String of recent killings linked to Bay Area 'Zizians'(sfgate.com)
sfgate.com
String of recent killings linked to Bay Area 'Zizians'
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/bay-area-death-cult-zizian-murders-20064333.php
936 comments
A later article by the same author: https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/leader-alleged-bay-ar.... Probably makes sense to read both or neither.
[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 degree of rounding or unknown-unknowns. A -> B and B -> C means A -> C in a formal sense, but A -almostcertainly-> B and B -almostcertainly-> C does not mean A -almostcertainly-> C. Rationalists, by tending to overly formalist approaches, tend to lose the thread of the messiness of the real world and follow these lossy implications as though they are lossless. That leads to...
2) Precision errors in utility calculations that are numerically-unstable. Any small chance of harm times infinity equals infinity. This framing shows up a lot in the context of AI risk, but it works in other settings too: infinity times a speck of dust in your eye >>> 1 times murder, so murder is "justified" to prevent a speck of dust in the eye of eternity. When the thing you're trying to create is infinitely good or the thing you're trying to prevent is infinitely bad, anything is justified to bring it about/prevent it respectively.
3) Its leadership - or some of it, anyway - is extremely egotistical and borderline cult-like to begin with. I think even people who like e.g. Eliezer would agree that he is not a humble man by any stretch of the imagination (the guy makes Neil deGrasse Tyson look like a monk). They have, in the past, responded to criticism with statements to the effect of "anyone who would criticize us for any reason is a bad person who is lying to cause us harm". That kind of framing can't help but get culty.
4) The nature of being a "freethinker" is that you're at the mercy of your own neural circuitry. If there is a feedback loop in your brain, you'll get stuck in it, because there's no external "drag" or forcing functions to pull you back to reality. That can lead you to be a genius who sees what others cannot. It can also lead you into schizophrenia really easily. So you've got a culty environment that is particularly susceptible to internally-consistent madness, and finally:
5) It's a bunch of very weird people who have nowhere else they feel at home. I totally get this. I'd never felt like I was in a room with people so like me, and ripping myself away from that world was not easy. (There's some folks down the thread wondering why trans people are overrepresented in this particular group: well, take your standard weird nerd, and then make two-thirds of the world hate your guts more than anything else, you might be pretty vulnerable to whoever will give you the time of day, too.)
TLDR: isolation, very strong in-group defenses, logical "doctrine" that is formally valid and leaks in hard-to-notice ways, apocalyptic utility-scale, and being a very appealing environment for the kind of person who goes super nuts -> pretty much perfect conditions for a cult. Or multiple cults, really. Ziz's group is only one of several.
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 degree of rounding or unknown-unknowns. A -> B and B -> C means A -> C in a formal sense, but A -almostcertainly-> B and B -almostcertainly-> C does not mean A -almostcertainly-> C. Rationalists, by tending to overly formalist approaches, tend to lose the thread of the messiness of the real world and follow these lossy implications as though they are lossless. That leads to...
2) Precision errors in utility calculations that are numerically-unstable. Any small chance of harm times infinity equals infinity. This framing shows up a lot in the context of AI risk, but it works in other settings too: infinity times a speck of dust in your eye >>> 1 times murder, so murder is "justified" to prevent a speck of dust in the eye of eternity. When the thing you're trying to create is infinitely good or the thing you're trying to prevent is infinitely bad, anything is justified to bring it about/prevent it respectively.
3) Its leadership - or some of it, anyway - is extremely egotistical and borderline cult-like to begin with. I think even people who like e.g. Eliezer would agree that he is not a humble man by any stretch of the imagination (the guy makes Neil deGrasse Tyson look like a monk). They have, in the past, responded to criticism with statements to the effect of "anyone who would criticize us for any reason is a bad person who is lying to cause us harm". That kind of framing can't help but get culty.
4) The nature of being a "freethinker" is that you're at the mercy of your own neural circuitry. If there is a feedback loop in your brain, you'll get stuck in it, because there's no external "drag" or forcing functions to pull you back to reality. That can lead you to be a genius who sees what others cannot. It can also lead you into schizophrenia really easily. So you've got a culty environment that is particularly susceptible to internally-consistent madness, and finally:
5) It's a bunch of very weird people who have nowhere else they feel at home. I totally get this. I'd never felt like I was in a room with people so like me, and ripping myself away from that world was not easy. (There's some folks down the thread wondering why trans people are overrepresented in this particular group: well, take your standard weird nerd, and then make two-thirds of the world hate your guts more than anything else, you might be pretty vulnerable to whoever will give you the time of day, too.)
TLDR: isolation, very strong in-group defenses, logical "doctrine" that is formally valid and leaks in hard-to-notice ways, apocalyptic utility-scale, and being a very appealing environment for the kind of person who goes super nuts -> pretty much perfect conditions for a cult. Or multiple cults, really. Ziz's group is only one of several.
G.K.Chesterton knew it, 100 years ago:
"... insanity is often marked by the dominance of reason and the exclusion of creativity and humour. Pure reason is inhuman. The madman’s mind moves in a perfect, but narrow, circle, and his explanation of the world is comprehensive, at least to him."
"... insanity is often marked by the dominance of reason and the exclusion of creativity and humour. Pure reason is inhuman. The madman’s mind moves in a perfect, but narrow, circle, and his explanation of the world is comprehensive, at least to him."
Or David Hume, 300 years ago:
"Reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions"
"Reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions"
To be fair it did work out suprisingly well in the early days, even the really weird comment chains attracted only a small minority of the bizarrely deranged. Probably because back then the median LW commentator was noticeably smarter than the median HN commentator.
Pascal’s mugging was even coined there I believe, but then as it grew… whatever communal anti-derangement protections existed gradually declined.
And it now is more often than not a negative example.
Pascal’s mugging was even coined there I believe, but then as it grew… whatever communal anti-derangement protections existed gradually declined.
And it now is more often than not a negative example.
I am not against rationalism at all despite my quoting of Hume. Reason is essential and has done much good to the world. It's just that things tend to get kooky at the tail end of any distribution.
The rationalist community have some of the smartest people and the best blogs, and they think through things much more thoroughly and are much less prone to biases and fallacies than most online communities.
The rationalist community have some of the smartest people and the best blogs, and they think through things much more thoroughly and are much less prone to biases and fallacies than most online communities.
I feel like it's not a question if you can, but if you should.
Are you actually smart if you spend any significant amount of time thinking through things in order to be rational?
I have a good friend that is by all reasonable metrics incredibly smart. Graduated high school and college at the same time at age 16. Doctorate at 22. Professor at a top university for several years. But lives in absolute squalor and spends his time and brain power on rational thinking and philosophy to understand life.
But, it is life, and if you don't experience it how can you understand it, and if you do understand it, what is gained?
His life is the inside of his house and a daily trip to Dollar general to buy mountain dew, cigarettes and frozen burritos.
Are you actually smart if you spend any significant amount of time thinking through things in order to be rational?
I have a good friend that is by all reasonable metrics incredibly smart. Graduated high school and college at the same time at age 16. Doctorate at 22. Professor at a top university for several years. But lives in absolute squalor and spends his time and brain power on rational thinking and philosophy to understand life.
But, it is life, and if you don't experience it how can you understand it, and if you do understand it, what is gained?
His life is the inside of his house and a daily trip to Dollar general to buy mountain dew, cigarettes and frozen burritos.
I'll take Kurt Vonnegut, from "Mother Night":
I have never seen a more sublime demonstration of the totalitarian mind, a mind which might be linked unto a system of gears where teeth have been filed off at random. Such snaggle-toothed thought machine, driven by a standard or even by a substandard libido, whirls with the jerky, noisy, gaudy pointlessness of a cuckoo clock in Hell.
I have never seen a more sublime demonstration of the totalitarian mind, a mind which might be linked unto a system of gears where teeth have been filed off at random. Such snaggle-toothed thought machine, driven by a standard or even by a substandard libido, whirls with the jerky, noisy, gaudy pointlessness of a cuckoo clock in Hell.
So did Fyodor Dostoevsky.
Yes, exactly, “Crime and punishment” or ”Demons” or others. Some of the dialogues are exactly about the ideologies and how different characters think and apply them, how reason manifests in violence.
This made me think of C&P as well. Specifically how Raskolnikov developed his own half baked ideology where “great men” were free to act with impunity. It’s not hard to draw parallels with “longtermism” and effective altruism.
Even Aristotle knew that reason was just an aspect of being a human and not the whole thing
To be honest the only philosopher I know of who convincingly argued that everything is reason is Hegel, but he did so more by making the idea of reason so broad that even empiricism (and emotion, humour, love, the body, etc.) falls under it...
To be honest the only philosopher I know of who convincingly argued that everything is reason is Hegel, but he did so more by making the idea of reason so broad that even empiricism (and emotion, humour, love, the body, etc.) falls under it...
Hegel still has a really bad reputation regarding atrocities and his Philosophy of history.
"History as the slaughter-bench" - and yet the aims of reason are accomplished."
But there are also Hegel scholars (Walter Jaeschke for example) who simply consider these accusations to be uneducated and that he does not see the atrocities of history as reasonable, but on the contrary makes criticism possible in the first place.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lectures_on_the_Philosophy_of_...
"History as the slaughter-bench" - and yet the aims of reason are accomplished."
But there are also Hegel scholars (Walter Jaeschke for example) who simply consider these accusations to be uneducated and that he does not see the atrocities of history as reasonable, but on the contrary makes criticism possible in the first place.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lectures_on_the_Philosophy_of_...
All of Hegel, and most of his descendants, are fashionable nonsense. All types of "Dialectics" are fake and don't exist. It's telling that the most common version of the term "Dialectics" that everyone thinks Hegel coined was actually coined by one of his (many butthurt) students, Fitche.
Philosophy will continue to be bankrupt for as long as Hegel's stranglehold on Philosophy remains. Kill his thought, Kill "dialectics", Kill the "world spirit" or "Geist". Otherwise philosophy continues down the "post modern neo marxism" loony world that has led so many to turn reactionary.
Edit (in response to the comment cus I can't reply faster since Dang's HN policies are bad):
I cover to cover read his shitty books. They weren't worth opening, let alone reading. This is the same for most of the rest of the "postmodern" canon.
Competitive debate meant that we weaponized these long dead idolaters for our own needs. I've (unfortunately) read Zizek, Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, Sartre, Heidigger, etc. I regret most of the time I spent reading these authors. They are all intellectually bankrupt and many of them are straight up pseudo-scientific charlatan snake oil salespeople (Lacan).
Philosophy will continue to be bankrupt for as long as Hegel's stranglehold on Philosophy remains. Kill his thought, Kill "dialectics", Kill the "world spirit" or "Geist". Otherwise philosophy continues down the "post modern neo marxism" loony world that has led so many to turn reactionary.
Edit (in response to the comment cus I can't reply faster since Dang's HN policies are bad):
I cover to cover read his shitty books. They weren't worth opening, let alone reading. This is the same for most of the rest of the "postmodern" canon.
Competitive debate meant that we weaponized these long dead idolaters for our own needs. I've (unfortunately) read Zizek, Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, Sartre, Heidigger, etc. I regret most of the time I spent reading these authors. They are all intellectually bankrupt and many of them are straight up pseudo-scientific charlatan snake oil salespeople (Lacan).
So you’ve discarded a lot of modern , post modern and contemporary thinkers without offering some alternative or do you mean that there isn’t much to philosophy in general? I’m curious because I have also come to a similar conclusion but I have to admit that I have not read everyone that you’ve mentioned but I have read summaries and analysis.
Hegel really isn’t as difficult as you’re making out. Your inheritance of the popular idea that he is nonsense is the only thing stopping you
> This is the same for most of the rest of the "postmodern" canon.
I genuinely can’t think of anyone less postmodern than Hegel. He’s a pure rational traditionalist who believed completely in objective truth and morality and grand narratives lol
I genuinely can’t think of anyone less postmodern than Hegel. He’s a pure rational traditionalist who believed completely in objective truth and morality and grand narratives lol
At least Zizek can be funny sometimes.
We can discuss nonsense.
But Hegel is definitely not fashionable.
But Hegel is definitely not fashionable.
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Another thing I'll add after having spent a few years in a religious cult:
It's all about the axioms. If you tweak the axioms you can use impeccable logic to build a completely incorrect framework that will appeal to otherwise intelligent(and often highly intelligent) people.
Also, people are always less rational than they are able to admit. The force of things like social connection can very easily warp the reasoning capabilities of the most devout rationalist(although they'll likely never admit that).
It's all about the axioms. If you tweak the axioms you can use impeccable logic to build a completely incorrect framework that will appeal to otherwise intelligent(and often highly intelligent) people.
Also, people are always less rational than they are able to admit. The force of things like social connection can very easily warp the reasoning capabilities of the most devout rationalist(although they'll likely never admit that).
Im kinda skeptical these folks were following some hyper-logical process from flawed axioms that led them to the rigorous solution: "I should go stab our land-lord with a samurai sword" or "I should start a shootout with the Feds".
The rationalist stuff just seems like some meaningless patter they stuck ontop of more garden variety cult stuff.
The rationalist stuff just seems like some meaningless patter they stuck ontop of more garden variety cult stuff.
If you convince someone smart who errs towards logic of your axioms, they’ll convince themselves to do whatever you want.
The axioms of rationality, morality, etc. I've always found interesting.
We have certain axioms, (let me chose an arbitrary, and possibly not quite an axiomy-enough example): "human life has value". We hold this to be self-evident and construct our society around it.
We also often don't realize that other people and cultures have different axioms of morality. We talk/theorize at this high level, but don't realize we have different foundations.
We have certain axioms, (let me chose an arbitrary, and possibly not quite an axiomy-enough example): "human life has value". We hold this to be self-evident and construct our society around it.
We also often don't realize that other people and cultures have different axioms of morality. We talk/theorize at this high level, but don't realize we have different foundations.
Right, and a related problem is a lot of the logic is more like Zeno’s paradox.
Succinct. This should be handed out as a “Signs you’re being manipulated” flyer to young people.
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Wow, what a perfect description of why their probability-logic leads to silly beliefs.
I've been wondering how to argue within their frame for a while, and here's what I've come up with: Is the likelihood that aliens exist, are unfriendly, and AGI will help us beat them higher or lower than the likelihood that the AGI itself that we develop is unfriendly to us and wants to FOOM us? Show your work.
I've been wondering how to argue within their frame for a while, and here's what I've come up with: Is the likelihood that aliens exist, are unfriendly, and AGI will help us beat them higher or lower than the likelihood that the AGI itself that we develop is unfriendly to us and wants to FOOM us? Show your work.
It’s pointless. They aren’t rational. Any argument you come up with that contradicts their personal desires will be successfully “reasoned” away by them because they want it to be. Your mistake was ever thinking they had a rational thought to begin with, they think they are infallible.
"Widespread robots that make their own decisions autonomously will probably be very bad for humans if they make decisions that aren't in our interest" isn't really that much of a stretch is it?
If we were going slower maybe it would seem more theoretical. But there are multiple Manhattan-Project-level or (often, much) larger efforts ongoing to explicitly create software and robotic hardware that makes decisions and takes actions without any human in the loop.
We don't need some kind of 10000 IQ god intelligence if a glitch token causes the majority of the labor force to suddenly and collectively engage in sabotage.
If we were going slower maybe it would seem more theoretical. But there are multiple Manhattan-Project-level or (often, much) larger efforts ongoing to explicitly create software and robotic hardware that makes decisions and takes actions without any human in the loop.
We don't need some kind of 10000 IQ god intelligence if a glitch token causes the majority of the labor force to suddenly and collectively engage in sabotage.
None of those projects are even heading in the direction of "AGI". The state of AI today is something akin to what science fiction would have called an "oracle", a devise that can answer questions intelligently or seemingly-intelligently but otherwise isn't intelligent at all: it can't learn, has no agency, does nothing new. Even if that can be scaled up indefinitely, there's no reason to believe that it will ever become an AGI.
If any of this can make decisions in a way that a human can, then I would start to question what human decision-making really amounts to.
If any of this can make decisions in a way that a human can, then I would start to question what human decision-making really amounts to.
For what it's worth, as the person at the top of this thread, I actually do take AI risk pretty seriously. Not in a singulatarian sense, but in the sense that I would be quite surprised if AI weren't capable of this stuff in ten years.
Even the oracle version is already really dangerous in the wrong hands. A totalitarian government doesn't need to have someone listening to a few specific dissidents if they can have an AI transcriber write down every word of every phone conversation in the country, for example. And while it's certainly not error-proof, asking an LLM to do something like "go through this list of conversations and flag anything that sounds like anti-government sentiment" is going to get plenty of hits, too.
Even the oracle version is already really dangerous in the wrong hands. A totalitarian government doesn't need to have someone listening to a few specific dissidents if they can have an AI transcriber write down every word of every phone conversation in the country, for example. And while it's certainly not error-proof, asking an LLM to do something like "go through this list of conversations and flag anything that sounds like anti-government sentiment" is going to get plenty of hits, too.
