John Baez Responds To Eliezer Yudkowsky Interview On Existential Risks

johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com

8 points·bermanoid··3 comments

Seeing Baez mention Yudokowsky is a bit surreal -- it's a bit like Amazon talking about the book-selling startup I'm totally planning to launch someday.

If the name isn't familiar to you, Dr. Baez starting writing a blog before we had a name for the thing: _This Week's Finds In Mathematical Physics_ started in 1993. I can't think of any better way for a student or interested layman (very, very interested, and willing to deal with mathematics) to understand what theoretical physics is about.

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/TWF.html

Indeed - when I was majoring in math (more than a decade ago), a professor pointed me towards John Baez's Usenet posts and suggested I keep up on them. I've been hooked ever since.

I was initially dismayed when I heard that he was leaving math for environmentalism, but having read his recent posts on network theory, it's clear that he hasn't completely left his mathematical passions behind. I was extremely interested when I heard that he and Eliezer had been talking, it's a strange meeting of worlds, but a really fascinating one.

IMO Baez should really write some books. He consistently explains highly technical and difficult topics in a way that they become comprehensible even to a lay observer; he could very easily do something along the lines of Penrose's Road To Reality and bring some of the high-falootin abstract nonsense down to an understandable level.

In case you missed it, there is an exchange in the comments section between Eliezer Yudkowsky and Greg Egan.

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