Tyler Emerson is a real person, but Robin Hanson has never co-authored a paper with him. Vassar was probably thinking of Are Disagreements Honest? by Robin Hanson and Tyler Cowen.
inferential
Karma: 63
The person behind this account is not at all new to the Less Wrong community. He has read all of the sequences multiple times, as well as much of the output of many non-Eliezer figures associated with or influenced by LW, and has been around for more than half the time the site has existed. Suffice it to say he knows his stuff. He used to comment and then stopped for reasons which remain unclear.
The obvious question is, why the new account, especially since I’m not trying to hide who I was? I decline to answer.
Less Wrong is important to me. Reading the sequences caused in me a serious upgrade. LW inspired a lot of meetup groups, one of which I attend every week. It’s not the group I wish I was attending, but it’s better than the alternative: none. Things fall apart. Roko exploded. Vladimir_M vanished, Yvain seceded; many others of import including Eliezer have abandoned LW. They all have their reasons, some common and others not. There are forces, it seems, driving the best away, leaving behind a smattering of dunces.
I aim to turn the tide. Nate Soares didn’t show up until 2013. Less Wrong is still at least theoretically a place that can attract good people. Less Wrong has been navel-gazing about its own demise for a long time, and the wails have gotten stronger while nothing else has. What is more, the widespread perception that “X is dead,” is a self-fulfilling prophecy. But I think it can be done, I think I can lay down a gauntlet, for myself and others, the Less Wrong Rejuvenation Project. Why do I think it can be done? Wei Dai is still here. He is my benchmark. The day he goes off to greener pastures is the day I give up.
The name refers to inferential distance, something I want myself and my audiences to keep in mind.
This is the sort of link that should have been quietly down voted and not commented upon.
I read the entire WBW series on Musk and his companies. The first three articles are very good, well-researched and thorough. The fourth is fairly generic self-help speculation that doesn’t meet the standard LW might have had.