> "Widespread robots that make their own decisions autonomously will probably be very bad for humans if they make decisions that aren't in our interest" isn't really that much of a stretch is it?
We already have widespread humans making their own decisions autonomously that aren’t in the best interest of humans, and we’re all still here.
We already have widespread humans making their own decisions autonomously that aren’t in the best interest of humans, and we’re all still here.
Last time I checked, robots need lots of energy, batteries suck, and energy infrastructure is fragile and non-redundant. I think we'll be fine.
Much of philosophy throughout history seems to operate this way.
I think philosophy is a noble pursuit, but it's worth noting how often people drew very broad conclusions, and then acted on them, from not very much data. Consider the dozens of theories of the constitution of the world from the time of the Greek thinkers (even the atomic theory doesn't look very much at all like atoms as we now understand them), or the myriad examples of political philosophies that ran up against people simply not acting the way the philosophy needed them to act to cohere.
The investigation of possibility is laudable, but a healthy and regular dose of evidence is important.
I think philosophy is a noble pursuit, but it's worth noting how often people drew very broad conclusions, and then acted on them, from not very much data. Consider the dozens of theories of the constitution of the world from the time of the Greek thinkers (even the atomic theory doesn't look very much at all like atoms as we now understand them), or the myriad examples of political philosophies that ran up against people simply not acting the way the philosophy needed them to act to cohere.
The investigation of possibility is laudable, but a healthy and regular dose of evidence is important.
> Much of philosophy throughout history seems to operate this way.
“Philosophy is poor at revealing truths but excellent at revealing falsehoods (or at least unsupported arguments)” was the main lesson I took from informally studying it.
“Philosophy is poor at revealing truths but excellent at revealing falsehoods (or at least unsupported arguments)” was the main lesson I took from informally studying it.
The idea that you need evidence to justify your beliefs is a philosophical position.
It's a pretty good one.
Anything about the self bumps into an immediate problem here. For instance I cannot prove to you that I'm conscious and not simply an automaton who's not actually thinking. My evidence for such is strictly personal - I can personally testify to my own experience of consciousness, but you have no reason to believe me since that's not evidence.
And in fact even for myself - perception is not necessarily valid evidence since perception can be distorted. If I am in a compelling VR game I might be more than willing to swear to the fact that I'm flying (if I wasn't otherwise aware of the situation) - while you simply look at me acting a fool standing still while vigorously flapping my arms.
And in fact even for myself - perception is not necessarily valid evidence since perception can be distorted. If I am in a compelling VR game I might be more than willing to swear to the fact that I'm flying (if I wasn't otherwise aware of the situation) - while you simply look at me acting a fool standing still while vigorously flapping my arms.
... so at some point, one realizes one has pondered one's way into untestables and goes back to living. Or doesn't, I guess, and then gets kept up at night anxious about the notion that in some as-yet-unrealized future, an AI is forever torturing an identical copy of oneself that one cannot possibly ever meet.
The programming analogy to this kind of philosophy is writing design docs (or building a class hierarchy of abstracts) without ever writing implementation. Lots of work, but why should anyone outside the room care?
The programming analogy to this kind of philosophy is writing design docs (or building a class hierarchy of abstracts) without ever writing implementation. Lots of work, but why should anyone outside the room care?
It contradicts the ideals of an evidence based system of values. Most of what we believe we believe because we think it is right, and there's always , more or less, viable arguments for most of any remotely reasonable view. And this applies to all people. For instance it was none other than Max Planck that observed, "Science progresses one funeral at a time."
I also think this is for the best. If one looks at the evidence of the skies it's indisputable that humanity lies at the center of the cosmos, with everything revolving around us - which, in turn, naturally leads into religious narratives around Earth. It's only thanks to these weirdos that adopted quite absurd sounding (for the time) systems of views and values, completely without meaningful evidence at first, that we were able to gradually expand, and correct, our understanding of the universe.
And this doesn't just apply to the ancient past. Einstein's observation that the speed of light stays fixed while the rate of passage of time itself is variable, to enable the former, sounds so utterly and absolutely absurd. In many ways the real challenge in breaking through to relativity wasn't the math or anything like that (which, in fact, Einstein himself lacked when first developing the concept) but accepting that a concept that sounds so wrong might actually be right.
I also think this is for the best. If one looks at the evidence of the skies it's indisputable that humanity lies at the center of the cosmos, with everything revolving around us - which, in turn, naturally leads into religious narratives around Earth. It's only thanks to these weirdos that adopted quite absurd sounding (for the time) systems of views and values, completely without meaningful evidence at first, that we were able to gradually expand, and correct, our understanding of the universe.
And this doesn't just apply to the ancient past. Einstein's observation that the speed of light stays fixed while the rate of passage of time itself is variable, to enable the former, sounds so utterly and absolutely absurd. In many ways the real challenge in breaking through to relativity wasn't the math or anything like that (which, in fact, Einstein himself lacked when first developing the concept) but accepting that a concept that sounds so wrong might actually be right.
At the same time, however, Einstein's theory was confirmed by direct observation of the gravitational lensing of starlight past our sun during an eclipse.
The difference, to my mind, between science and philosophy is that the philosophy of relativity can exist independent of such confirming evidence. But the scientific theory cannot.
It's always important, when dabbling in philosophy, to keep track of when one has wandered so far out on the branch of reason that one is no longer supported by the trunk of evidence.
The difference, to my mind, between science and philosophy is that the philosophy of relativity can exist independent of such confirming evidence. But the scientific theory cannot.
It's always important, when dabbling in philosophy, to keep track of when one has wandered so far out on the branch of reason that one is no longer supported by the trunk of evidence.
Excellent point. And it shines a light directly on what I'm saying. There's a great line from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
""""Oh, that was easy," says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.”"""
... and, of course, the philosopher can argue that we are all of us tumbling through a Pachinko-machine of parallel universes, and it is only our constrained perception that suggests Man is dead; in a parallel universe, Man is just fine and living their days in the grey universe that we, through some as-yet-unphilosophized-but-don't-worry-we're-thinking-hard-about-it process, cannot exist in.
... but does that matter over-much if the observable is that ignoring zebra crossings gets you crossed out of this universe?
""""Oh, that was easy," says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.”"""
... and, of course, the philosopher can argue that we are all of us tumbling through a Pachinko-machine of parallel universes, and it is only our constrained perception that suggests Man is dead; in a parallel universe, Man is just fine and living their days in the grey universe that we, through some as-yet-unphilosophized-but-don't-worry-we're-thinking-hard-about-it process, cannot exist in.
... but does that matter over-much if the observable is that ignoring zebra crossings gets you crossed out of this universe?
very few philosophers dared to live by their theories. the famous failures of aristotle (in the case of alexander) and plato in syracuse (where he saw firsthand that the philosopher-king is at best a book character) are good examples. seneca didn’t live stoically: he was avaricious and didn’t bother to incite civil war over unpaid debt, if ancient sources are to be believed. he failed horribly with nero, who later instructed him to commit suicide for treasonous crimes. again, if ancient sources are to be believed, he fumbled his suicide out of raw fear.
the cynics, though, made a good life but that’s not because they had a better philosophy. it’s because cynicism is base/primitive logic available to the brute as well as the civilized man.
the cynics, though, made a good life but that’s not because they had a better philosophy. it’s because cynicism is base/primitive logic available to the brute as well as the civilized man.
And then there is Rousseau, who wrote books about raising children. But raising his own was too much.
I actually have on my desk, right now, Mary Wollstonecraft's "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman."
To summarize one of her points from memory, she basically lays into Rousseau about having a lot of opinions on domestic life for someone who clearly doesn't even know how to set foot in a kitchen.
To summarize one of her points from memory, she basically lays into Rousseau about having a lot of opinions on domestic life for someone who clearly doesn't even know how to set foot in a kitchen.
They think they can predict the future by extension know what’s good for us. If they could choose you wouldn’t get a vote.
AGI would be extremely helpful in navigating clashes with aliens, but taking the time to make sure it's safe is very unlikely to make a difference to whether it's ready in time. Rationalists want AGI to be built, and they're generally very excited about it, e.g. many of them work at Anthropic. They just don't want a Move Fast and Break Things pace of development.
the term you're looking for is pascal's mugging, and it originates from within rationalism
It seems a bit nonsense to me.
> The mugger argues back that for any low but strictly greater than 0 probability of being able to pay back a large amount of money (or pure utility) there exists a finite amount that makes it rational to take the bet.
This is a basic logic error. It ignores the very obvious fact that increasing the reward amount decreases the probability that it will be returned.
E.g. if the probability of the reward R being returned is (0.5/R) we get "a low by strictly greater than 0 probability", and for that probability there is a (different) finite reward that would make it rational to take the bet, but it's not R.
This is even simpler and more stupid than the "proofs" that 0=1. It does not change my opinion that philosophers (and lesswrong) are idiots.
> The mugger argues back that for any low but strictly greater than 0 probability of being able to pay back a large amount of money (or pure utility) there exists a finite amount that makes it rational to take the bet.
This is a basic logic error. It ignores the very obvious fact that increasing the reward amount decreases the probability that it will be returned.
E.g. if the probability of the reward R being returned is (0.5/R) we get "a low by strictly greater than 0 probability", and for that probability there is a (different) finite reward that would make it rational to take the bet, but it's not R.
This is even simpler and more stupid than the "proofs" that 0=1. It does not change my opinion that philosophers (and lesswrong) are idiots.
That's what the person responding to meant - attempts to make human systems "rational" often involves simplifying dependent probabilities and presenting them as independent.
The rationalist community both frequently makes this reasoning error and is aware they frequently make this error, and coined this term to refer to the category of reasoning mistake.
The rationalist community both frequently makes this reasoning error and is aware they frequently make this error, and coined this term to refer to the category of reasoning mistake.
> coined this term to refer to the category of reasoning mistake.
That's not at all what the Wikipedia article for it says. It presents it as an interesting paradox with several potential (and incorrect!) "remedies" rather than a category of basic logical errors.
That's not at all what the Wikipedia article for it says. It presents it as an interesting paradox with several potential (and incorrect!) "remedies" rather than a category of basic logical errors.
The “quadrillion days of happiness” offered to a rational person gives away that such allegories are anthropomorphized just for the sake of presentation. For the sake of what the philosophers mean, you should probably imagine this as an algorithm running on a machine (no AGI).
It’s a mental tease, not a manual on how to react when faced with a mugger who forgot his weapon at home but has an interesting proposition to make.
Similarly the trolley problem isn’t really about real humans in that situation, or else the correct answer would always be “do nothing”.
It’s what the comment here [0] says. If you try to analyze everything purely rationally it will lead to dark corners of misunderstanding and madness.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42902931
It’s a mental tease, not a manual on how to react when faced with a mugger who forgot his weapon at home but has an interesting proposition to make.
Similarly the trolley problem isn’t really about real humans in that situation, or else the correct answer would always be “do nothing”.
It’s what the comment here [0] says. If you try to analyze everything purely rationally it will lead to dark corners of misunderstanding and madness.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42902931
> Similarly the trolley problem isn’t really about real humans in that situation, or else the correct answer would always be “do nothing”.
The correct answer in case of it being about real people, of course, is to switch immediately after the front bogey makes it through. This way, the trolley will derail and make a sharp turn before it runs over anyone, and stop.
The passengers will get shaken, but I don’t remember fatalities being reported when such things happened for real with real trams.
The correct answer in case of it being about real people, of course, is to switch immediately after the front bogey makes it through. This way, the trolley will derail and make a sharp turn before it runs over anyone, and stop.
The passengers will get shaken, but I don’t remember fatalities being reported when such things happened for real with real trams.
The scenario is set up by an evil philosopher though, so they can tie up the people arbitrarily close to the split in the rails, such that your solution doesn’t work, right?
In this case, it won’t matter, I’m afraid, which way the trolley goes as it will at least mangle both groups of people, and the only winning move is to try to move as many people as possible away from the track.
An Eastern European solution is to get a few buddies to cut the electrical wire that powers the trolleys and sell it for scrap metal, which works on all electrical trolleys. (After the trolley stops, it can be scavenged for parts you can sell as scrap metal, too.)
An Eastern European solution is to get a few buddies to cut the electrical wire that powers the trolleys and sell it for scrap metal, which works on all electrical trolleys. (After the trolley stops, it can be scavenged for parts you can sell as scrap metal, too.)
> An Eastern European solution
Made me chuckle. Funny 'cause it's true. About the trolley problem, if taken literally (people on tracks, etc.) pulling the lever exposes you to liability: you operated a mechanism you weren't authorized to use and for which you had no prior training, and you decided to kill one innocent person that was previously safe from harm.
Giving CPR is a very tame/safe version of the trolley problem and in some countries you're still liable for what happens after if you do it. Same when donating food to someone who might starve. Giving help has become a very spiny issue. But consciously harming someone when giving help in real life is a real minefield.
P.S. These philosophical problems are meant to force a decision from the options given. So assume the the problem is just a multiple choice one, 2 answers. You don't get to write a third.
Made me chuckle. Funny 'cause it's true. About the trolley problem, if taken literally (people on tracks, etc.) pulling the lever exposes you to liability: you operated a mechanism you weren't authorized to use and for which you had no prior training, and you decided to kill one innocent person that was previously safe from harm.
Giving CPR is a very tame/safe version of the trolley problem and in some countries you're still liable for what happens after if you do it. Same when donating food to someone who might starve. Giving help has become a very spiny issue. But consciously harming someone when giving help in real life is a real minefield.
P.S. These philosophical problems are meant to force a decision from the options given. So assume the the problem is just a multiple choice one, 2 answers. You don't get to write a third.
> P.S. These philosophical problems are meant to force a decision from the options given. So assume the the problem is just a multiple choice one, 2 answers. You don't get to write a third.
I know about it. And yet I refuse to play the game. The problem is that even philosophers should be able to acknowledge that in the real universe, no box should be too big to prevent from thinking outside of it.
Otherwise we get people who conflate map with the territory, like what this whole comment thread is about.
I know about it. And yet I refuse to play the game. The problem is that even philosophers should be able to acknowledge that in the real universe, no box should be too big to prevent from thinking outside of it.
Otherwise we get people who conflate map with the territory, like what this whole comment thread is about.
> The “quadrillion days of happiness” offered to a rational person gives away that such allegories are anthropomorphized just for the sake of presentation.
So what? It's still presented as if it's a interesting problem that needs to be "remedied", when in fact it's just a basic maths mistake.
If I said "ooo look at this paradox: 1 + 1 = 2, but if I add another one then we get 1 + 1 + 1 = 2, which is clearly false! I call this IshKebab's mugging.", you would rightly say "that is dumb; go away" rather than write a Wikipedia article about the "paradox" and "remedies".
> Similarly the trolley problem isn’t really about real humans in that situation, or else the correct answer would always be “do nothing”.
It absolutely wouldn't. I don't know how anyone with any morals could claim that.
So what? It's still presented as if it's a interesting problem that needs to be "remedied", when in fact it's just a basic maths mistake.
If I said "ooo look at this paradox: 1 + 1 = 2, but if I add another one then we get 1 + 1 + 1 = 2, which is clearly false! I call this IshKebab's mugging.", you would rightly say "that is dumb; go away" rather than write a Wikipedia article about the "paradox" and "remedies".
> Similarly the trolley problem isn’t really about real humans in that situation, or else the correct answer would always be “do nothing”.
It absolutely wouldn't. I don't know how anyone with any morals could claim that.
Interestingly, the trolley problem is decided every day, and humanity does not change tracks.
There are people who die waiting for organ donors, and a single donor could match multiple people. We do not find an appropriate donor and harvest them. This is the trolley problem, applied.
There are people who die waiting for organ donors, and a single donor could match multiple people. We do not find an appropriate donor and harvest them. This is the trolley problem, applied.
I would pull the lever in the trolley problem and don't support murdering people for organs.
The reason is that murdering people for organs has massive second-order effects: public fear, the desire to avoid medical care if harvesting is done in those contexts, disproportionate targeting of the organ harvesting onto the least fortunate, etc.
The reason is that murdering people for organs has massive second-order effects: public fear, the desire to avoid medical care if harvesting is done in those contexts, disproportionate targeting of the organ harvesting onto the least fortunate, etc.
The fact that forcibly harvesting someone’s organs against their will did not make your list is rather worrying. Most people would have moral hangups around that aspect.
Yea, it doesn’t seem quite right to say that the trolley problem isn’t about really people. I mean the physical mechanical system isn’t there but it is a direct abstraction of decisions we make every day.
> the trolley problem isn’t about really people
My actual words quoted below give one extra detail that makes all the difference, one that I see people silently dropped in a rush to reply. The words were aimed at someone taking these problems in a too literal sense, as extra evidence that they are not to be taken as such but as food for though that has real life applicability.
