[papeda]

In slight fairness to Aaronson, he doesn't present this as a "universally held opinion of people in tech", as the rest of that excerpt goes to say:

> . . . but not (I don’t think) to the tens of thousands who read Scott’s essays and fiction, particularly during their 2013-2016 heyday, and who went from casual enjoyment to growing admiration to the gradual recognition that they were experiencing, “live,” the works that future generations of teachers will assign their students when they cover the early twenty-first century.

So he's pretty much saying Slate Star Codex has fans who will miss it a lot.

(I do agree with you that the comparison is pretty nuts, even as someone who thinks Slate Star Codex has a lot of good stuff.)

[pdonis]

> he's pretty much saying Slate Star Codex has fans who will miss it a lot

No, he's not, he's saying, explicitly, in what you quoted, that "future generations of teachers will assign their students" Slate Star Codex as reading material. That's waaaay beyond "fans who will miss it a lot".

[tptacek]

Can I say that the plain meaning of these words --- "generations" connoting teachers en masse, the way generations of teachers have for decades assigned the "I Have A Dream Speech" --- is also pretty obviously hyperbolic.

Maybe you believe the blog was headed in some genius direction, and lament a lost future. But you can't reasonably suggest that the SSC that exists today is going to be taught in schools.

Or, again, if you do, you can't claim to hold the mainstream opinion on the matter. I believe all sorts of weird shit nobody else believes; I'm not casting stones.

[pdonis]

> you can't reasonably suggest that the SSC that exists today is going to be taught in schools.

I'm not. But I'm not so sure Scott Aaronson wasn't. Call it hyperbole if you like, since technically Aaronson put those words in the hypothetical mouth of a hypothetical SSC fan, but my reading is closer to "Freudian slip".

[tptacek]

Rhetorical "you"! Sorry about that.