we really here for the truth? Which configuration of power best serves the community, and which best serves truth?
EDIT: Given the vast amount of very clear thinking I’m seeing in these comments, I want to say I don’t really see this thread as the most appropriate place to pose a question like mine anymore. If I see a real Truth vs.Community controversy, you can expect this comment to appear there.