> the trolley problem isn’t really about real humans in that situation
My actual words quoted below give one extra detail that makes all the difference, one that I see people silently dropped in a rush to reply. The words were aimed at someone taking these problems in a too literal sense, as extra evidence that they are not to be taken as such but as food for though that has real life applicability.
> the trolley problem isn’t really about real humans in that situation
> We do not find an appropriate donor and harvest them. This is the trolley problem, applied.
I don't think that matches the trolley problem particularly well for all sorts of reasons. But anyway your point is irrelevant - his claim was that the trolley problem isn't about real humans, not that people would pull the lever.
Edit: never mind, I reread your comment and I think you were also agreeing with that.
I don't think that matches the trolley problem particularly well for all sorts of reasons. But anyway your point is irrelevant - his claim was that the trolley problem isn't about real humans, not that people would pull the lever.
Edit: never mind, I reread your comment and I think you were also agreeing with that.
> his claim was that the trolley problem isn't about real humans
Is it though? Let's look at the comment [0] written 8h before your reply:
> the trolley problem isn’t really about real humans in that situation
As in "don't take things absolutely literally like you were doing, because you'll absolutely be wrong". You found a way to compound the mistake by dropping the critical information then taking absolutely literally what was left.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42907977
Is it though? Let's look at the comment [0] written 8h before your reply:
> the trolley problem isn’t really about real humans in that situation
As in "don't take things absolutely literally like you were doing, because you'll absolutely be wrong". You found a way to compound the mistake by dropping the critical information then taking absolutely literally what was left.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42907977
It seems that you didn't understand the main point of the exposition. I'll summarize the ops comment a bit further.
Points 1 and 2 only explain how they are able to erroneously justify their absurd beliefs, they don't explain why they hold those beliefs.
Points 3 through 5 are the heart of the matter; egotistical and charismatic (to some types of people) leaders, open minded, freethinking and somewhat weird or marginalized people searching for meaning plus a way for them all to congregate around some shared interests.
TLDR: perfect conditions for one or more cults to form.
Points 1 and 2 only explain how they are able to erroneously justify their absurd beliefs, they don't explain why they hold those beliefs.
Points 3 through 5 are the heart of the matter; egotistical and charismatic (to some types of people) leaders, open minded, freethinking and somewhat weird or marginalized people searching for meaning plus a way for them all to congregate around some shared interests.
TLDR: perfect conditions for one or more cults to form.
No, it’s the “rationality.” Well maybe the people too, but the ideas are at fault.
As I posted elsewhere on this subject: these people are rationalizing, not rational. They’re writing cliche sci-fi and bizarre secularized imitations of baroque theology and then reasoning from these narratives as if they are reality.
Reason is a tool not a magic superpower enabling one to see beyond the bounds of available information, nor does it magically vaporize all biases.
Logic, like software and for the same reason, is “garbage in, garbage out.” If even one of the inputs (premises, priors) is mistaken the entire conclusion can be wildly wrong. Errors cascade, just like software.
That's why every step needs to be checked with experiment or observation before a next step is taken.
I have followed these people since stuff like Overcoming Bias and LessWrong appeared and I have never been very impressed. Some interesting ideas, but honestly most of them were recycling of ideas I’d already encountered in sci-fi or futurist forums from way back in the 1990s.
The culty vibes were always there and it instantly put me off, as did many of the personalities.
“A bunch of high IQ idiots” has been my take for like a decade or more.
As I posted elsewhere on this subject: these people are rationalizing, not rational. They’re writing cliche sci-fi and bizarre secularized imitations of baroque theology and then reasoning from these narratives as if they are reality.
Reason is a tool not a magic superpower enabling one to see beyond the bounds of available information, nor does it magically vaporize all biases.
Logic, like software and for the same reason, is “garbage in, garbage out.” If even one of the inputs (premises, priors) is mistaken the entire conclusion can be wildly wrong. Errors cascade, just like software.
That's why every step needs to be checked with experiment or observation before a next step is taken.
I have followed these people since stuff like Overcoming Bias and LessWrong appeared and I have never been very impressed. Some interesting ideas, but honestly most of them were recycling of ideas I’d already encountered in sci-fi or futurist forums from way back in the 1990s.
The culty vibes were always there and it instantly put me off, as did many of the personalities.
“A bunch of high IQ idiots” has been my take for like a decade or more.
> As I posted elsewhere on this subject: these people are rationalizing, not rational.
That is sometimes true, but as I said in another comment, I think this is on the weaker end of criticisms because it doesn't really apply to the best of that community's members and the best of its claims, and in either case isn't really a consequence of their explicit values.
> Logic, like software and for the same reason, is “garbage in, garbage out.” If even one of the inputs (premises, priors) is mistaken the entire conclusion can be wildly wrong. Errors cascade, just like software.
True, but an odd analogy: we use software to make very important predictions all the time. For every Therac-25 out there, there's a model helping detect cancer in MRI imagery.
And, of course, other methods are also prone to error.
> That's why every step needs to be checked with experiment or observation before a next step is taken.
Depends on the setting. Some hypotheses are not things you can test in the lab. Some others are consequences you really don't want to confirm. Setting aside AI risk for a second, consider the scientists watching the Trinity Test: they had calculated that it wouldn't ignite the atmosphere and incinerate the entire globe in a firestorm, but...well, they didn't really know until they set the thing off, did they? They had to take a bet based on what they could predict with what they knew.
I really don't agree with the implicit take that "um actually you can never be certain so trying to reason about things is stupid". Excessive chains of reasoning accumulate error, and that error can be severe in cases of numerical instability (e.g. values very close to 0, multiplications, that kind of thing). But shorter chains conducted rigorously are a very important tool to understand the world.
That is sometimes true, but as I said in another comment, I think this is on the weaker end of criticisms because it doesn't really apply to the best of that community's members and the best of its claims, and in either case isn't really a consequence of their explicit values.
> Logic, like software and for the same reason, is “garbage in, garbage out.” If even one of the inputs (premises, priors) is mistaken the entire conclusion can be wildly wrong. Errors cascade, just like software.
True, but an odd analogy: we use software to make very important predictions all the time. For every Therac-25 out there, there's a model helping detect cancer in MRI imagery.
And, of course, other methods are also prone to error.
> That's why every step needs to be checked with experiment or observation before a next step is taken.
Depends on the setting. Some hypotheses are not things you can test in the lab. Some others are consequences you really don't want to confirm. Setting aside AI risk for a second, consider the scientists watching the Trinity Test: they had calculated that it wouldn't ignite the atmosphere and incinerate the entire globe in a firestorm, but...well, they didn't really know until they set the thing off, did they? They had to take a bet based on what they could predict with what they knew.
I really don't agree with the implicit take that "um actually you can never be certain so trying to reason about things is stupid". Excessive chains of reasoning accumulate error, and that error can be severe in cases of numerical instability (e.g. values very close to 0, multiplications, that kind of thing). But shorter chains conducted rigorously are a very important tool to understand the world.
> "um actually you can never be certain so trying to reason about things is stupid"
I didn't mean to say that, just that logic and reason are not infallible and have to be checked. Sure we use complex software to detect cancer in MRI images, but we constantly check that this software works by... you know... seeing if there's actual cancer where it says there is, and if there's not we go back around the engineering circle and refine the design.
Let's say I use the most painstaking, arduous, careful methods to design an orbital rocket. I take extreme care to make every design decision on the basis of physics and use elaborate simulations that my designs are correct. I check, re-check, and re-check. Then I build it. It's never flown before. You getting on board?
Obviously riding on an untested rocket would be insane no matter how high-IQ and "rational" its engineers tried to be. So is revamping our entire political, economic, or social system on the basis of someone's longtermist model of the future that is untestable and unverifiable. So is banning beneficial technologies on the basis of hypothetical dangers built on hypothetical reasoning from untestable priors. And so on...
... and so is, apparently, killing people, because reasons?
I didn't mean to say that, just that logic and reason are not infallible and have to be checked. Sure we use complex software to detect cancer in MRI images, but we constantly check that this software works by... you know... seeing if there's actual cancer where it says there is, and if there's not we go back around the engineering circle and refine the design.
Let's say I use the most painstaking, arduous, careful methods to design an orbital rocket. I take extreme care to make every design decision on the basis of physics and use elaborate simulations that my designs are correct. I check, re-check, and re-check. Then I build it. It's never flown before. You getting on board?
Obviously riding on an untested rocket would be insane no matter how high-IQ and "rational" its engineers tried to be. So is revamping our entire political, economic, or social system on the basis of someone's longtermist model of the future that is untestable and unverifiable. So is banning beneficial technologies on the basis of hypothetical dangers built on hypothetical reasoning from untestable priors. And so on...
... and so is, apparently, killing people, because reasons?
>They have, in the past, responded to criticism with statements to the effect of "anyone who would criticize us for any reason is a bad person who is lying to cause us harm".
Which leader said anything like that? Certainly not Eliezer or the leader of the Center for Applied Rationality (Anna Salamon) or the project lead of the web site lesswrong.com (Oliver Habryka)!
Which leader said anything like that? Certainly not Eliezer or the leader of the Center for Applied Rationality (Anna Salamon) or the project lead of the web site lesswrong.com (Oliver Habryka)!
Hello, can confirm, criticism is like the bread and butter of LW, lol. I have very extensively criticized tons of people in the extend rationality ecosystem, and I have also never seen anyone in any leadership position react with anything like this quote. Seems totally made up.
I found Eliezer's Facebook post which OP likely was thinking of. https://www.facebook.com/yudkowsky/posts/pfbid0WN6GeX8S9DK9T...
> I feel like it should have been obvious to anyone at this point that anybody who openly hates on this community generally or me personally is probably also a bad person inside and has no ethics* and will hurt you if you trust them and will break rules to do so; but in case it wasn't obvious, consider the point made explicitly.
> (Let not this post be construed as casting aspersions on any of the many, many people who've had honest disagreements with me or us, including loud or heated or long ones, that they conducted by debates about ideas rather than insinuations about people.)
Creepy. But after people argued with Eliezer for a considerable time --he made 11 updates. The result was less shockingly bad:
> There's a certain cluster of behaviors and attitudes, which includes things like "getting excited about opportunities to make fun of furries" or uttering phrases like "group X is a bunch of neckbeards". Notably, this is not the same cluster as "strongly and vocally disagreeing with group X about idea Y". Call the first cluster "frobnitz".
> I feel like it should have been obvious to anyone at this point that anybody who openly frobnitzes me, or even more so frobnitzes this community, or even more so still frobnitzes a genuine cinnamon-roll-grade Level Ten Arch-Bodhisattva like Scott Alexander or Scott Aaronson, probably lacks an internal commitment to ordinary interpersonal ethical injunctions and will hurt you if you trust them and will break rules to do so. But in case it wasn't obvious, consider the point made explicitly. (Subtext: Topher Brennan. Do not provide any link in comments to Topher's publication of private emails, explicitly marked as private, from Scott Alexander.)
If this is the only evidence-- OPs allegation is exaggerated but not 'totally made up'.
> I feel like it should have been obvious to anyone at this point that anybody who openly hates on this community generally or me personally is probably also a bad person inside and has no ethics* and will hurt you if you trust them and will break rules to do so; but in case it wasn't obvious, consider the point made explicitly.
> (Let not this post be construed as casting aspersions on any of the many, many people who've had honest disagreements with me or us, including loud or heated or long ones, that they conducted by debates about ideas rather than insinuations about people.)
Creepy. But after people argued with Eliezer for a considerable time --he made 11 updates. The result was less shockingly bad:
> There's a certain cluster of behaviors and attitudes, which includes things like "getting excited about opportunities to make fun of furries" or uttering phrases like "group X is a bunch of neckbeards". Notably, this is not the same cluster as "strongly and vocally disagreeing with group X about idea Y". Call the first cluster "frobnitz".
> I feel like it should have been obvious to anyone at this point that anybody who openly frobnitzes me, or even more so frobnitzes this community, or even more so still frobnitzes a genuine cinnamon-roll-grade Level Ten Arch-Bodhisattva like Scott Alexander or Scott Aaronson, probably lacks an internal commitment to ordinary interpersonal ethical injunctions and will hurt you if you trust them and will break rules to do so. But in case it wasn't obvious, consider the point made explicitly. (Subtext: Topher Brennan. Do not provide any link in comments to Topher's publication of private emails, explicitly marked as private, from Scott Alexander.)
If this is the only evidence-- OPs allegation is exaggerated but not 'totally made up'.
I'm pretty sure I remember a post on Eliezer's Facebook from the early 2010s. I have definitely witnessed some... well - you know, 'culty' vibes and social pressure around Less Wrong.
> Rationalists, by tending to overly formalist approaches,
But they don't apply formal or "formalist" approaches, they invoke the names of formal methods but then extract from them just a "vibe". Few to none in the community know squat about actually computing a posterior probability, but they'll all happily chant "shut up and multiply" as a justification for whatever nonsense they instinctively wanted to do.
> Precision errors in utility calculations that are numerically-unstable
Indeed, as well as just ignoring that uncertainties about the state of the world or the model of interaction utterly dominate any "calculation" that you could hope to do. The world at large is does not spend all its time in lesswrongian ritual multiplication or whatever... but this is not because they're educated stupid. It's because in the face of substantial uncertainty about the world (and your own calculation processes) reasoning things out can only take you so far. A useful tool in some domains, but not a generalized philosophy for life ... The cognitive biases they obsess about and go out of their way to eschew are mostly highly evolved harm mitigation heuristics for reasoning against uncertainty.
> that is particularly susceptible to internally-consistent madness
It's typical for cults to cultivate vulnerable mind states for cult leaders to exploit for their own profit, power, sexual fulfillment, etc.
A well regulated cult keeps its members mental illness within a bound that maximized the benefit for the cult leaders in a sustainable way (e.g. not going off and murdering people, even when doing so is the logical conclusion of the cult philosophy). But sometimes people are won over by a cult's distorted thinking but aren't useful for bringing the cult leaders their desired profit, power, or sex.
But they don't apply formal or "formalist" approaches, they invoke the names of formal methods but then extract from them just a "vibe". Few to none in the community know squat about actually computing a posterior probability, but they'll all happily chant "shut up and multiply" as a justification for whatever nonsense they instinctively wanted to do.
> Precision errors in utility calculations that are numerically-unstable
Indeed, as well as just ignoring that uncertainties about the state of the world or the model of interaction utterly dominate any "calculation" that you could hope to do. The world at large is does not spend all its time in lesswrongian ritual multiplication or whatever... but this is not because they're educated stupid. It's because in the face of substantial uncertainty about the world (and your own calculation processes) reasoning things out can only take you so far. A useful tool in some domains, but not a generalized philosophy for life ... The cognitive biases they obsess about and go out of their way to eschew are mostly highly evolved harm mitigation heuristics for reasoning against uncertainty.
> that is particularly susceptible to internally-consistent madness
It's typical for cults to cultivate vulnerable mind states for cult leaders to exploit for their own profit, power, sexual fulfillment, etc.
A well regulated cult keeps its members mental illness within a bound that maximized the benefit for the cult leaders in a sustainable way (e.g. not going off and murdering people, even when doing so is the logical conclusion of the cult philosophy). But sometimes people are won over by a cult's distorted thinking but aren't useful for bringing the cult leaders their desired profit, power, or sex.
> But they don't apply formal or "formalist" approaches, they invoke the names of formal methods but then extract from them just a "vibe".
I broadly agree with this criticism, but I also think it's kind of low-hanging. At least speaking for myself (a former member of those circles), I do indeed sit down and write quantitative models when I want to estimate things rigorously, and I can't be the only one who does.
> Indeed, as well as just ignoring that uncertainties about the state of the world or the model of interaction utterly dominate any "calculation" that you could hope to do.
This, on the other hand, I don't think is a valid criticism nor correct taken in isolation.
You can absolutely make meaningful predictions about the world despite uncertainties. A good model can tell you that a hurricane might hit Tampa but won't hit New Orleans, even though weather is the textbook example of a medium-term chaotic system. A good model can tell you when a bridge needs to be inspected, even though there are numerous reasons for failure that you cannot account for. A good model can tell you whether a growth is likely to become cancerous, even though oncogenesis is stochastic.
Maybe a bit more precisely, even if logic cannot tell you what sets of beliefs are correct, it can tell you what sets of beliefs are inconsistent with one another. For example, if you think event X has probability 50%, and you think event Y has probability 20% conditional on X, it would be inconsistent for you to believe event Y has a probability of less than 10%.
> The world at large is does not spend all its time in lesswrongian ritual multiplication or whatever... but this is not because they're educated stupid
When I thought about founding my company last January, one of the first things I did was sit down and make a toy model to estimate whether the unit economics would be viable. It said they would be, so I started the company. It is now profitable with wide operating margins, just as that model predicted it would be, because I did the math and my competitors in a crowded space did not.
