Nick Bostrom irked that Oxford University expected his institute to produce work that was of a standard appropriate to its position in their philosophy department (awful.systems)

submitted 7 months ago by YouKnowWhoTheFuckIAM@awful.systems to c/sneerclub@awful.systems

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[-] gerikson@awful.systems 18 points 7 months ago

Surprised they didn't just do the agile thing and seek direct financial support from Peter Thiel.

[-] titotal@awful.systems 25 points 7 months ago

Oxford instituted a fundraising freeze. They knew the org could have gotten oodles funding from any number of strange tech people, they disliked it so much they didn't care.

[-] YouKnowWhoTheFuckIAM@awful.systems 15 points 7 months ago

I wonder how much they disliked it and how much they felt it was just using the Oxford brand and cheapening it. Only a slight but a qualitative difference. You can pump out all the awful shit you want at Oxford, but cheapen the brand with the increasingly zany antics of your dorky club and they might at least look twice.

[-] AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space 8 points 7 months ago

Has Oxford gone after the Scientologists calling their personality quiz the “Oxford Capacity Assessment” or something similar?

[-] o7___o7@awful.systems 9 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

That's named after Oxford, MS, wink wink

[-] YouKnowWhoTheFuckIAM@awful.systems 7 points 7 months ago

I would guess that their personal reach over the name is pretty limited by a number of factors, including that the town itself has quite a significant similar claim itself. “Oxford Brookes” university, for example, is not a part of Oxford the Ancient University, but it certainly helps their brand to be next door (and as far as I know it’s a perfectly fine institution as far as these things go).

The issue with the Future of Humanity Institute would be almost the other way around: that as long as it’s in-house, the university can hardly dissociate themselves from it.