> The very introduction of that post has multiple links showing how much the SMTM post was spreading through the rationalist community with little question.
By "multiple links" you're referring to the same "two posts". Again, they weren't as popular, nor were they as uncritical as you describe. From Yudkowsky's post, for example:
> If you know about the actual epidemiology of obesity and how ridiculous it makes the gluttony theory look, you are still probably saying "Wait, lithium?" This is still mostly my own reaction, honestly.... If some weird person wants to go investigate, I think money should be thrown at them, both to check the low-probability massive-high-value gamble
Yudkowsky's argument is emphatically not that the lithium claim is true. He was merely advocating for someone to fund a study. He explicitly describes the claim as "low-probability", and advocates on the basis of a (admittedly clearly subjective) expected-value calculation.
> One of the links is a Eliezer Yudkowsky blog praising the work
That does not constitute "praise" of the work. Yudkowsky only praised the fact that someone was bucking the trend of
> almost nobody is investigating it in a way that takes the epidemiological facts seriously and elevates those above moralistic gluttony theories
.
> Pretending that this theory didn't grip the rationalist community all the way to top bloggers like Yudkowsky and Scott Alexander is revisionist history.
By "multiple links" you're referring to the same "two posts". Again, they weren't as popular, nor were they as uncritical as you describe. From Yudkowsky's post, for example:
> If you know about the actual epidemiology of obesity and how ridiculous it makes the gluttony theory look, you are still probably saying "Wait, lithium?" This is still mostly my own reaction, honestly.... If some weird person wants to go investigate, I think money should be thrown at them, both to check the low-probability massive-high-value gamble
Yudkowsky's argument is emphatically not that the lithium claim is true. He was merely advocating for someone to fund a study. He explicitly describes the claim as "low-probability", and advocates on the basis of a (admittedly clearly subjective) expected-value calculation.
> One of the links is a Eliezer Yudkowsky blog praising the work
That does not constitute "praise" of the work. Yudkowsky only praised the fact that someone was bucking the trend of
> almost nobody is investigating it in a way that takes the epidemiological facts seriously and elevates those above moralistic gluttony theories
.
> Pretending that this theory didn't grip the rationalist community all the way to top bloggers like Yudkowsky and Scott Alexander is revisionist history.
Nobody claimed that Yudkowsky ignored the theory.