Yeah, it's possible to be overconfident, but let's not forget where we are: startups win because people do things in dumb inefficient ways all the time. Sometimes everyone is wrong and you are right, it's just that that usually happens in areas where you have singularly deep expertise, not where you were just a Really Smart Dude and thought super hard about philosophy.
I broadly agree with this criticism, but I also think it's kind of low-hanging. At least speaking for myself (a former member of those circles), I do indeed sit down and write quantitative models when I want to estimate things rigorously, and I can't be the only one who does.
> Indeed, as well as just ignoring that uncertainties about the state of the world or the model of interaction utterly dominate any "calculation" that you could hope to do.
This, on the other hand, I don't think is a valid criticism nor correct taken in isolation.
You can absolutely make meaningful predictions about the world despite uncertainties. A good model can tell you that a hurricane might hit Tampa but won't hit New Orleans, even though weather is the textbook example of a medium-term chaotic system. A good model can tell you when a bridge needs to be inspected, even though there are numerous reasons for failure that you cannot account for. A good model can tell you whether a growth is likely to become cancerous, even though oncogenesis is stochastic.
Maybe a bit more precisely, even if logic cannot tell you what sets of beliefs are correct, it can tell you what sets of beliefs are inconsistent with one another. For example, if you think event X has probability 50%, and you think event Y has probability 20% conditional on X, it would be inconsistent for you to believe event Y has a probability of less than 10%.
> The world at large is does not spend all its time in lesswrongian ritual multiplication or whatever... but this is not because they're educated stupid
When I thought about founding my company last January, one of the first things I did was sit down and make a toy model to estimate whether the unit economics would be viable. It said they would be, so I started the company. It is now profitable with wide operating margins, just as that model predicted it would be, because I did the math and my competitors in a crowded space did not.
Yeah, it's possible to be overconfident, but let's not forget where we are: startups win because people do things in dumb inefficient ways all the time. Sometimes everyone is wrong and you are right, it's just that that usually happens in areas where you have singularly deep expertise, not where you were just a Really Smart Dude and thought super hard about philosophy.
What you describe (doing basic market analysis) is pretty much unrelated to 'rationality.'
'Rationality' hasn't really made any meaningful contributions to human knowledge or thinking. The things you describe, are all products of scientists and statisticians, etc...
Bayesian statistics is not rationality. It is just Bayesian statistics... And it is mathematicians who should get the credit not less wrong!!
'Rationality' hasn't really made any meaningful contributions to human knowledge or thinking. The things you describe, are all products of scientists and statisticians, etc...
Bayesian statistics is not rationality. It is just Bayesian statistics... And it is mathematicians who should get the credit not less wrong!!
The rationalist movement, if it is anything, is a movement defined by the desire of its members to perceive the world accurately and without bias. In that sense, using a variety of different tools from different academic and intellectual disciplines (philosophy, economics, mathematics, etc) should be expected. I don't think any of the major rationalist figures (Yudkowsky, Julia Galef, Zvi Mowshowitz) would claim any credit for developing these ideas; they would simply say they've used and helped popularize a suite of tools for making good decisions.
Perhaps I overemphasized it, but a personal experience on that front was key to realizing that the lesswrong community was in aggregate a bunch of bullshit sophistic larpers.
In short, some real world system had me asking a simply poised probabilities question. I eventually solved it. I learned two things as a result, one (which I kinda knew, but didn't 'know' before) is that the formal answer to even very simple question can be extremely complicated (e.g. asking for the inverse of a one line formal turning into a half page of extremely dense math), and two that many prominent members of the lesswrong community were completely clueless about the practice of the tools they advocate, not even knowing the most basic search keywords or realizing that there was little hope of most of their fans ever applying these tools to all but the absolute simplest questions.
> You can absolutely make meaningful predictions about the world despite uncertainties. A good model can tell you that a hurricane might
Thanks for the example though-- reasoning about hurricanes is the result of decades of research by thousands of people, the inputs involve data from thousands of weather stations including floating buoys, multiple satellites, and aircraft that fly through the storms to get data. The calculations include numerous empirically derived constants that provide averages for unmeasureable quantities for inputs that the models need plus adhoc corrections to fit model outputs to previously observed behavior.
And the results, while extremely useful, are vague and not particularly precise-- there are many questions they can't answer.
While it is a calculation, it is very much an example of empiracy being primary over reason.
And if someone is thinking that our success with hurricane modeling tells them anything about their ability to 'reason things out' from their own life, without decades of experience, data collection, satellite monitoring, teams of PHD, then they're just mistaken. It's just not comparable.
Reasoning things out, with or without the aid of data, can absolutely be of use. But that utility is bounded by the quality of our data, our understanding of the world, errors in our reasoning process, etc. And people do engage in that level of reasoning all the time. But it's not more primary than it is because of the significant and serious limitations.
I suspect that the effort require to calculate things out also comes with a big risk of overconfidence. Like, stick your thumb in the air, make some rough cash flow calculations, etc. That's a good call and probably captures the vast majority of predictive power for some new business. But if instead you make some complicated multi-agent computational model of the business it might only have a little be more predictive power but a lot more risk of following it off a cliff when experience is suggesting the predictions were wrong.
> people do things in dumb inefficient ways all the time
Or, even more often, they're optimizing for a goal different than yours, one that might not even be legible to you!
> just as that model predicted it would be, because I did the math and my competitors in a crowded space did not.
or so you think! Often organizations fail to do "obvious" things because there are considerations that just aren't visible or relevant to outsiders, rather than any failure of reasoning.
For example, I've been part of an org that could have pivoted to a different product and made more money... but doing so would have meant laying off a bunch of people that everyone really liked working with. The extra money wasn't worth it. Whomever eventually scooped up that business might have thought they were smart for seeing it where we didn't, but if so they'd be wrong about why we didn't do it. We saw the opportunity and just had different objectives.
I wouldn't for a moment argue that collections of people don't do stupid things, they do-- but there is a lot less stupid than you might assume on first analysis.
> it's just that that usually happens in areas where you have singularly deep expertise, not where you were just a Really Smart Dude and thought super hard about philosophy
We agree completely there-- but it's really about the data and expertise. Sure, you have to do the thinking to connect the dots, and then have the courage and conviction (or hunger) to execute on it. You may need all three of data, expertise, and fancy calculations. But the third is sometimes optional and the former two are almost never optional and usually can only be replaced by luck, not 'reasoning'.
In short, some real world system had me asking a simply poised probabilities question. I eventually solved it. I learned two things as a result, one (which I kinda knew, but didn't 'know' before) is that the formal answer to even very simple question can be extremely complicated (e.g. asking for the inverse of a one line formal turning into a half page of extremely dense math), and two that many prominent members of the lesswrong community were completely clueless about the practice of the tools they advocate, not even knowing the most basic search keywords or realizing that there was little hope of most of their fans ever applying these tools to all but the absolute simplest questions.
> You can absolutely make meaningful predictions about the world despite uncertainties. A good model can tell you that a hurricane might
Thanks for the example though-- reasoning about hurricanes is the result of decades of research by thousands of people, the inputs involve data from thousands of weather stations including floating buoys, multiple satellites, and aircraft that fly through the storms to get data. The calculations include numerous empirically derived constants that provide averages for unmeasureable quantities for inputs that the models need plus adhoc corrections to fit model outputs to previously observed behavior.
And the results, while extremely useful, are vague and not particularly precise-- there are many questions they can't answer.
While it is a calculation, it is very much an example of empiracy being primary over reason.
And if someone is thinking that our success with hurricane modeling tells them anything about their ability to 'reason things out' from their own life, without decades of experience, data collection, satellite monitoring, teams of PHD, then they're just mistaken. It's just not comparable.
Reasoning things out, with or without the aid of data, can absolutely be of use. But that utility is bounded by the quality of our data, our understanding of the world, errors in our reasoning process, etc. And people do engage in that level of reasoning all the time. But it's not more primary than it is because of the significant and serious limitations.
I suspect that the effort require to calculate things out also comes with a big risk of overconfidence. Like, stick your thumb in the air, make some rough cash flow calculations, etc. That's a good call and probably captures the vast majority of predictive power for some new business. But if instead you make some complicated multi-agent computational model of the business it might only have a little be more predictive power but a lot more risk of following it off a cliff when experience is suggesting the predictions were wrong.
> people do things in dumb inefficient ways all the time
Or, even more often, they're optimizing for a goal different than yours, one that might not even be legible to you!
> just as that model predicted it would be, because I did the math and my competitors in a crowded space did not.
or so you think! Often organizations fail to do "obvious" things because there are considerations that just aren't visible or relevant to outsiders, rather than any failure of reasoning.
For example, I've been part of an org that could have pivoted to a different product and made more money... but doing so would have meant laying off a bunch of people that everyone really liked working with. The extra money wasn't worth it. Whomever eventually scooped up that business might have thought they were smart for seeing it where we didn't, but if so they'd be wrong about why we didn't do it. We saw the opportunity and just had different objectives.
I wouldn't for a moment argue that collections of people don't do stupid things, they do-- but there is a lot less stupid than you might assume on first analysis.
> it's just that that usually happens in areas where you have singularly deep expertise, not where you were just a Really Smart Dude and thought super hard about philosophy
We agree completely there-- but it's really about the data and expertise. Sure, you have to do the thinking to connect the dots, and then have the courage and conviction (or hunger) to execute on it. You may need all three of data, expertise, and fancy calculations. But the third is sometimes optional and the former two are almost never optional and usually can only be replaced by luck, not 'reasoning'.
This is an excellent explanation of the flaws inherent in the rationalist philosophy. I’m not deeply involved in the community but it seems like there’s very little appreciation of the limits of first principles based reasoning. To put it simply, there are ideas and phenomena that are strictly inaccessible to pure logical deduction. This also infects their thoughts about AI doom. There’s very little mention of how the AI will collect data or marshall physical resources. Instead it just reads physics textbooks then infers an infallible plan to amass infinite power. It’s worth noting that the AGI god’s abilities seem to align pretty well with Yudkowsky’s conception of why he is a superior person.
> A good model can tell you that a hurricane might hit Tampa but won't hit New Orleans
On the other hand we have no model to predict that hurricane a year in advance and tell us which city it’ll hit.
Yet these people believe they can rationalise about far more unpredictable events far further in the future.
That is, I agree that they completely ignore the point at which uncertainties utterly dominate any calculation you might try to do and yet continue to calculate to a point of absurdity.
On the other hand we have no model to predict that hurricane a year in advance and tell us which city it’ll hit.
Yet these people believe they can rationalise about far more unpredictable events far further in the future.
That is, I agree that they completely ignore the point at which uncertainties utterly dominate any calculation you might try to do and yet continue to calculate to a point of absurdity.
I noticed years ago too that AI doomers and rationalist type were very prone to (infinity * 0 = infinity) types of traps, which is a fairly autistic way of thinking. Humanity long time ago decided that infinity * 0 = 0 for very good practical reasons.
> Humanity long time ago decided that infinity * 0 = 0
I'm guessing you don't mean this in any formal mathematical sense, without context, infinity multiplied by zero isn't formally defined. There could be various formulations and contexts where you could define / calculate something like infinity * zero to evaluate to whatever you want. (e.g. define f(x) := C x and g(x) := 1/x, What does f(x) * g(x) evaluate to in the limit as x goes to infinity? C. And we can interpret f(x) as going to infinity while g(x) goes to zero, so we can use that to justify writing "infinity * 0 = C" for an arbitrary C... )
So, what do you mean by "infinity * 0 = infinity" informally? That humans regard the expected value of (arbitrarily large impact) * (arbitrarily small probability) as zero?
I'm guessing you don't mean this in any formal mathematical sense, without context, infinity multiplied by zero isn't formally defined. There could be various formulations and contexts where you could define / calculate something like infinity * zero to evaluate to whatever you want. (e.g. define f(x) := C x and g(x) := 1/x, What does f(x) * g(x) evaluate to in the limit as x goes to infinity? C. And we can interpret f(x) as going to infinity while g(x) goes to zero, so we can use that to justify writing "infinity * 0 = C" for an arbitrary C... )
So, what do you mean by "infinity * 0 = infinity" informally? That humans regard the expected value of (arbitrarily large impact) * (arbitrarily small probability) as zero?
It's true in the informal sense. Normal people, when considering an "infinitely" bad thing happening (being killed, losing their home, etc) with a very low probability will round that probability to zero ("It won't happen to ME"), multiply the two and resultantly spend zero time worrying about it, planning for it, etc.
For instance, a serial killer could kill me (infinitely bad outcome) but the chance of that happening is so tiny I treat it as zero, and so when I leave my house every day I don't look into the bushes for a psycho murderer waiting there for me, I don't wear body armor, I am unarmed, I don't even think about the chance of being killed by a serial killer. For all practical intents and purposes I treat that possibility as zero.
Important to remember that different people gave different thresholds at which they round to zero. Some people run through dark parking garages and jump into their car because they don't round the risk of a killer under their car slashing their achilles tendons down to zero. Some people carry a gun everywhere they go, because they don't round the risk of encountering a mass shooter to zero. Some people invest their time and money pursuing spaceflight development because they don't round a dino-killing asteroid to zero. A lot of people don't round the chance of wrecking a motorcycle to zero, and therefore don't buy one even though they look like fun.
The lesswrong/rationalist people have a tendency to have very low thresholds at which they'll start to round to zero, at least when the potential harm would be met out to a large portion of humanity. Their unusually low threshold leads them to very unusual conclusions. They take seriously possibilities which most people consider to be essentially zero, giving rise to the perception that rationalists don't think that infinity * 0 = 0.
For instance, a serial killer could kill me (infinitely bad outcome) but the chance of that happening is so tiny I treat it as zero, and so when I leave my house every day I don't look into the bushes for a psycho murderer waiting there for me, I don't wear body armor, I am unarmed, I don't even think about the chance of being killed by a serial killer. For all practical intents and purposes I treat that possibility as zero.
Important to remember that different people gave different thresholds at which they round to zero. Some people run through dark parking garages and jump into their car because they don't round the risk of a killer under their car slashing their achilles tendons down to zero. Some people carry a gun everywhere they go, because they don't round the risk of encountering a mass shooter to zero. Some people invest their time and money pursuing spaceflight development because they don't round a dino-killing asteroid to zero. A lot of people don't round the chance of wrecking a motorcycle to zero, and therefore don't buy one even though they look like fun.
The lesswrong/rationalist people have a tendency to have very low thresholds at which they'll start to round to zero, at least when the potential harm would be met out to a large portion of humanity. Their unusually low threshold leads them to very unusual conclusions. They take seriously possibilities which most people consider to be essentially zero, giving rise to the perception that rationalists don't think that infinity * 0 = 0.
> It's true in the informal sense. Normal people, when considering an "infinitely" bad thing happening (being killed, losing their home, etc) with a very low probability will round that probability to zero ("It won't happen to ME"), multiply the two and resultantly spend zero time worrying about it, planning for it, etc.
Is this the kind of thing that is part of the Less Wrong cult? I see this "multiply" word being used which I understand is part of the religious technology of LW. It all seems very sophomoric. I don't know what talking about "Infinity * 0" means in an informal sense means. What I can tell you is that "Normal people" are not multiplying "infinitely bad" with a "very low probability rounded to 0". For one, this is conflating multiple senses of infinite. I'm not sure anyone thinks likes bad outcomes are "infinitely bad", maybe in a schoolyard silly-talk kind of way, they just think it is bad. I think that's basically what Less Wrong is, a lot of fancy words and Internet memes and loose-talk about AI all strewn together in a "goth for adults" or some other kind of nerd social club.
Is this the kind of thing that is part of the Less Wrong cult? I see this "multiply" word being used which I understand is part of the religious technology of LW. It all seems very sophomoric. I don't know what talking about "Infinity * 0" means in an informal sense means. What I can tell you is that "Normal people" are not multiplying "infinitely bad" with a "very low probability rounded to 0". For one, this is conflating multiple senses of infinite. I'm not sure anyone thinks likes bad outcomes are "infinitely bad", maybe in a schoolyard silly-talk kind of way, they just think it is bad. I think that's basically what Less Wrong is, a lot of fancy words and Internet memes and loose-talk about AI all strewn together in a "goth for adults" or some other kind of nerd social club.
> "I don't know what talking about "Infinity * 0" means in an informal sense means"
I'm not a rationalist, I'm only using their language to make the mapping to their ideology simpler. A comet striking earth would be "infinitely bad". The chance of that happening is, as far as I'm concerned, zero (its not zero, but I round it down.) If you multiply the infinitely bad outcome by the zero percent chance of it happening, you result is that you shouldn't waste your time and emotional resources worrying about it.
Normal people don't phrase this kind of reasoning with math terminology as rationalists do, but that terminology isn't where the rationalists go wrong. Where the rationalists go wrong isn't the multiplication, it's the failure to ignore very unlikely outcomes as normal people would. They think themselves too rational to ignore the possibility of unlikely things, but ironically it is normal people who don't spend their time dwelling on extremely unlikely bullshit have a more rational approach to life.
