DO NOT USE YOUR REGULAR IDENTITY TO SAY ANYTHING TRULY INTERESTING ON THIS THREAD, OR ON THIS TOPIC, UNLESS YOU HAVE THOUGHT ABOUT IT FOR FIVE MINUTES.
First, regular identities can be linked to actual people. If someone talks about how they support AI and nanotech research in this specific context it could draw the attention of the group in question.
Second, people in this thread may be tempted to discuss whether there is any actual legitimacy to the viewpoints in question. In general, Less Wrong commentators are probably more oblivious than the most people about how frank discussions can lead to bad results even when they are being discussed in a highly hypothetical fashion. For example, having the SIAI associated with even marginal, theoretical support of terrorist activity in this age could lead to be bad results.
One Quirrell point to JoshuaZ for getting both of the reasons, rather than stopping after just one like jimrandomh did.
(I’m going to stop PGP signing these things, because when I did that before, it was a pain working around Markdown, and it ended up having to be in code-format mode, monospaced and not line broken correctly, which was very intrusive. A signed list of all points issued to date will be provided on request, but I will only bother if a request is actually made.)
DO NOT USE YOUR REGULAR IDENTITY TO SAY ANYTHING TRULY INTERESTING ON THIS THREAD, OR ON THIS TOPIC, UNLESS YOU HAVE THOUGHT ABOUT IT FOR FIVE MINUTES.
You’re paranoid. We’re only speculating on the motives, identity, and whereabouts of a serial killer, in a public forum. What could possibly go wrong?
In general, you would be advised not to say anything on the Internet unless you have thought about it for at least five minutes.
Why not? You just did. I’m going to post here with my name even if it does draw negative attention from a fringe group of terrorists.
Why not? (This is a serious question. I don’t know why not.)
There are two primary issues.
First, regular identities can be linked to actual people. If someone talks about how they support AI and nanotech research in this specific context it could draw the attention of the group in question.
Second, people in this thread may be tempted to discuss whether there is any actual legitimacy to the viewpoints in question. In general, Less Wrong commentators are probably more oblivious than the most people about how frank discussions can lead to bad results even when they are being discussed in a highly hypothetical fashion. For example, having the SIAI associated with even marginal, theoretical support of terrorist activity in this age could lead to be bad results.
One Quirrell point to JoshuaZ for getting both of the reasons, rather than stopping after just one like jimrandomh did.
(I’m going to stop PGP signing these things, because when I did that before, it was a pain working around Markdown, and it ended up having to be in code-format mode, monospaced and not line broken correctly, which was very intrusive. A signed list of all points issued to date will be provided on request, but I will only bother if a request is actually made.)
Heh. If a poster of one of these comments later disappears from LW for any amount of time, this might well become a local meme akin to the Bas-