Comment by GeneralMayhem
1 month ago
There's a difference between, on the one hand, knowing who they are and having read a few chapters of HPMoR, which I agree is standard for anyone who spends enough time on the Internet, vs. on the other hand actually identifying as part of that culture. I know who Stallman is, I've even seen him speak in person, but I'm not a GNU zealot.
The people described in the article aren't just "people who know who Yudkowsky is", they're self-avowed EAs and active LessWrong members.
maybe its standard for someone who ends up on hackernews, but I'm a 30 something and all of my friends are online people around my age and none of them have ever heard of the HPMoR. The internet is a huge place.
I've had an internet email address since the late 80s, BBSing since the early 80s, pretty active online compared to many people I know who are also software people, especially for my age..
Had to google to figure out the abbreviation and look at the summary. I HAD heard the name before, but that's about it.
The higher up comment expressing disbelief at people not having heard of this is just a form of https://xkcd.com/2501/
I would second this. I only saw it in passing where someone was rightfully making fun of yud somewhere, but having been in and out of academia in tech for two decades now, I've never heard anyone mention fanfic or yud other than randos on HN threads, and most of the physics people I know, at least the ones familiar with Jaynes and his contemporaries, would almost certainly laugh at a lot of fumbles I occasionally see with people trying to apply "baysenianism".
Ive heard of HPMoR specifically because this exact group has been discussed/entered my periphery before on multiple occasions, Aella goes viral on twitter every couple of weeks (the thing that most cemented her in my mind was the "what counts as rape" survey), and I remember seeing articles of the Zizians when one of the incidents happened. If you have been following the social/political aspects of the tech industry, most of these people should be familiar names.
I spend a lot of time on the Internet and other then sounding vaguely familiar I have no idea who Yudkowsky is and have never read any of their output.
The assumption "spent a lot of time on the Internet" is still through a framing you're assuming is more general even then.
HackerNews straight up has sub demographics who likely barely interact based on article interests.
You have to be quite unaware of your bubble if you think knowing about a niche Harry Potter fanfic is "standard" for people on the Internet.
"niche"? It's literally one of the most read pieces of fanfiction of all time.
That's a niche even among people who read fan fiction, which is a niche among people who read long texts online which is a niche among people who read the anglophone internet which is a niche among people who were on the internet when that type of "discourse" was popular which is a niche among people on the internet now.
You can (and probably will) quibble with any one of these but of course this is a niche. Thinking it isn't is commonly what people in a certain bubble end up believing, though.
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Fanfiction is already an extreme niche.
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Literally over half the Earth's population doesn't read English. You need to touch grass. I work with extremely technical people in physics and AI and none of them have read any fanfic of any kind. Most of them have never seen a meme outside of me showing it to them.
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