The rationalists spend hours discussing scenarios like "What if a super AI manipulates people into engineering a super virus that wipes out humanity? Its technically possible; there's no law of physics which prevents this!", to which a normal person would respond by wondering if these people are on drugs, why would they spend so much time worrying about something which isn't going to happen?
I'm not a rationalist, I'm only using their language to make the mapping to their ideology simpler. A comet striking earth would be "infinitely bad". The chance of that happening is, as far as I'm concerned, zero (its not zero, but I round it down.) If you multiply the infinitely bad outcome by the zero percent chance of it happening, you result is that you shouldn't waste your time and emotional resources worrying about it.
Normal people don't phrase this kind of reasoning with math terminology as rationalists do, but that terminology isn't where the rationalists go wrong. Where the rationalists go wrong isn't the multiplication, it's the failure to ignore very unlikely outcomes as normal people would. They think themselves too rational to ignore the possibility of unlikely things, but ironically it is normal people who don't spend their time dwelling on extremely unlikely bullshit have a more rational approach to life.
The rationalists spend hours discussing scenarios like "What if a super AI manipulates people into engineering a super virus that wipes out humanity? Its technically possible; there's no law of physics which prevents this!", to which a normal person would respond by wondering if these people are on drugs, why would they spend so much time worrying about something which isn't going to happen?
Yeah pretty much. If I was to write it out further: "near infinity bad thing could happen but it has a near infinitesimal chance of it happening, what is the amount of finite resources you should spend to prevent it?". The numbers are probabilities and how much of an effect it is. It really is infinity * epsilon but that would confuse more people so I decided to say infinity * 0.
I was very explicit when I said "humanity decided". It doesn't matter if one or the other is the actual formal system math system result either way, it was chosen out of practicality that in this kind of philosophical issue, the more pragmatic thing was to axiomatically choose that "infinity * 0 = 0" when faced with things like this. The rationalists in a more meta/broader sense have decided that it's infinity * epsilon = infinity even if they say it is not on the surface. Their actions show they believe the other direction.
In math infinity * epsilon is indeterminate until you decide what the details of infinity & epsilon is, which I find quite fitting.
I was very explicit when I said "humanity decided". It doesn't matter if one or the other is the actual formal system math system result either way, it was chosen out of practicality that in this kind of philosophical issue, the more pragmatic thing was to axiomatically choose that "infinity * 0 = 0" when faced with things like this. The rationalists in a more meta/broader sense have decided that it's infinity * epsilon = infinity even if they say it is not on the surface. Their actions show they believe the other direction.
In math infinity * epsilon is indeterminate until you decide what the details of infinity & epsilon is, which I find quite fitting.
> That humans regard the expected value of (arbitrarily large impact) * (arbitrarily small probability) as zero?
There are many arguments that go something like this: We don't know the probability of <extinction-level event>, but because it is considered a maximally bad outcome, any means to prevent it are justified. You will see these types of arguments made to justify radical measures against climate change or AI research, but also in favor space colonization.
These types of arguments are "not even wrong", they can't be mathematically rigorous, because all terms in that equation are undefined, even if you move away from infinities. The nod to mathematics is purely for aesthetics.
There are many arguments that go something like this: We don't know the probability of <extinction-level event>, but because it is considered a maximally bad outcome, any means to prevent it are justified. You will see these types of arguments made to justify radical measures against climate change or AI research, but also in favor space colonization.
These types of arguments are "not even wrong", they can't be mathematically rigorous, because all terms in that equation are undefined, even if you move away from infinities. The nod to mathematics is purely for aesthetics.
No, humanity decided that infinity doesn't exist and anyone trying to tell you about it is selling you religion.
not exactly a rationalist thing, but a lot of bay-area people will tell you that exponential growth exists, and it's everywhere
i can't think of any case where exponential growth actually happens, though. exponential decay and logistic curves are common enough, but not exponential growth
i can't think of any case where exponential growth actually happens, though. exponential decay and logistic curves are common enough, but not exponential growth
The rats I hang out with know the difference between exponential and logistic just fine.
Hmm.
Not sure if it matters, but I'd note logistic curves can be hard to distinguish from an exponential for long enough that the difference isn't always very consequential — a nuke exploding doesn't keep doubling in power every few microseconds forever, but for enough doubling periods that cities still get flattened.
Hmm.
Not sure if it matters, but I'd note logistic curves can be hard to distinguish from an exponential for long enough that the difference isn't always very consequential — a nuke exploding doesn't keep doubling in power every few microseconds forever, but for enough doubling periods that cities still get flattened.
Well yeah their whole business model is convincing investors that logistic functions and exponentials are the same thing, actually.
Viruses until they reach their plateau of course.
That would be the logistic curve then
They actively look for ways for infinity to happen. Look at Eli's irate response to Roko's basilisk. To him even being able to imagine that there is a trap means that it will necessarily be realised.
I've seen "rationalist" AI doomers who say things like "given enough time technology will be invented to teleport you into the future where you'll be horifically tortured forever".
It's just extrapolation, taken to the extreme, and believed in totally religiously.
I've seen "rationalist" AI doomers who say things like "given enough time technology will be invented to teleport you into the future where you'll be horifically tortured forever".
It's just extrapolation, taken to the extreme, and believed in totally religiously.
>which is a fairly autistic way of thinking.
Any prominent ones of them I've read or met either openly shares their diagnosis, or 100% fits the profile.
Any prominent ones of them I've read or met either openly shares their diagnosis, or 100% fits the profile.
Reminds me of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measure_problem_(cosmology).
i think you are putting too many people in one bucket
> Humanity long time ago decided that infinity * 0 = 0 for very good practical reasons.
Among them being that ∞ × 0 = ∞ makes no mathematical sense. Multiplying literally any other number by zero results in zero. I see no reason to believe that infinity (positive or negative) would be some exception; infinity instances of nothing is still nothing.
Among them being that ∞ × 0 = ∞ makes no mathematical sense. Multiplying literally any other number by zero results in zero. I see no reason to believe that infinity (positive or negative) would be some exception; infinity instances of nothing is still nothing.
The problem is that infinity is neither a real nor a complex number, nor an element of any algebraic field, and the proposition that "x * 0 = 0" only holds if x is an element of some algebraic field. It is a theorem that depends on the field axioms.
The real numbers can be extended to include two special elements ∞ and -∞, but this extension does not constitute a field, and the range of expressions in which these symbols make sense is very strictly and narrowly defined (see Rudin's PMA, Definition 1.23):
It's usually the case that when you see people discussing infinity that they are actually talking about sequences of numbers that are unbounded above (or below). The expression "sₙ ⟶ +∞" is meant to denote such a sequence, and the definitions that extend the real number line (as in Definition 1.23 above) are used to do some higher-level algebra on limits of sums and products of sequences (e.g. the limit of sₙ + tₙ as n becomes "very large" for two sequences {sₙ}, {tₙ}) to shortcut around the lower-level formalisms of epsilons and neighborhoods of limit points in some metric space, which is how the limits of sequences are rigorously defined.
In no case do the symbols ∞ and -∞ refer to actual numbers. They are used in expressions that refer to properties of certain sequences once you look far enough down the sequence, past its first, second, hundredth, umpteenth, "Nth" terms, and so on.
Thus when you see people informally and loosely use expressions such as "infinity times zero" they're not actually multiplying two numbers together, but rather talking about the behavior of the product of two sequences as you evaluate terms further down both sequences; one of which is unbounded, while the other can be brought arbitrarily close to (but not necessarily equal to) zero. You will notice that no conclusions can be drawn regarding the behavior of such a product in general, whether referencing the definitions comprising the extended real number system or the lower-level definitions in terms of epsilons and neighborhoods of limit points.
So much confusion today comes down to people confidently using words, symbols, and signs they don't understand the definitions nor meanings of. Sometimes I wonder if this is the real esoteric meaning of the ancient Tower of Babel mythos.
The real numbers can be extended to include two special elements ∞ and -∞, but this extension does not constitute a field, and the range of expressions in which these symbols make sense is very strictly and narrowly defined (see Rudin's PMA, Definition 1.23):
(a) If x is real then
x + ∞ = +∞, x - ∞ = -∞, x / +∞ = x / -∞ = 0.
(b) If x > 0 then x * (+∞) = +∞, x * (-∞) = -∞.
(c) If x < 0 then x * (+∞) = -∞, x * (-∞) = +∞.
3.15 Definition Let {sₙ} be a sequence of real numbers with the following property: For every real M there is an integer N such that n ≥ N implies sₙ ≥ M. We then write
sₙ ⟶ +∞.
It's usually the case that when you see people discussing infinity that they are actually talking about sequences of numbers that are unbounded above (or below). The expression "sₙ ⟶ +∞" is meant to denote such a sequence, and the definitions that extend the real number line (as in Definition 1.23 above) are used to do some higher-level algebra on limits of sums and products of sequences (e.g. the limit of sₙ + tₙ as n becomes "very large" for two sequences {sₙ}, {tₙ}) to shortcut around the lower-level formalisms of epsilons and neighborhoods of limit points in some metric space, which is how the limits of sequences are rigorously defined.
In no case do the symbols ∞ and -∞ refer to actual numbers. They are used in expressions that refer to properties of certain sequences once you look far enough down the sequence, past its first, second, hundredth, umpteenth, "Nth" terms, and so on.
Thus when you see people informally and loosely use expressions such as "infinity times zero" they're not actually multiplying two numbers together, but rather talking about the behavior of the product of two sequences as you evaluate terms further down both sequences; one of which is unbounded, while the other can be brought arbitrarily close to (but not necessarily equal to) zero. You will notice that no conclusions can be drawn regarding the behavior of such a product in general, whether referencing the definitions comprising the extended real number system or the lower-level definitions in terms of epsilons and neighborhoods of limit points.
So much confusion today comes down to people confidently using words, symbols, and signs they don't understand the definitions nor meanings of. Sometimes I wonder if this is the real esoteric meaning of the ancient Tower of Babel mythos.
Infinity doesn't need to be in some "algebraic field" for it to be patently true that an infinite amount of nothing is still nothing, and that adding zero to itself over and over again for an infinitely long time will never give you a result other than zero. It's only impossible to define if you overthink it, and/or maintain a needlessly narrow definition of what a "number" is.
Or, if you really insist on speaking in mathematician-ese, an infinite series of zero is zero, and a zero-bounded summation is zero regardless of the summand:
x · y ≡ Σ(y, i = 1) x = y times { x + x + … + x } ≡ Σ(x,i=1) y = x times { y + y + … + y }
∞ · 0 ≡ Σ(0, i = 1) ∞ = 0 times { ∞ + ∞ + … + ∞ } = 0
0 · ∞ ≡ Σ(∞, i = 1) 0 = ∞ times { 0 + 0 + … + 0 } = 0
Or, if you prefer programmer-ese:
Either way, seems pretty straightforward to define if you have a clear definition of what multiplication is in the first place (and what either zero or infinite iterations of that definition will produce).
Or, if you really insist on speaking in mathematician-ese, an infinite series of zero is zero, and a zero-bounded summation is zero regardless of the summand:
x · y ≡ Σ(y, i = 1) x = y times { x + x + … + x } ≡ Σ(x,i=1) y = x times { y + y + … + y }
∞ · 0 ≡ Σ(0, i = 1) ∞ = 0 times { ∞ + ∞ + … + ∞ } = 0
0 · ∞ ≡ Σ(∞, i = 1) 0 = ∞ times { 0 + 0 + … + 0 } = 0
Or, if you prefer programmer-ese:
julia> i = 0
0
julia> while true
println(i)
global i += 0
end
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
Either way, seems pretty straightforward to define if you have a clear definition of what multiplication is in the first place (and what either zero or infinite iterations of that definition will produce).
Ok, let's assume you are correct and that ∞ · 0 = 0. Consider then the two sequences sₙ = n, tₙ = 1/n.
By Definition 3.15 as provided in my last post, sₙ ⟶ +∞, and you will have to take it for granted that tₙ ⟶ 0 [0]. Intuitively we can see that the terms of {sₙ} are 1, 2, 3, ... tending to +∞; for {tₙ} we have 1, 1/2, 1/3, ... tending to zero, for progressively larger values of n.
Now I ask what happens if we multiply the "infinite'th" terms of both sequences together. The first few terms of this product would be 1 · 1, 2 · 1/2, 3 · 1/3, and so on; I ask what the value x is in the limit sₙ · tₙ ⟶ x as we evaluate further and further "nth" terms of both sequences.
You may have observed from the first three terms evaluated that sₙ · tₙ = n(1/n) = 1. Thus, as we continue to increase the value of n, it's always the case that sₙ · tₙ ⟶ 1 and the product tends to 1, because the product is constant and irrespective of n; we've "cancelled it out."
The limit of the product is the product of the limits [1]; that is, sₙ · tₙ ⟶ +∞ · 0, as we first established that sₙ ⟶ +∞, tₙ ⟶ 0.
If we thus take your supposition that +∞ · 0 = 0 for granted, we obtain sₙ · tₙ ⟶ 0, which contradicts our previous result that sₙ · tₙ ⟶ 1.
Thus we can either dispense with the cited established theorems of analysis used to deduce that sₙ · tₙ ⟶ 1, or conclude that the supposition +∞ · 0 = 0 must be false.
It might be the case that Σ(∞, i = 1) 0 = 0, but you can't extend this to conclude +∞ · 0 = 0 in general. Lots of intuitions from informal mathematics and even calculus start to break down once you examine the lower-level "machine code" of proof and analysis, especially once you start talking about concepts like infinity.
[0] See Theorem 3.20 (a) in Rudin: https://archive.org/details/principles-of-mathematical-analy...
[1] See Theorem 3.3 (c) in Rudin: https://archive.org/details/principles-of-mathematical-analy...
By Definition 3.15 as provided in my last post, sₙ ⟶ +∞, and you will have to take it for granted that tₙ ⟶ 0 [0]. Intuitively we can see that the terms of {sₙ} are 1, 2, 3, ... tending to +∞; for {tₙ} we have 1, 1/2, 1/3, ... tending to zero, for progressively larger values of n.
Now I ask what happens if we multiply the "infinite'th" terms of both sequences together. The first few terms of this product would be 1 · 1, 2 · 1/2, 3 · 1/3, and so on; I ask what the value x is in the limit sₙ · tₙ ⟶ x as we evaluate further and further "nth" terms of both sequences.
You may have observed from the first three terms evaluated that sₙ · tₙ = n(1/n) = 1. Thus, as we continue to increase the value of n, it's always the case that sₙ · tₙ ⟶ 1 and the product tends to 1, because the product is constant and irrespective of n; we've "cancelled it out."
The limit of the product is the product of the limits [1]; that is, sₙ · tₙ ⟶ +∞ · 0, as we first established that sₙ ⟶ +∞, tₙ ⟶ 0.
If we thus take your supposition that +∞ · 0 = 0 for granted, we obtain sₙ · tₙ ⟶ 0, which contradicts our previous result that sₙ · tₙ ⟶ 1.
Thus we can either dispense with the cited established theorems of analysis used to deduce that sₙ · tₙ ⟶ 1, or conclude that the supposition +∞ · 0 = 0 must be false.
It might be the case that Σ(∞, i = 1) 0 = 0, but you can't extend this to conclude +∞ · 0 = 0 in general. Lots of intuitions from informal mathematics and even calculus start to break down once you examine the lower-level "machine code" of proof and analysis, especially once you start talking about concepts like infinity.
[0] See Theorem 3.20 (a) in Rudin: https://archive.org/details/principles-of-mathematical-analy...
[1] See Theorem 3.3 (c) in Rudin: https://archive.org/details/principles-of-mathematical-analy...
> Now I ask what happens if we multiply the "infinite'th" terms of both sequences together.
In that case, you would've reached their respective limits, and you're back to adding one of those limits into itself an other-limit number of times. If sₙ · tₙ ⟶ 1, then that only holds true if tₙ hasn't actually reached 0.
> Thus we can either dispense with the cited established theorems of analysis used to deduce that sₙ · tₙ ⟶ 1
You don't need to do that. You just need to accept that zero is just as much of a mathematical special case as infinity - unsurprisingly, since it's the inverse of infinity and vice versa.
> It might be the case that Σ(∞, i = 1) 0 = 0, but you can't extend this to conclude +∞ · 0 = 0 in general.
Sure you can, unless you've got some other definition of multiplication that's impossible to express as self-summation.
Even if you go with the alternative definition of multiplication as a scaling operation (wherein you're computing m × n by taking the slope from (x=0,y=0) to (x=1,y=m) and then looking up y where x=n), if m is zero then the line being drawn never stops being vertical, and if n is zero then you never leave (0,0) in the first place. Doesn't matter if the other factor is infinitely far in either the x or y axis; you're still ending up with zero no matter how hard you try and fight it.
> Lots of intuitions from informal mathematics and even calculus start to break down once you examine the lower-level "machine code" of proof and analysis, especially once you start talking about concepts like infinity.
