[Nexialist]

If you'd like to read more about the roots of Effective Altruism, ranging from old mailing lists, LessWrong, bitcoin, cults, AI and the surprising connections to many well known figures in tech, I highly recommend the 7-part Extropia's Childen series from Jon Evans [1]

1. https://aiascendant.substack.com/p/extropias-children-chapte...

[orzig]

This feels like the endless debate about whether America is forever tainted by the sins of its founding fathers.

I’m pro-American because I believe in its stated values. Moreover, I believe that despite original and continuing failures to perfectly reflect those values, there is large and concrete progress in aggregate.

I feel the same way about EA: I aspire to their ideals (including the continued discussion and reconsideration of those ideals) and believe the weight of thousands of people quietly moving concretely in the right direction far exceeds the damage of bad actors (who would have twisted any ideology they were immersed in).

So the bad actors should be punished. The parts of the community system which failed should be changed. AND the many others who are earnestly trying to live according to these values should be judged according to their _own_ impact.

[skinnymuch]

I can’t imagine having the optimism you have. My rude mind is thinking this person is naive but you know I’m pretty naive too haha!

I disagree and think both the US and institutions like EA are too tainted. The US hasn’t done anything about slavery except make things worse still. That’s not on the founding fathers any more only. It’s on the US since the civil war. EA will take money from future multimillionaire and billionaires. Much like the US, they are both completely controlled by capitalism. I am in the US but not pro US.

[stubybubs]

Golly. I'm on part 2 and it sounds like they're about to invent Scientology.

> The full post goes into more depth and nuance, but it's worth stressing how heavily Leverage relied on “debugging,” based on Anders's “Connection Theory.” Debugging consisted of — to paraphrase and oversimplify — opening up one's psyche, history, self, and emotional core to maximum vulnerability, generally to one's hierarchical superior, and then doing all you could to follow their suggestions to “fix” your mind.

[painelemental]

Thats nothing. Wait till Epstein enters the picture. https://fredwynne.medium.com/an-open-letter-to-vitalik-buter...

Any hoo - this stuff is the tip of the iceberg.

[aoeusnth1]

Incredible letter, I had no idea about the SWATing. Tbh the Epstein donation seems like a nothingburger compared to the other allegations in that letter.

Edit: more context on Ziz, http://zizians.info/

[j_crick]

Admittedly I don’t follow this rationalist thing on the internet at all, so I don’t know what’s going on with them. But that was hell of a read. I am no stranger to people being dicks, but still, that all is just sick.

[mickelsen]

This is all cult-like behavior, reminds me of the much documented Lyndon Larouche 'creative mentation' stuff, and pretty much any cult in their stage of grilling people to take down their preconceived notions. Now with this info, that's all I need to know about these characters.

Edit: found this https://www.reddit.com/r/SneerClub/

As someone said over there, it's about time to start putting lithium in the Bay Area water.