241–250 of 952 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Marginalized groups seem to be a target / susceptible to this kind of thing. I had a weird encounter on reddit with some users who expressed that "only X people understand how this character in the movie feels". Interestingly, there was no indication that the movie intended this interpenetration. But the idea wasn't unusual or all that out there so I didn't think much of it. But that group showed up again and again a…
I see it mainly as a reaction to a dysfunctional and abusive system/culture, and not necessarily a constructive one. Fix the world and these problems don't exist.
Hard disagree. Plenty of antisocial (or worse) behaviour has been promulgated by those indisputably at the top of the social food chain -- almost every war of conquest, for example. Did the British Empire expand throughout the world because the British felt marginalised? No, the rest of the world considered them to be a great power and many other cultures voluntarily adopted their styles of dress and other customs as a mark of "modernity".
A sense of marginalisation (real or imagined) can certainly be a force that acts to reduce empathy and encourage violence, but it's by no means necessary.
Rationalism? The term has been used a lot of times since Pythagoras [0], but the combination of Bay Area, Oxford, existential risks, AI safety makes it sound like this particular movement could have formed in the same mold as Effective Altruism and Long-Termism (ie, the "it's objectively better for humanity if you give us money to buy a castle in France than whatever you'd do with it" crowd that SBF sprung from). Can…
That castle was found to be more cost-effective than any other space the group could have purchased, for the simple reason that almost nobody wants castles anymore. It was chosen because it was the best calculation; the optics of it were not considered. It would be less disingenuous if you were to say EA is the "it's objectively better for humanity if you give us money to buy a conference space in France than whateve…
If I am donating money and you are buying a conference space on day 1 I'd want it to be filled with experienced ex-UN field type of people and Nobel peace prize winners.
Otherwise it looks like a grift.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the relevance of their transness is not very significant. The lesswrong apocalypse cult has been feeding people's mental illness for years. Their transness likely made them more outsiders to the cult proper, so e.g. they didn't get diverted off into becoming Big Yud's BSDM "math pets" like other women in the cult. I doubt they are significantly more mentally ill than other members of the cult they just had le…
>I doubt they are significantly more mentally ill than other members. Why would this certain group defy the US trend of being 4-7x more likely afflicted by depressive dissorder? We are talking about a demographic with a 46% rate of suicidal ideation and you doubt that's significant why?
Essentially the community in discussion is already selected for and generates mental illness, so the ordinary comorbidities of transgendered persons are likely less relevant.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Weird to see a community I followed show up so close to home and negatively like this. I had some coworkers who were really into LessWrong and rationality. I thought it was fun to read some of the selected writings they would share, but I always felt that online rationalist communities collected a lot of people with reactionary, fascist, misogynistic, and far-right tendencies. There’s a heavily sanitized version of…
[flagged]
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps there are people in power who would benefit from portraying those communities in a different light.
What exactly do you mean?
- make right-wingers feel vindication as if they were rational all along,
- cause suspicion and division within the left/liberal rationalist community, and
- make the community, its people and their ideas less palatable to the general public.
After puzzling over the threads on this head-spinning story, my sense is that maybe the most neutral thing to do is re-up this submission of a news report and merge most of the comments hither. The other recent threads are/were: The Zizians (2020) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42898323 The Zizians and the rationalist death cult - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42897871 Suspects in 2 murder cases shared…
[Former member of that world, roommates with one of Ziz's friends for a while, so I feel reasonably qualified to speak on this.] The problem with rationalists/EA as a group has never been the rationality, but the people practicing it and the cultural norms they endorse as a community. As relevant here: 1) While following logical threads to their conclusions is a useful exercise, each logical step often involves some…
Brilliant summary, thanks. I'm interested in #4, is there anywhere you know of to read more about that? I don't think I've seen that described except obliquely in eg sayings about the relationship between genius and madness.
[Former member of that world, roommates with one of Ziz's friends for a while, so I feel reasonably qualified to speak on this.] The problem with rationalists/EA as a group has never been the rationality, but the people practicing it and the cultural norms they endorse as a community. As relevant here: 1) While following logical threads to their conclusions is a useful exercise, each logical step often involves some…
Brilliant summary, thanks. I'm interested in #4, is there anywhere you know of to read more about that? I don't think I've seen that described except obliquely in eg sayings about the relationship between genius and madness.