Sure, but in this case, it's the intuition that multiplying something by its inverse (a.k.a. dividing something by itself) is always 1 that breaks down, not the above-verifiable and inescapable fact that multiplying something by zero is always zero. 0 ÷ 0 = n looks like it should correct for any value of n (incl. n = 1), since multiplying both sides by zero to eliminate that divide-by-zero will always produce a correct equation, but since m ÷ n ≡ m × (1/n), if m is zero then anything on the RHS must be zero, because of that inescapable nature of nothingness - thus, 0 ÷ 0 = 0 × (1/0) = 0, with all other possible alternatives having been rendered impossible.
In that case, you would've reached their respective limits, and you're back to adding one of those limits into itself an other-limit number of times. If sₙ · tₙ ⟶ 1, then that only holds true if tₙ hasn't actually reached 0.
> Thus we can either dispense with the cited established theorems of analysis used to deduce that sₙ · tₙ ⟶ 1
You don't need to do that. You just need to accept that zero is just as much of a mathematical special case as infinity - unsurprisingly, since it's the inverse of infinity and vice versa.
> It might be the case that Σ(∞, i = 1) 0 = 0, but you can't extend this to conclude +∞ · 0 = 0 in general.
Sure you can, unless you've got some other definition of multiplication that's impossible to express as self-summation.
Even if you go with the alternative definition of multiplication as a scaling operation (wherein you're computing m × n by taking the slope from (x=0,y=0) to (x=1,y=m) and then looking up y where x=n), if m is zero then the line being drawn never stops being vertical, and if n is zero then you never leave (0,0) in the first place. Doesn't matter if the other factor is infinitely far in either the x or y axis; you're still ending up with zero no matter how hard you try and fight it.
> Lots of intuitions from informal mathematics and even calculus start to break down once you examine the lower-level "machine code" of proof and analysis, especially once you start talking about concepts like infinity.
Sure, but in this case, it's the intuition that multiplying something by its inverse (a.k.a. dividing something by itself) is always 1 that breaks down, not the above-verifiable and inescapable fact that multiplying something by zero is always zero. 0 ÷ 0 = n looks like it should correct for any value of n (incl. n = 1), since multiplying both sides by zero to eliminate that divide-by-zero will always produce a correct equation, but since m ÷ n ≡ m × (1/n), if m is zero then anything on the RHS must be zero, because of that inescapable nature of nothingness - thus, 0 ÷ 0 = 0 × (1/0) = 0, with all other possible alternatives having been rendered impossible.
> you're back to adding one of those limits into itself an other-limit number of times.
> some other definition of multiplication that's impossible to express as self-summation.
Ok. What happens if I multiply a number by pi? What does it mean to add something to itself, pi times?
> If sₙ · tₙ ⟶ 1, then that only holds true if tₙ hasn't actually reached 0.
I mean... it is in fact the case that tₙ never actually reaches zero; otherwise, if 1/n = 0 for some n, then by multiplying both sides by n we obtain 1 = 0.
What's meant by tₙ ⟶ 0 is that any neighborhood centered about 0 of any radius (call the radius "epsilon") always contains at least one point from the sequence {tₙ}.
To hammer the point that sₙ · tₙ ⟶ 1 home, and since you are fond of using a computer to perform arithmetic (note: not prove mathematical statements), here's what computers have to say about the limit of n · (1/n): https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=limit+as+n-%3Einfinity+...
> You just need to accept that zero is just as much of a mathematical special case as infinity - unsurprisingly, since it's the inverse of infinity and vice versa.
> the inverse of infinity
You again throw around words like "inverse" whose meaning you don't understand. Do you mean a multiplicative inverse, where a number and its multiplicative inverse yield the multiplicative identity, in which case +∞ · 0 = 1? Or an additive inverse that yields the additive identity, in which case +∞ + 0 = 0? Or some other pseudomathematical definition of "inverse" pulled out of a hat, like your definitions of +∞ · 0?
> if m is zero then the line being drawn never stops being vertical
Drawing pictures is different from putting together a formal, airtight proof in first-order logic that can be (in principle) machine-verified. Maybe I'll make an exception for compass-and-straightedge proofs, but that's not what you're presenting here.
Rudin was published in 1953, there are probably very good reasons for why this text has withstood refutation for over 70 years. Maybe you can rise to the task; publish a paper with your novel number system in which +∞ · 0 = 0 and 0 ÷ 0 = 0 and wait for your Fields Medal in the mail. Maybe you can collaborate with Terrence Howard and get a spot on Joe Rogan.
> some other definition of multiplication that's impossible to express as self-summation.
Ok. What happens if I multiply a number by pi? What does it mean to add something to itself, pi times?
> If sₙ · tₙ ⟶ 1, then that only holds true if tₙ hasn't actually reached 0.
I mean... it is in fact the case that tₙ never actually reaches zero; otherwise, if 1/n = 0 for some n, then by multiplying both sides by n we obtain 1 = 0.
What's meant by tₙ ⟶ 0 is that any neighborhood centered about 0 of any radius (call the radius "epsilon") always contains at least one point from the sequence {tₙ}.
To hammer the point that sₙ · tₙ ⟶ 1 home, and since you are fond of using a computer to perform arithmetic (note: not prove mathematical statements), here's what computers have to say about the limit of n · (1/n): https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=limit+as+n-%3Einfinity+...
> You just need to accept that zero is just as much of a mathematical special case as infinity - unsurprisingly, since it's the inverse of infinity and vice versa.
> the inverse of infinity
You again throw around words like "inverse" whose meaning you don't understand. Do you mean a multiplicative inverse, where a number and its multiplicative inverse yield the multiplicative identity, in which case +∞ · 0 = 1? Or an additive inverse that yields the additive identity, in which case +∞ + 0 = 0? Or some other pseudomathematical definition of "inverse" pulled out of a hat, like your definitions of +∞ · 0?
> if m is zero then the line being drawn never stops being vertical
Drawing pictures is different from putting together a formal, airtight proof in first-order logic that can be (in principle) machine-verified. Maybe I'll make an exception for compass-and-straightedge proofs, but that's not what you're presenting here.
Rudin was published in 1953, there are probably very good reasons for why this text has withstood refutation for over 70 years. Maybe you can rise to the task; publish a paper with your novel number system in which +∞ · 0 = 0 and 0 ÷ 0 = 0 and wait for your Fields Medal in the mail. Maybe you can collaborate with Terrence Howard and get a spot on Joe Rogan.
> Ok. What happens if I multiply a number by pi? What does it mean to add something to itself, pi times?
You add it to itself 3 times, then shift the decimal point and repeat with 1, then shift the decimal point and repeat with 4, and so on with each digit of π. 1 × π = 1 + 1 + 1 + 0.1 + 0.01 + 0.01 + 0.01 + 0.01 + 0.001 + 0.0001 + 0.0001 + 0.0001 + 0.0001 + 0.0001 and so on forever.
> To hammer the point that sₙ · tₙ ⟶ 1 home
That point doesn't need hammered. sₙ · tₙ ⟶ 1 can absolutely be true when you haven't yet reached zero. That doesn't mean it's true in the event that you do indeed manage to reach zero. It indeed can't be true in the event that you do indeed reach zero, because n × 0 = 0 for all values of n.
> Do you mean a multiplicative inverse, where a number and its multiplicative inverse yield the multiplicative identity, in which case +∞ · 0 = 1?
You obviously already know that's what I meant, since that's exactly what I described further down - including how ∞ × 0 ≠ 1 because the multiplicative identity breaks down when one of the factors is zero, specifically because having zero of something will always produce zero no matter what that something is.
> Or some other pseudomathematical definition of "inverse" pulled out of a hat, like your definitions of +∞ · 0?
If you're seriously calling multiplication-as-summation pseudomathematics, then you're in no position to assess whether or not I "don't understand" the meanings of words.
I've been nothing but civil toward you, and you've been nothing but condescending toward me. That normally wouldn't be a problem (condescension is par for the course on the Internet), but if you're going to be condescending, the least you can do is not be blatantly wrong in the process.
> Drawing pictures is different from putting together a formal, airtight proof in first-order logic that can be (in principle) machine-verified. Maybe I'll make an exception for compass-and-straightedge proofs, but that's not what you're presenting here.
That's exactly what I'm presenting here (since apparently you believe adding numbers together is a spook). You don't even need a concept of numbers to see plain as day that any multiplication wherein one of the factors is zero will always be zero.
> Rudin was published in 1953, there are probably very good reasons for why this text has withstood refutation for over 70 years. Maybe you can rise to the task; publish a paper with your novel number system in which +∞ · 0 = 0 and 0 ÷ 0 = 0 and wait for your Fields Medal in the mail. Maybe you can collaborate with Terrence Howard and get a spot on Joe Rogan.
You know what? Maybe I will. And I'm willing to bet you'll find some other pedantic reason to be a condescending prick when that happens.
Last word's yours if you want it. I have better things to do than argue with people engaging in bad faith.
You add it to itself 3 times, then shift the decimal point and repeat with 1, then shift the decimal point and repeat with 4, and so on with each digit of π. 1 × π = 1 + 1 + 1 + 0.1 + 0.01 + 0.01 + 0.01 + 0.01 + 0.001 + 0.0001 + 0.0001 + 0.0001 + 0.0001 + 0.0001 and so on forever.
> To hammer the point that sₙ · tₙ ⟶ 1 home
That point doesn't need hammered. sₙ · tₙ ⟶ 1 can absolutely be true when you haven't yet reached zero. That doesn't mean it's true in the event that you do indeed manage to reach zero. It indeed can't be true in the event that you do indeed reach zero, because n × 0 = 0 for all values of n.
> Do you mean a multiplicative inverse, where a number and its multiplicative inverse yield the multiplicative identity, in which case +∞ · 0 = 1?
You obviously already know that's what I meant, since that's exactly what I described further down - including how ∞ × 0 ≠ 1 because the multiplicative identity breaks down when one of the factors is zero, specifically because having zero of something will always produce zero no matter what that something is.
> Or some other pseudomathematical definition of "inverse" pulled out of a hat, like your definitions of +∞ · 0?
If you're seriously calling multiplication-as-summation pseudomathematics, then you're in no position to assess whether or not I "don't understand" the meanings of words.
I've been nothing but civil toward you, and you've been nothing but condescending toward me. That normally wouldn't be a problem (condescension is par for the course on the Internet), but if you're going to be condescending, the least you can do is not be blatantly wrong in the process.
> Drawing pictures is different from putting together a formal, airtight proof in first-order logic that can be (in principle) machine-verified. Maybe I'll make an exception for compass-and-straightedge proofs, but that's not what you're presenting here.
That's exactly what I'm presenting here (since apparently you believe adding numbers together is a spook). You don't even need a concept of numbers to see plain as day that any multiplication wherein one of the factors is zero will always be zero.
> Rudin was published in 1953, there are probably very good reasons for why this text has withstood refutation for over 70 years. Maybe you can rise to the task; publish a paper with your novel number system in which +∞ · 0 = 0 and 0 ÷ 0 = 0 and wait for your Fields Medal in the mail. Maybe you can collaborate with Terrence Howard and get a spot on Joe Rogan.
You know what? Maybe I will. And I'm willing to bet you'll find some other pedantic reason to be a condescending prick when that happens.
Last word's yours if you want it. I have better things to do than argue with people engaging in bad faith.
There's no need for me to continue engaging you with formal mathematical arguments when you reply with the mathematical equivalent of climate change denialism or vaccine conspiracy theory and uneducated statements that are "not even wrong" [0], so instead I will just refer you to expert opinions on the topic; though at this point I doubt that your level of mathematical literacy is sufficient to understand any of this subject matter.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong
[1] https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/45327/why-is-infty-...
[2] https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/28940/why-is-infty-...
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong
[1] https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/45327/why-is-infty-...
[2] https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/28940/why-is-infty-...
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.
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.
I don't, that one's me speaking from my own speculation. It's a working model I've had for a while about the nature of a lot of kinds of mental illness (particularly my own tendencies towards depression), which I guess I should explain more thoroughly! This gets a bit abstract, so stick with me: it's a toy model, and I don't mean it to be definitive truth, but it seems to do well at explaining my own tendencies.
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So, toy model: imagine the brain has a single 1-dimensional happiness value that changes over time. You can be +3 happy or -2 unhappy, that kind of thing. Everyone knows when you're very happy you tend to come down, and when you're very sad you tend to eventually shake it off, meaning that there is something of a tendency towards a moderate value or a set-point of sorts. For the sake of simplicity, let's say a normal person has a set point of 0, then maybe a depressive person has a set point of -1, a manic person has a set point of +1, that sort of thing.
Mathematically, this is similar to the equations that describe a spring. If left to its own devices, a spring will tend to its equilibrium value, either exponentially (if overdamped) or with some oscillation around it (if underdamped). But if you're a person living your life, there are things constantly jostling the spring up and down, which is why manic people aren't crazy all the time and depressed people have some good days where they feel good and can smile. Mathematically, this is a spring with a forcing function - as though it's sitting on a rough train ride that is constantly applying "random" forces to it. Rather than x'' + kx = 0, you've got x'' + kx = f(t) for some external forcing function f(t), where f(t) critically does not depend on x or on the individual internal dynamics involved.
These external forcing functions tend to be pretty similar among people of a comparable environment. But the internal equilibria seem to be quite different. So when the external forcing is strong, it tends to pull people in similar directions, and people whose innate tendencies are extreme tend to get pulled along with the majority anyway. But when external forcing is weak (or when people are decoupled from its effects on them), internal equilibria tend to take over, and extreme people can get caught in feedback loops.
If you're a little more ML-inclined, you can think about external influences like a temperature term in an ML model. If your personal "model" of the world tends to settle into a minimum labeled "completely crazy" or "severely depressed" or the like, a high "temperature" can help jostle you out of that minimum even if your tendencies always move in that direction.
Basically, I think weird nerds tend to have low "temperature" values, and tend to settle into their own internal equilibria, whether those are good, bad, or good in some cases and bad in others (consider all the genius mathematicians who were also nuts). "Normies", for lack of a better way of putting it, tend to have high temperature values and live their lives across a wider region of state space, which reduces their ability to wield precision and competitive advantage but protects them from the most extreme failure-modes as well.
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So, toy model: imagine the brain has a single 1-dimensional happiness value that changes over time. You can be +3 happy or -2 unhappy, that kind of thing. Everyone knows when you're very happy you tend to come down, and when you're very sad you tend to eventually shake it off, meaning that there is something of a tendency towards a moderate value or a set-point of sorts. For the sake of simplicity, let's say a normal person has a set point of 0, then maybe a depressive person has a set point of -1, a manic person has a set point of +1, that sort of thing.
Mathematically, this is similar to the equations that describe a spring. If left to its own devices, a spring will tend to its equilibrium value, either exponentially (if overdamped) or with some oscillation around it (if underdamped). But if you're a person living your life, there are things constantly jostling the spring up and down, which is why manic people aren't crazy all the time and depressed people have some good days where they feel good and can smile. Mathematically, this is a spring with a forcing function - as though it's sitting on a rough train ride that is constantly applying "random" forces to it. Rather than x'' + kx = 0, you've got x'' + kx = f(t) for some external forcing function f(t), where f(t) critically does not depend on x or on the individual internal dynamics involved.
These external forcing functions tend to be pretty similar among people of a comparable environment. But the internal equilibria seem to be quite different. So when the external forcing is strong, it tends to pull people in similar directions, and people whose innate tendencies are extreme tend to get pulled along with the majority anyway. But when external forcing is weak (or when people are decoupled from its effects on them), internal equilibria tend to take over, and extreme people can get caught in feedback loops.
If you're a little more ML-inclined, you can think about external influences like a temperature term in an ML model. If your personal "model" of the world tends to settle into a minimum labeled "completely crazy" or "severely depressed" or the like, a high "temperature" can help jostle you out of that minimum even if your tendencies always move in that direction.
Basically, I think weird nerds tend to have low "temperature" values, and tend to settle into their own internal equilibria, whether those are good, bad, or good in some cases and bad in others (consider all the genius mathematicians who were also nuts). "Normies", for lack of a better way of putting it, tend to have high temperature values and live their lives across a wider region of state space, which reduces their ability to wield precision and competitive advantage but protects them from the most extreme failure-modes as well.
Thanks very much for typing all that out!
>These external forcing functions tend to be pretty similar among people of a comparable environment. But the internal equilibria seem to be quite different. So when the external forcing is strong, it tends to pull people in similar directions, and people whose innate tendencies are extreme tend to get pulled along with the majority anyway. But when external forcing is weak (or when people are decoupled from its effects on them), internal equilibria tend to take over, and extreme people can get caught in feedback loops.
Yeah, this makes sense, an isolated group can sort of lose the "grounding" of interacting with the rest of society and start floating off in whatever direction, as long as they never get regrounded. When you say feedback loops, do you mean obsessive tendencies tending to cause them to focus on and amplify a small set of thoughts/beliefs, or something else?
