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Why are there so many rationalist cults?

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Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#721

Post by ragazzina »

toasterlovin wrote: post #655
knallfrosch wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's perfectly fine to read these articles, think "definitely a cult" and ignore whether they believe in spaceships, or demons, or AGI. The key takeaway from the article is that if you have a group leader who cuts you off from other people, that's a red flag – not really a novel, or unique, or situational insight.

> The key takeaway from the article is that if you have a group leader who cuts you off from other people, that's a red flag Even better: a social group with a lot of invented lingo is a red flag that you can see before you get isolated from your loved ones.

So every fandom in history?

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#722

Post by bondarchuk »

godelski wrote: post #504
empiricus wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

soo many things make no sense in this comment that I feel like 20% chance this a mid quality gpt. and so much interpolation effort, but starting from hearsay instead of primary sources. then the threads stop just before seeing the contradiction with the other threads. I imagine this is how we all reason most of the time, just based on vibes :(

Sure, I wrote a lot and it's a bit scattered. You're welcome to point to something specific but so far you haven't. Ironically, you're committing the error you're accusing me of. I'm also not exactly sure what you mean because the only claim I've made is that they've made assumptions where there are other possible, and likely, alternatives. It's much easier to prove something wrong than prove it right (or in our case…

>For the "AI will be [human to ant difference] more intelligent than us" argument to follow it would require us to be pretty fucking dumb, and in that case we're pretty fucking dumb and it'd be silly to think we can make these types of predictions with reasonable accuracy (also true in the unbounded case!).

...which is why we should be careful not to rush full-speed ahead and develop AI before we can predict how it will behave after some iterations of self-improvement. As the rationalist argument goes.

BTW you are assuming that intelligence will necessarily and inherently lead to (good) morality, and I think that's a much weirder assumption than some you're accusing rationalists of holding.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#723

Post by [deleted] »

kimixa wrote: post #646
ethbr1 wrote: post #626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still mind boggling to me that governments didn't say "Don't wear a mask for yourself -- wear one to save your neighbor." Sure, there would have been some people who ignored it because they're jackasses, but I can't believe we wouldn't be in a better place today. Both in terms of public scientific- and community- appreciation.

> It's still mind boggling to me that governments didn't say "Don't wear a mask for yourself -- wear one to save your neighbor." I mean... they did? Like in the UK's guidance literally the second sentence is "Face coverings are primarily worn to protect others because they cover the nose and mouth, which are the main sources of emission of the virus that causes coronavirus infection (COVID-19)." https://www.gov.uk/go…

[deleted]

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#724

Post by BlueTemplar »

pavlov wrote: post #706
stickfigure wrote: post #674

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're falling into some sort of fallacy; maybe a better rationalist than I could name it. The "they" you are describing is a large body of disparate people spread around the world. We're reading an article that focuses on a few dysfunctional subgroups. They are interesting because they are so dysfunctional and rare. Or put it this way: Name one -ism that _doesn't_ have sub/splinter groups that kill people. Even Paci…

The article specifically defines the rationalists it’s talking about: “The rationalist community was drawn together by AI researcher Eliezer Yudkowsky’s blog post series The Sequences, a set of essays about how to think more rationally.” Is this really a large body of disparate people spread around the world? I suspect not.

Define "large" :

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/fall-meetups-everywhere-cal...

(One of the largest subgroups AFAIK ?)

(They still seem to be leaning heavily USA-based, and in particular California-based.)

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#725

Post by qcnguy »

lexandstuff wrote: post #578
qcnguy wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The point of wearing a mask is to protect other people from your respiratory droplets. Please wear a mask when you're sick.

The point of masks, originally, was to catch saliva drops from surgeons as they worked over an open body, not to stop viruses.

For COVID its use was novel. But having an intention isn't enough. It must actually work. Otherwise, you are just engaging in witchcraft and tomfoolery.

The respiratory droplet model of how COVID spread was wrong, which was proven by lots of real world evidence. Look at how the Diamond Princess worked out and please explain how that was compatible with either masks or lockdowns working? SARS-CoV-2 spreads like every other respiratory virus, as a gaseous aerosol that doesn't care about masks in the slightest.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#726

Post by qcnguy »

skybrian wrote: post #544
qcnguy wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

It was genuinely difficult to persuade people to wear masks before everyone started doing it and it became normal.

Nobody was persuaded, they were forced by law exactly because it was obvious to everyone with their brain switched on that masks didn't work. Remember how when the rules demanding masks on planes were rescinded there were videos of whole planes ripping off their masks and celebrating mid-flight? Literally the second the law changed, people stopped wearing masks.

That's because masks were a mass hysteria. They did not work. Everyone could see it.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#727

Post by ben_w »

aydyn wrote: post #715
stickfigure wrote: post #674

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're falling into some sort of fallacy; maybe a better rationalist than I could name it. The "they" you are describing is a large body of disparate people spread around the world. We're reading an article that focuses on a few dysfunctional subgroups. They are interesting because they are so dysfunctional and rare. Or put it this way: Name one -ism that _doesn't_ have sub/splinter groups that kill people. Even Paci…

> The "they" you are describing is a large body of disparate people spread around the world. [Citation needed] I sincerely doubt anything but a tiny insignificant minority consider themselves part of the "rationalist community".

"Large" is very vague.

The leaderboard shows (50 of) 166385 registered accounts* on https://www.lesswrong.com/leaderboard

This is simultaneously a large body and an insignificant minority.

* How many are junk accounts? IDK. But I do know it's international, because I live in Berlin, Germany, and socialise regularly.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#728

Post by _Algernon_ »

quickthrowman wrote: post #489
gwbas1c wrote: post #310

Many years ago I met Eliezer Yudkowsky. He handed me a pamphlet extolling the virtues of rationality. The whole thing came across as a joke, as a parody of evangelizing. We both laughed. I glanced at it once or twice and shoved it into a bookshelf. I wish I kept it, because I never thought so much would happen around him.

I only know Eliezer Yudkowsky from his Harry Potter fanfiction, most notably Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality . Is he known publicly for some other reason?

He writes scare-mongering books about AI doomerism such as If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies.

I short, another variant of commercializing the human fear response.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#729

Post by n4r9 »

qcnguy wrote: post #725
lexandstuff wrote: post #578

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of wearing a mask is to protect other people from your respiratory droplets. Please wear a mask when you're sick.

The point of masks, originally, was to catch saliva drops from surgeons as they worked over an open body, not to stop viruses. For COVID its use was novel. But having an intention isn't enough. It must actually work. Otherwise, you are just engaging in witchcraft and tomfoolery. The respiratory droplet model of how COVID spread was wrong, which was proven by lots of real world evidence. Look at how the Diamond Prince…

I'm not sure where you're getting this from. Repeated studies continue to affirm that COVID is spread by respiratory droplets and that masks are effective in reducing transmission.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8721651/

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/face-mask-effectiveness-what-sc...

https://www.ukri.org/who-we-are/how-we-are-doing/research-ou...

Why do you believe the Diamond Princess is a counterexample?

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