As I understand it, you’re updating against his recommendations of a product by his friends being strong evidence that the company won’t later go out of business. This seems fine to me.
I’m saying that his endorsement of the product seems eminently reasonable to me, that it was indeed life-changing for him on a level that very few products ever are, and that in general with that kind of information about a product, I don’t think he made any errors of judgment, and acted pro-socially.
I will continue to take his product advice strongly, but I will not expect that just because a company is run by rationalists or that Eliezer endorses the product, that this is especially strong evidence that they will succeed on the business fundamentals.
I think you were mistaken to call it a “ding on his track record” because he did not endorse investing in the company, he endorsed using the product, and this seems like the right epistemic state to me. From the evidence I have about MetaMed, I would really want to have access to their product.
As an example, if he’d written a post called “Great Investment Opportunity: MetaMed” this would be a ding on his track record. Instead he wrote a post called “MetaMed: Evidence-Based Healthcare”, and this seems accurate and to be a positive sign about his track record of product-recommendations.
As I understand it, you’re updating against his recommendations of a product by his friends being strong evidence that the company won’t later go out of business. This seems fine to me.
I’m saying that his endorsement of the product seems eminently reasonable to me, that it was indeed life-changing for him on a level that very few products ever are, and that in general with that kind of information about a product, I don’t think he made any errors of judgment, and acted pro-socially.
I will continue to take his product advice strongly, but I will not expect that just because a company is run by rationalists or that Eliezer endorses the product, that this is especially strong evidence that they will succeed on the business fundamentals.
I think you were mistaken to call it a “ding on his track record” because he did not endorse investing in the company, he endorsed using the product, and this seems like the right epistemic state to me. From the evidence I have about MetaMed, I would really want to have access to their product.
As an example, if he’d written a post called “Great Investment Opportunity: MetaMed” this would be a ding on his track record. Instead he wrote a post called “MetaMed: Evidence-Based Healthcare”, and this seems accurate and to be a positive sign about his track record of product-recommendations.