I like the ML/temperature analogy, it's always interesting watching kids and thinking in that vein, with some kids at a super high temp exploring the search space of possibilities super quickly and making tons of mistakes, and others who are much more careful. Interesting point on nerds maybe having lower temp/converging more strongly/consistently on a single answer. And I guess artist types would be sort of the opposite on that axis?
>These external forcing functions tend to be pretty similar among people of a comparable environment. But the internal equilibria seem to be quite different. So when the external forcing is strong, it tends to pull people in similar directions, and people whose innate tendencies are extreme tend to get pulled along with the majority anyway. But when external forcing is weak (or when people are decoupled from its effects on them), internal equilibria tend to take over, and extreme people can get caught in feedback loops.
Yeah, this makes sense, an isolated group can sort of lose the "grounding" of interacting with the rest of society and start floating off in whatever direction, as long as they never get regrounded. When you say feedback loops, do you mean obsessive tendencies tending to cause them to focus on and amplify a small set of thoughts/beliefs, or something else?
I like the ML/temperature analogy, it's always interesting watching kids and thinking in that vein, with some kids at a super high temp exploring the search space of possibilities super quickly and making tons of mistakes, and others who are much more careful. Interesting point on nerds maybe having lower temp/converging more strongly/consistently on a single answer. And I guess artist types would be sort of the opposite on that axis?
A lot of rationalists that go deep are on the autistic spectrum. Their feedback loops are often classic autistic thought traps of people who end up "committing to the bit". Add anxiety to it and you get autistic style rumination loops that go nuts.
Edit: Funny enough, when I wrote "autistic thought traps", I thought I just made it up to describe something, but it is common terminology. An AI summary of what they are:
Autistic people may experience thought traps, which are unhelpful patterns of thinking that can lead to anxiety and stress. These traps can include catastrophizing, all-or-nothing thinking, and perseverative cognition.
Catastrophizing: Jumping to the worst-case scenario; Imagining unlikely or improbable scenarios; Focusing on negative aspects of a situation; Having difficulty letting go of negative thoughts;
All-or-nothing thinking: Categorizing people or things as entirely good or bad; Having a tendency to think in black and white;
Edit: Funny enough, when I wrote "autistic thought traps", I thought I just made it up to describe something, but it is common terminology. An AI summary of what they are:
Autistic people may experience thought traps, which are unhelpful patterns of thinking that can lead to anxiety and stress. These traps can include catastrophizing, all-or-nothing thinking, and perseverative cognition.
Catastrophizing: Jumping to the worst-case scenario; Imagining unlikely or improbable scenarios; Focusing on negative aspects of a situation; Having difficulty letting go of negative thoughts;
All-or-nothing thinking: Categorizing people or things as entirely good or bad; Having a tendency to think in black and white;
> autistic
A lot of people say this, but I think it's the wrong word in an important way.
I'll give you P(autistic|rationalist) > P(autistic), but beware the base rate fallacy. My guess is you're focussing on a proxy variable.
To show some important counter-examples: Temple Grandin, famously autistic and a lot of people's idea what autism means - not a rationalist in the sense you mean. Scott Alexander - fairly central example of the rationalist community, but not autistic (he's a psychiatrist so I trust him on that).
EDIT: also P(trans|rationalist) > P(trans), but P(rationalist|trans) I'd say is fairly small. Base rate fallacy and something something Bayes. Identifying these two groups would definitely be a mistake.
EDIT2: maybe this series (1 post so far) is worth bookmarking: https://thingofthings.substack.com/p/what-do-effective-altru...
A lot of people say this, but I think it's the wrong word in an important way.
I'll give you P(autistic|rationalist) > P(autistic), but beware the base rate fallacy. My guess is you're focussing on a proxy variable.
To show some important counter-examples: Temple Grandin, famously autistic and a lot of people's idea what autism means - not a rationalist in the sense you mean. Scott Alexander - fairly central example of the rationalist community, but not autistic (he's a psychiatrist so I trust him on that).
EDIT: also P(trans|rationalist) > P(trans), but P(rationalist|trans) I'd say is fairly small. Base rate fallacy and something something Bayes. Identifying these two groups would definitely be a mistake.
EDIT2: maybe this series (1 post so far) is worth bookmarking: https://thingofthings.substack.com/p/what-do-effective-altru...
I think when you look at these types of groups that become cult or cult-like, they often appeal to a specific experience or need that people have. My guess is the message that many trans and autistic people take away is fulfilling for them. Many people in these communities share similar traumas and challenges that affect them deeply. It makes them vulnerable to manipulation and becoming true believers capable of more extreme behavior.
The more common pattern is a false prophet cult where the influential leader is a paternal figure bringing enlightenment to the flock. It just so happens that free labor and sex with pretty girls are key aspects of that journey.
It doesn't mean that "all X are Y" or "Y's are usually X".
The more common pattern is a false prophet cult where the influential leader is a paternal figure bringing enlightenment to the flock. It just so happens that free labor and sex with pretty girls are key aspects of that journey.
It doesn't mean that "all X are Y" or "Y's are usually X".
[deleted]
Interesting, this is the first argument I've heard that emotional instability is actually good for your mental health.
There's another way around it. People that see themselves as "freethinkers" are also ultimately contrarians. Taking contrarianism as part of your identity makes people value unconventional ideas, but turn that around: It also means devaluing mainstream ideas. Since humanity is basically an optimization algorithm, being very contrarian means that, along with throwing away some bad assumptions, one also throws away a whole lot of very good defaults. So one might be right in a topic or two, but overall, a lot of bad takes are going to seep in and poison the intellectual well.
You don't have to adopt the ideas of every fringe or contrarian viewpoint you come across to be a freethinker; you simply have to be willing to consider and evaluate those views with the same level of rigor you give to mainstream views. Most people who do that will probably adopt a handful of fringe beliefs but, for the most part, retain a very large number of conventional beliefs too. Julia Galef is kind of an archetypal rationalist/free thinker and she has spoken about the merits of traditional ideas from within a rationalist framework.
Here's another analysis which comes from a slightly different angle.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1361045568663945216.html
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1361045568663945216.html
This dynamic is not exclusive to those claiming to be part of an insular community of freethinkers:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25667362
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25667362
It is like they actually managed to install a shitty low precision distilled llm in their brain.
[deleted]
What does this mean?
I mean, isn't the problem that they actually aren't that smart or rational. They're just a group of people who've built their identity around believing themselves to be smart...
They're also not freethinkers. They're a community that demand huge adherence to their own norms.
They're also not freethinkers. They're a community that demand huge adherence to their own norms.
Yes. Hard to imagine a more hypocritical outcome of “free thinking” than “think like me or die”
Great summary, and you can add utilitarianism to the bucket of ideologies that are just too rigid to fully explain the world and too rational for human brains not to create a misguided cult around
Ok but social clustering is how humans work. Culture translated to modern idiomatic language is “practice of a cult”. Ure translates to “practice of”, Ur being the first city so say historians; clusters of shared culture is our lived experience. Forever now there have been a statistical few who get stuck in a while loop “while alive recite this honorific code, kill perceived threats to memorized honorific chants”.
We’ve observed ourselves do this for centuries. Are your descriptions all that insightful?
How do you solve isolation? Can you? Will thermodynamics allow it? Or are we just neglecting a different cohort?
Again due to memory or social systems are always brittle. Everyone chafes over social evolution of some kind, no matter how brave a face they project in platitudes, biology self selects. So long as the economy prefers low skilled rhetoricians holding assets, an inflexible workforce constrains our ability to flex. Why is there not an “office worker” culture issue? Plainly self selecting for IT to avoid holding the mirror up to itself.
Growing up in farmland before earning to STEM degrees, working on hardware and software, I totally get the outrage of people breaking their ass to grow food while some general studies grad manages Google accounts and plays PS5 all night. Extreme addiction to a lived experience is the American way from top to bottom.
Grammatically correct analysis of someone else. But this all gets very 1984 feeling; trust posts online, ignore lived experience. It’s not hard to see your post as an algebraic problem; the issues of meatspace impact everyone regardless of the syntax sugar analysis we pad the explanation with. How do you solve for the endless churn of physics?
We’ve observed ourselves do this for centuries. Are your descriptions all that insightful?
How do you solve isolation? Can you? Will thermodynamics allow it? Or are we just neglecting a different cohort?
Again due to memory or social systems are always brittle. Everyone chafes over social evolution of some kind, no matter how brave a face they project in platitudes, biology self selects. So long as the economy prefers low skilled rhetoricians holding assets, an inflexible workforce constrains our ability to flex. Why is there not an “office worker” culture issue? Plainly self selecting for IT to avoid holding the mirror up to itself.
Growing up in farmland before earning to STEM degrees, working on hardware and software, I totally get the outrage of people breaking their ass to grow food while some general studies grad manages Google accounts and plays PS5 all night. Extreme addiction to a lived experience is the American way from top to bottom.
Grammatically correct analysis of someone else. But this all gets very 1984 feeling; trust posts online, ignore lived experience. It’s not hard to see your post as an algebraic problem; the issues of meatspace impact everyone regardless of the syntax sugar analysis we pad the explanation with. How do you solve for the endless churn of physics?
> Culture translated to modern idiomatic language is “practice of a cult”. Ure translates to “practice of”, Ur being the first city so say historians
Excuse me but what in the name of ever-loving fuck did I just read.
Excuse me but what in the name of ever-loving fuck did I just read.
> 3) Its leadership - or some of it, anyway - is extremely egotistical and borderline cult-like to begin with
I'm always surprised at how common this is in rationalist and EA organizations. The revelations about the cult-like behavior at MIRI / CFAR / Leverage are eye-opening: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/MnFqyPLqbiKL8nSR7/my-experie...
The issues with sexual misconduct and drug-assisted assault in these communities even made the mainstream news: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-03-07/effective...
It's equally fascinating to see how effectively these issues are rapidly retconned out of the rationalist discourse. Many of these leaders and organizations who get outed were respected and frequently discussed prior to the revelations, but afterward they're discussed as an inconsequential sideshow.
> TLDR: isolation, very strong in-group defenses, logical "doctrine" that is formally valid and leaks in hard-to-notice ways, apocalyptic utility-scale, and being a very appealing environment for the kind of person who goes super nuts -> pretty much perfect conditions for a cult.
I still think cults are a rare outcome. More often, I've seen people become "rationalist" because it gives them tools to amplify their pre-existing beliefs (#4 in your list). They link up with other like-minded people in similar rationalist communities which further strengthens their belief that they are not only correct, but they are systematically more correct than anyone who disagrees with them.
I'm always surprised at how common this is in rationalist and EA organizations. The revelations about the cult-like behavior at MIRI / CFAR / Leverage are eye-opening: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/MnFqyPLqbiKL8nSR7/my-experie...
The issues with sexual misconduct and drug-assisted assault in these communities even made the mainstream news: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-03-07/effective...
It's equally fascinating to see how effectively these issues are rapidly retconned out of the rationalist discourse. Many of these leaders and organizations who get outed were respected and frequently discussed prior to the revelations, but afterward they're discussed as an inconsequential sideshow.
> TLDR: isolation, very strong in-group defenses, logical "doctrine" that is formally valid and leaks in hard-to-notice ways, apocalyptic utility-scale, and being a very appealing environment for the kind of person who goes super nuts -> pretty much perfect conditions for a cult.
I still think cults are a rare outcome. More often, I've seen people become "rationalist" because it gives them tools to amplify their pre-existing beliefs (#4 in your list). They link up with other like-minded people in similar rationalist communities which further strengthens their belief that they are not only correct, but they are systematically more correct than anyone who disagrees with them.
> They have, in the past, responded to criticism with statements to the effect of "anyone who would criticize us for any reason is a bad person who is lying to cause us harm". That kind of framing can't help but get culty.
I have never seen this and I've been active around this around for almost two decades now.
> isolation
Also very much doesn't match my experience. Only about a quarter of my friends are even rationalists.
I have never seen this and I've been active around this around for almost two decades now.
> isolation
Also very much doesn't match my experience. Only about a quarter of my friends are even rationalists.
I disagree. It's common for any criticisms of rationalism or the rationalist community to be dismissed as having ulterior motives. Even the definition of rationalism is set up in a way that it is de facto good, and therefore anyone suggesting anything negative is either wrong or doesn't know what they're talking about.
There are clearly criticisms with ulterior motive though, which doesn't help.
What you said should be happily accepted verbatim as a guest post on any rationalist blog because it is scientific and shows critical thinking.
Maybe so! They didn't kick me out. I chose to leave c. early 2021, because I didn't like what I saw (and events since then have, I feel, proven me very right to have been worried).
How is it scientific? What do you mean by scientific?! Do you mean logical?
This is a very insightful comment. As someone who was 3rd-degree connected to that world during my time in the bay, this matches the general vibe of conversations and people I ran into at house parties and hangouts very very well.
It's amazing how powerful isolation followed by acceptance is at modifying human behavior.
It's amazing how powerful isolation followed by acceptance is at modifying human behavior.
None of that seems very rational
>The problem with rationalists/EA
i see 2 - superiority complex and lack of such an "irrational" thing like empathy. Basically they use crude logical-like looking constructions to excuse their own narcissism and related indulgences.
i see 2 - superiority complex and lack of such an "irrational" thing like empathy. Basically they use crude logical-like looking constructions to excuse their own narcissism and related indulgences.
>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
It's precisely those kind of people though that would ever be so deluded and so little self conscious as to start a group about rationality - and declare themselves its arbiters.
It's precisely those kind of people though that would ever be so deluded and so little self conscious as to start a group about rationality - and declare themselves its arbiters.
"the problem with rationalism is that you're a fucking idiot" never fails
[deleted]
I agree with all of this, but in points 1 and 2 you’ve clearly and succinctly described two issues that I’ve always struggled to express. Thank you!
Great summary
juanani(1)
Eliezer is many things but I don't see him behaving egotisticaly. He has always come across very genuine.
[deleted]
> (the guy makes Neil deGrasse Tyson look like a monk)
So years after an investigation into the allegation of sexual misconduct ended empty handed, it's still ok to throw mud?
So years after an investigation into the allegation of sexual misconduct ended empty handed, it's still ok to throw mud?
That seemed to be “monk” in the context of humility, not chastity
It's unsettlingly weird that you assume all mentions of NdT to be about the sexual misconduct allegations against him.
From the article:
A 2023 post on Rationalism forum LessWrong.com warned of coming violence in the Zizian community. “Over the past few years, Ziz has repeatedly called for the deaths of many different classes of people,” the anonymous post read. Jessica Taylor, a friend of Baukholt’s, told Open Vallejo she warned Baukholt about the Zizians, describing the group on X as a “death cult.”
The post: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/T5RzkFcNpRdckGauu/link-a-com...
A 2023 post on Rationalism forum LessWrong.com warned of coming violence in the Zizian community. “Over the past few years, Ziz has repeatedly called for the deaths of many different classes of people,” the anonymous post read. Jessica Taylor, a friend of Baukholt’s, told Open Vallejo she warned Baukholt about the Zizians, describing the group on X as a “death cult.”
The post: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/T5RzkFcNpRdckGauu/link-a-com...
This story just keeps getting more and more bizarre. Reading the charges and supporting affidavits, the whole thing is reading more and more like some sort of Yorgos Lanthimos film. The rationalist connection - a literal sequel to the 2022 events (in turn a sequel to the 2019 CFAR stuff) - is already weird enough. But I can't get over the ridiculousness of the VT situation. I have spent time in that area of VT, and the charged parties must have been acting quite bizarre for the clerk to alert the police. Checking into a motel wearing all black, open carrying does NOT cut it. The phones wrapped in foil is comical, and the fact that they were surveilled over several days is interesting, especially because it reads like the FBI only became aware of their presence after the stop and shootout?
The arresting agent seems pretty interesting, a former risk adjuster who recently successfully led the case against a large inter-state fraud scheme. This may just be the plot of Fargo season 10. Looking forward to the season arc of the FBI trying to understand the "rationalist" community. The episode titled "Roko's Basilisk", with no thematically tied elements, but they manage to turn Yudkowsky into a rat.
The arresting agent seems pretty interesting, a former risk adjuster who recently successfully led the case against a large inter-state fraud scheme. This may just be the plot of Fargo season 10. Looking forward to the season arc of the FBI trying to understand the "rationalist" community. The episode titled "Roko's Basilisk", with no thematically tied elements, but they manage to turn Yudkowsky into a rat.
This story happened in my backyard. The shootout was about 40 minutes from me but Youngblut and Felix Bauckholt were reported by a hotel clerk dressed in tactical gear and sporting firearms in a hotel a few blocks from me.
Weird to see a community I followed show up so close to home and negatively like this. I always just read LW and appreciated some of the fundamentals that this group seems to have ignored. Stuff like rationality has to objectively make your life and the world better or its a failed ideology.
