The person who referred to "LessWrong background" and talked about paperclip maximizers wasn't (at least, so it looks to me) mocking or dismissing.
The last paragraph of that comment does say "the LessWrong folks tend to be overly dramatic in their concerns" but goes on immediately to add "But they do have a point that the problem of controlling something much more intelligent than yourself is hard [...] and, if truly super-human intelligence is practically possible, then it needs to be solved before we build it".
The last paragraph of that comment does say "the LessWrong folks tend to be overly dramatic in their concerns" but goes on immediately to add "But they do have a point that the problem of controlling something much more intelligent than yourself is hard [...] and, if truly super-human intelligence is practically possible, then it needs to be solved before we build it".