The founders were also really well known so it was easy for them to seed the platform.
OTOH Eliezer is also quite well-known, at least in the relevant circles. For example, at my non-American university, almost everyone doing a technical subject, that I know, has heard of and usually read HPMoR (I didn’t introduce them to it). Most don’t agree with the MIRI view on AI risk (or don’t care about it...), but are broadly on board with rationalist principles and definitely do agree that science needs fixing, which is all that you need to think that something like Arbital is a Good Idea. It’s a bit of a shame that HPMoR was finished before Arbital was ready.
I’m also not entirely sure about the comparison with Wikipedia, regarding ease of creating entries vs. writing explanations — in some cases, writing a logical explanation, deriving things from first (relevant) principles is easier than writing an encyclopaedic entry, having the appropriate citations (with Wikipedia policy encouraging secondary over primary sources). Writing things well is another challenge, but that’s the case for both.
The remaining arguments are probably sufficient, in themselves, though.
I can’t open-source the platform as long as I’m doing the for-profit venture, since the platforms are too similar. However, if at some point I have to stop, then I’ll be happy to open source everything at that point.
Thanks for the fast reply!
OTOH Eliezer is also quite well-known, at least in the relevant circles. For example, at my non-American university, almost everyone doing a technical subject, that I know, has heard of and usually read HPMoR (I didn’t introduce them to it). Most don’t agree with the MIRI view on AI risk (or don’t care about it...), but are broadly on board with rationalist principles and definitely do agree that science needs fixing, which is all that you need to think that something like Arbital is a Good Idea. It’s a bit of a shame that HPMoR was finished before Arbital was ready.
I’m also not entirely sure about the comparison with Wikipedia, regarding ease of creating entries vs. writing explanations — in some cases, writing a logical explanation, deriving things from first (relevant) principles is easier than writing an encyclopaedic entry, having the appropriate citations (with Wikipedia policy encouraging secondary over primary sources). Writing things well is another challenge, but that’s the case for both.
The remaining arguments are probably sufficient, in themselves, though.
That makes sense!