[tm-infringement]

> how the preeminent ethics movement of our times seems to spawn the most detestable behavior

Excuse me if my sarcasm detector is faulty, but I wouldn't describe the rationality sphere like that. It's a niche group with a fetishism for 'intelligence', with a profound distaste for the liberal arts, which translates into a closed ecosystem of blog posts, themes and jargon, and a lack of reading actual books where they would see that they're retreading old stuff, but worse. It's a culture of people believing themselves immune to bias, where calling out obviously malicious behavior is 'not charitable' and all thought outside the group is suspect. Is it then strange that it produces people who just rationalize (forgive me) their bad impulses?

Most techies stopped learning about stuff not related to computers in high school, so yeah no wonder LessWrong, being more accessible, seems like a better option than reading actual philosophy.

[zelias]

you wouldn't say that there are people in positions of great power in society who likely hold some of these beliefs?

[tm-infringement]

Oh! Of course, but the I think the word that OP used then should've been influential. Preeminent is more an adjective of quality I believe, but it might be my ESL showing.