Eliezer Yudkowsky

Weird weird guy. Seriously, deeply, compellingly, wrenchingly, cringingly, awesomely weird. His website is http://yudkowsky.net/ where he writes, in a nut shell, about rationality, without reservations, and The Singularity. I'm really truly torn on him, so much of what he writes is just pure, straight-talking, sense, and yet his whole ethos (see http://lesswrong.com/) just reeks of an obvious Personality Cult, and it is certainly rather scathingly spoken of at RationalWikihttp://rationalwiki.org/wiki/LessWrong.
The two things I remain incredibly sceptical of, and it pains me that my gut is so at odds with my brain on this one, are his obsession with The Singularity and his endorsement of cryonics. I just don't think that The Singularity is going to come about in any simple form, and I have massive reservations over his particular fanaticism over Friendly AI, and my philosophies, the very same ones that make the guy seem so right, have forced me to face the fact that death, a permanent cessation of consciousness, is truly impossible to be rationally against, which undermines the very premise that his thoughts on cryonics are founded on, and then there's the simple fact that I can't help thinking any company that purports to offer cryonics is very probably just taking advantage of what they consider to be crazy people.
I also don't like that the guy seems to be unable/unwilling to explain his beliefs/reasoning to others. I think he has a policy of assuming people's stupidity (insanity he'd probably say). His "Sequences" are a bit much, I don't think it's a good policy to keep referring, often recursively, back to other lengthy articles you've written because you can't be bothered to briefly explain the point for the coherence of the article you're writing now.
==Fiction==
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, up to Chapter 77 as of December 15th 2011 - READ
===Short stories===
From the Fiction section of his website:
*Three Worlds Collide - READ
*The P-Zombie Apocalypse - READ
*Non-Player Character - READ
*The Sword of Good - READ
*Initiation Ceremony - READ
*The Finale of the Ultimate Meta Mega Crossover
*The Hero with a Thousand Chances - READ
*Trust in God, or, the Riddle of Kyon
*Failed Utopia #4-2 - READ
*X17 - READ
*Artifacts - READ
*Prospiracy Theory - READ
From 'the Sequences':
*The Alien Message - READ
==Recommended reading==
==='Bookshelf' page on his site===
Discovered here on April 29th 2012, possibly written in 1999?
====Books that changed his life====
*Douglas Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher, Bach
*Ed Regis, The Great Mambo Chicken and the Transhumanism Condition
*Robert Wright, Man: The Moral Animal
*Vernor Vinge, True Names and Other Dangers
====Books of knowledge====
*Douglas Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher, Bach
*Ed Regis, The Great Mambo Chicken and the Transhumanism Condition
*Robert Wright, Man: The Moral Animal
*K. Eric Drexler, Engines of Creation
*Wilson and Keil, The MIT Encyclopedia of the Cognitive Sciences
*Barkow, Cosmides and Tooby, The Adapted Mind
*Douglas Hofstadter, Metamagical Themas
*Richard Feynman, QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter
*Roger Penrose
**The Emperor's New Mind
**Shadows of the Mind
====Books of future shock====
*Greg Egan, Permutation City
*Greg Egan, Quarantine
*Vernor Vinge
**A Fire Upon the Deep
**True Names
**Marooned in Realtime
*Walter John Williams, Aristoi
*David Zindell, Neverness
*Iain M. Banks, Player of Games
====Books of fun====
*Douglas Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher, Bach
*Richard Feynman, Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman!
*Ed Regis, The Great Mambo Chicken and the Transhumanism Condition
*Raymond Smullyan, The Tao is Silent
*Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
*Terry Pratchett, The Discworld Series
====Books of his youth====
*Robert Heinlein, Space Cadet
*William Sleator, Interstellar Pig
*Diane Duane, Support Your Local Wizard
*Anne McCaffrey, The Harper Hall Trilogy
*Susan Cooper, The Dark is Rising
*Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, Dragonlance Chronicles
*Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, Dragonlance Legends
==References==
Category:Authors
Category:People
Category:Lists