Edit: I've been following this story for over a week because it was local news. Why is this showing up here on HN now?
Weird to see a community I followed show up so close to home and negatively like this. I always just read LW and appreciated some of the fundamentals that this group seems to have ignored. Stuff like rationality has to objectively make your life and the world better or its a failed ideology.
Edit: I've been following this story for over a week because it was local news. Why is this showing up here on HN now?
> 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 rationality and EA that gets presented online with only the highlights, but there’s a lot more out there in the fringes that is really weird.
For example, many know about Roko’s Basilisk as a thought exercise and much has been written about it, but fewer know that Roko has been writing misogynistic rants on Twitter and claiming things like having women in the workforce is “very negative” for GDP.
The Slate Star Codex subreddit was a home for rationalists on Reddit, but they had so many problems with culture war topics that they banned discussion of them. The users forked off and created “The Motte” which is a bit of a cesspool dressed up with rationalist prose. Even the SlateStarCodex subreddit has become so toxic that I had to unsubscribe. Many of the posts and comments on women or dating were becoming indistinguishable from incel communities other than the rationalist prose style.
Even the real-world rationalist and EA communities aren’t immune, with several high profile sexual misconduct scandals making the news in recent years.
It’s a weird space. It felt like a fun internet philosophy community when my coworkers introduced it years ago, but the longer I’ve observed it the more I’ve realized it attracts and accepts a lot of people whose goals aren’t aligned with objectively “make the world better” as long as they can write their prose in the rationalist style. It’s been strange to observe.
Of course, at every turn people will argue that the bad actors are not true rationalists, but I’ve seen enough from these communities to know that they don’t really discriminate much until issues boil over into the news.
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 rationality and EA that gets presented online with only the highlights, but there’s a lot more out there in the fringes that is really weird.
For example, many know about Roko’s Basilisk as a thought exercise and much has been written about it, but fewer know that Roko has been writing misogynistic rants on Twitter and claiming things like having women in the workforce is “very negative” for GDP.
The Slate Star Codex subreddit was a home for rationalists on Reddit, but they had so many problems with culture war topics that they banned discussion of them. The users forked off and created “The Motte” which is a bit of a cesspool dressed up with rationalist prose. Even the SlateStarCodex subreddit has become so toxic that I had to unsubscribe. Many of the posts and comments on women or dating were becoming indistinguishable from incel communities other than the rationalist prose style.
Even the real-world rationalist and EA communities aren’t immune, with several high profile sexual misconduct scandals making the news in recent years.
It’s a weird space. It felt like a fun internet philosophy community when my coworkers introduced it years ago, but the longer I’ve observed it the more I’ve realized it attracts and accepts a lot of people whose goals aren’t aligned with objectively “make the world better” as long as they can write their prose in the rationalist style. It’s been strange to observe.
Of course, at every turn people will argue that the bad actors are not true rationalists, but I’ve seen enough from these communities to know that they don’t really discriminate much until issues boil over into the news.
Sophistry is actually really really old:
>In the second half of the 5th century BCE, particularly in Athens, "sophist" came to denote a class of mostly itinerant intellectuals who taught courses in various subjects, speculated about the nature of language and culture, and employed rhetoric to achieve their purposes, generally to persuade or convince others. Nicholas Denyer observes that the Sophists "did ... have one important thing in common: whatever else they did or did not claim to know, they characteristically had a great understanding of what words would entertain or impress or persuade an audience."
The problem then, as of now, is sorting the wheat from the chaff. Rationalist spaces like /r/SSC, The Motte, et. al are just modern sophistry labs that like to think they're filled with the next Socrates when they're actually filled with endless Thrasymachi. Scott Alexander and Eleizer Yudkowsky have something meaningful (and deradicalizing) to say. Their third-degree followers? Not so much.
>In the second half of the 5th century BCE, particularly in Athens, "sophist" came to denote a class of mostly itinerant intellectuals who taught courses in various subjects, speculated about the nature of language and culture, and employed rhetoric to achieve their purposes, generally to persuade or convince others. Nicholas Denyer observes that the Sophists "did ... have one important thing in common: whatever else they did or did not claim to know, they characteristically had a great understanding of what words would entertain or impress or persuade an audience."
The problem then, as of now, is sorting the wheat from the chaff. Rationalist spaces like /r/SSC, The Motte, et. al are just modern sophistry labs that like to think they're filled with the next Socrates when they're actually filled with endless Thrasymachi. Scott Alexander and Eleizer Yudkowsky have something meaningful (and deradicalizing) to say. Their third-degree followers? Not so much.
Yudkowsky texts represent my mental image of a vector continuously scanning a latent space in some general direction. Changes just pile on and on until you come from concept A to concept B without ever making a logical step, but there’s nothing to criticise cause every step was a seemingly random nuance. Start at some rare values in most dimensions, crank up the temperature and you get yourself Yudkowsky.
> our coherent extrapolated volition is "our wish if we knew more, thought faster, were more the people we wished we were, had grown up farther together; where the extrapolation converges rather than diverges, where our wishes cohere rather than interfere; extrapolated as we wish that extrapolated, interpreted as we wish that interpreted (…) The appeal to an objective through contingent human nature (perhaps expressed, for mathematical purposes, in the form of a utility function or other decision-theoretic formalism), as providing the ultimate criterion of "Friendliness", is an answer to the meta-ethical problem of defining an objective morality; extrapolated volition is intended to be what humanity objectively would want, all things considered, but it can only be defined relative to the psychological and cognitive qualities of present-day, unextrapolated humanity.
I doubt that a guy who seriously produces this can say something meaningful at all.
> our coherent extrapolated volition is "our wish if we knew more, thought faster, were more the people we wished we were, had grown up farther together; where the extrapolation converges rather than diverges, where our wishes cohere rather than interfere; extrapolated as we wish that extrapolated, interpreted as we wish that interpreted (…) The appeal to an objective through contingent human nature (perhaps expressed, for mathematical purposes, in the form of a utility function or other decision-theoretic formalism), as providing the ultimate criterion of "Friendliness", is an answer to the meta-ethical problem of defining an objective morality; extrapolated volition is intended to be what humanity objectively would want, all things considered, but it can only be defined relative to the psychological and cognitive qualities of present-day, unextrapolated humanity.
I doubt that a guy who seriously produces this can say something meaningful at all.
Was anyone else ever able to construct a mathematical model of CEV?
I don't think Eleizer Yudkowsky has anything meaningful to say. He is a doomsday cult leader who happens to be fashionable in some circles.
While I won't claim he currently has much of interest to say, he definitely explained a lot of important ideas for thinking more clearly to people who would not otherwise have encountered them, even if he didn't invent any of them.
The community/offshoot I am part of is mostly liberal/left. My impression that lesswrong is also liberal/left.
> The community/offshoot I am part of is mostly liberal/left
There isn't an official "rationalist" community. Some consider LessWrong to be the center, but there have always been different communities and offshoots. As far as I know, a lot of the famous rationalist figures haven't participated much in LessWrong for a long time now.
The far right offshoot I was referring to is known as "TheMotte" or "The Motte". It was a gathering point for people who were upset after the Slate Star Codex comment section and subreddit banned "culture war" topics because they were becoming an optics problem.
It's easy to forget because it's a "don't talk about it" topic, but after culture war topics were banned from SSC, The Motte subreddit had significantly more activity than the SlateStarCodex subreddit. They eventually left Reddit because so many posts were getting removed for violating Reddit policies. Their weekly "culture war" threads would have thousands of comments and you'd find people "steelmanning" things like how Trump actually won the 2020 election or holocaust denial.
The other groups I was referring to were CFAR, MIRI, and Leverage, all of which have been involved with allegations of cult-like behavior, manipulation, and sexual abuse. Here's one of several articles on the topic, which links to others: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/MnFqyPLqbiKL8nSR7/my-experie...
Every time I discuss this on HN I get downvoted a lot. I think a lot of people identify as rationalists and/or had fun reading LessWrong or SSC back in the day, but don't understand all of the weirdness that exists around rationalist forums and the Bay Area rationalist community.
There isn't an official "rationalist" community. Some consider LessWrong to be the center, but there have always been different communities and offshoots. As far as I know, a lot of the famous rationalist figures haven't participated much in LessWrong for a long time now.
The far right offshoot I was referring to is known as "TheMotte" or "The Motte". It was a gathering point for people who were upset after the Slate Star Codex comment section and subreddit banned "culture war" topics because they were becoming an optics problem.
It's easy to forget because it's a "don't talk about it" topic, but after culture war topics were banned from SSC, The Motte subreddit had significantly more activity than the SlateStarCodex subreddit. They eventually left Reddit because so many posts were getting removed for violating Reddit policies. Their weekly "culture war" threads would have thousands of comments and you'd find people "steelmanning" things like how Trump actually won the 2020 election or holocaust denial.
The other groups I was referring to were CFAR, MIRI, and Leverage, all of which have been involved with allegations of cult-like behavior, manipulation, and sexual abuse. Here's one of several articles on the topic, which links to others: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/MnFqyPLqbiKL8nSR7/my-experie...
Every time I discuss this on HN I get downvoted a lot. I think a lot of people identify as rationalists and/or had fun reading LessWrong or SSC back in the day, but don't understand all of the weirdness that exists around rationalist forums and the Bay Area rationalist community.
We don't have great language or models for talking about this stuff.
It's possible for there to be a person or group who are fine, but who attract or allow followers and fellow travellers who are not fine. Then it's possible for one person to look at that person or group and think they're fine, but for another person to look at them, see the followers, and think they're not fine. And sometimes it's hard to tell if the person or group is actually fine, or if they're really maybe actually not fine on the down low.
This problem is amplified when the person or group has some kind of free speech or open debate principle, and exists in a broader social space which does not. Then, all the dregs and weirdos who are excluded from other spaces end up concentrating in that bubble of freer speech. For example, there's an explicitly far left-wing message board that doesn't ban people for their politics; because all the more moderate (and moderate cosplaying as extreme) left-wing boards do, that board collects various libertarians, nationalists, groypers and whatnot who can't go anywhere else. Makes for an odd mix.
It's possible for there to be a person or group who are fine, but who attract or allow followers and fellow travellers who are not fine. Then it's possible for one person to look at that person or group and think they're fine, but for another person to look at them, see the followers, and think they're not fine. And sometimes it's hard to tell if the person or group is actually fine, or if they're really maybe actually not fine on the down low.
This problem is amplified when the person or group has some kind of free speech or open debate principle, and exists in a broader social space which does not. Then, all the dregs and weirdos who are excluded from other spaces end up concentrating in that bubble of freer speech. For example, there's an explicitly far left-wing message board that doesn't ban people for their politics; because all the more moderate (and moderate cosplaying as extreme) left-wing boards do, that board collects various libertarians, nationalists, groypers and whatnot who can't go anywhere else. Makes for an odd mix.
>there's an explicitly far left-wing message board that doesn't ban people for their politics; because all the more moderate (and moderate cosplaying as extreme) left-wing boards do, that board collects various libertarians, nationalists, groypers and whatnot who can't go anywhere else. Makes for an odd mix.
That actually sounds pretty fascinating. What board are you thinking of?
It's a common observation that any free speech place on the internet will disproportionately attract right-wing wackos. But arguably that says more about the left than the right. If your politics are sufficiently to the left, there are a lot of places on the internet that will cater really well to that, and delete/downvote non-conforming views pretty aggressively (thinking of reddit in particular). So arguably the bottleneck on having a true "free speech forum", where all perspectives are represented, is that people with left politics have more fun options, in the form of forums which are moderated aggressively to cater to their views.
I tried posting on TheMotte a few times, but I found it to basically be a right-wing circlejerk. It was actually a bit eye opening -- before that, part of me wondered whether the stifling conformity on reddit was intrinsic to its left politics. If a critical mass of left-wing posters had been present on TheMotte, I might have stuck around.
I think upvoting/downvoting systems really accelerate the tendency towards herd mentality. It becomes very obvious when you hold an unpopular minority view, and that's a strong motivator for people with minority views to leave.
That actually sounds pretty fascinating. What board are you thinking of?
It's a common observation that any free speech place on the internet will disproportionately attract right-wing wackos. But arguably that says more about the left than the right. If your politics are sufficiently to the left, there are a lot of places on the internet that will cater really well to that, and delete/downvote non-conforming views pretty aggressively (thinking of reddit in particular). So arguably the bottleneck on having a true "free speech forum", where all perspectives are represented, is that people with left politics have more fun options, in the form of forums which are moderated aggressively to cater to their views.
I tried posting on TheMotte a few times, but I found it to basically be a right-wing circlejerk. It was actually a bit eye opening -- before that, part of me wondered whether the stifling conformity on reddit was intrinsic to its left politics. If a critical mass of left-wing posters had been present on TheMotte, I might have stuck around.
I think upvoting/downvoting systems really accelerate the tendency towards herd mentality. It becomes very obvious when you hold an unpopular minority view, and that's a strong motivator for people with minority views to leave.
> There isn't an official "rationalist" community.
Rationalists have always associated strongly with secular humanists and sceptics. There are multiple organisations that either include "rationalist" in their title or primary mission statement alongside sceptical secular humanism.
Rationalists have always associated strongly with secular humanists and sceptics. There are multiple organisations that either include "rationalist" in their title or primary mission statement alongside sceptical secular humanism.
This is more of a reddit problem. They don't allow true discourse anymore and this is the consequence. It's harder to have a rational debate about a difficult topic while still courting advertisers. So it became an echo chamber and a bunch of people left. That's what you're describing.
Perhaps there are people in power who would benefit from portraying those communities in a different light.
I have no skin in the game. I was just around to witness this all go down.
The rationalist community I was talking about is well known. They split from SSC after the ban on culture war topics. They left Reddit a couple years ago because so many of their posts were getting flagged by Reddit for policy violations.
I'm not making this up. You can go see for yourself: https://old.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/uaoyng/meta_like_...
The rationalist community I was talking about is well known. They split from SSC after the ban on culture war topics. They left Reddit a couple years ago because so many of their posts were getting flagged by Reddit for policy violations.
I'm not making this up. You can go see for yourself: https://old.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/uaoyng/meta_like_...
What exactly do you mean?
Making a rationalist community seem right-wing would
- 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.
- 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.
Curious: Do you think J.D. Vance unintentionally dog-whistling a Scott Alexander article when he's on the Joe Rogan podcast was orchestrated or just what happened?[0]
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[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/1ggl0mh/jd_...
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[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/1ggl0mh/jd_...
What is "unintentionally dog-whistling" supposed to mean?
Isn't intention the essence of the concept of the "dog whistle"?
I'd also like to observe that Scott Alexander does a yearly survey, which provide unusually robust evidence that if we're going to impute to him the cultural affiliations of those who read his posts, his politics can only be "all of it".
Isn't intention the essence of the concept of the "dog whistle"?
I'd also like to observe that Scott Alexander does a yearly survey, which provide unusually robust evidence that if we're going to impute to him the cultural affiliations of those who read his posts, his politics can only be "all of it".
The dog whistle is a message hidden to those not in the know. An unintentional dog whistle is a hidden message shared by mistake. Either not intended and so a false message, or not intended but accidentally shared.
I think astral codex ten did a survey recently and the majority of respondents were politically left
What kind of political leftist would you say resonates most acutely with Scott Alexander's January paean to the scientific racism of Emil Kirkegaard and Richard Lynn ("How To Stop Worrying And Learn To Love Lynn's National IQ Estimates")?
The ones who want to confront reality even when it has unpleasant truths rather than believing comfortable lies.
"Elites are making it taboo to talk about intelligence in order to preserve their position at the top of the social hierarchy. They're doing genetic engineering for their kids in secret, while making the topic of intelligence radioactive so the masses can't follow suit. If we reduce the taboo around intelligence, we can decrease global inequality, by improving access to maternal interventions for IQ in the developing world."
(Granted, that's not a common leftist position. But maybe it should be.)
(Granted, that's not a common leftist position. But maybe it should be.)
That is an inaccurate,
reductionist comment. I encourage folks to read that post if they are interested.
Having not-yet read the post, I appreciate your very practical response. “Read the thing you’re criticizing” is great advice.
It's somewhat odd to represent a community as being right wing when the worst thing to come from it was a trans vegan murder cult. Most "rationalists" vote Democrat, and if the franchise were limited to them, Harris would have won in a 50 state landslide.
The complaint here seems to be that rationalists don't take progressive pieties as axiomatic.
The complaint here seems to be that rationalists don't take progressive pieties as axiomatic.
"trans vegan murder cult" is the best band name ever
> It's somewhat odd to represent a community as being right wing when the worst thing to come from it was a trans vegan murder cult
I was referring to "The Motte", which emerged after the SlateStarCodex subreddit finally banned "culture war" topics. Scott announced it in this post: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/02/22/rip-culture-war-thread...
The Ziz cult did not emerge from The Motte. I don't know why you came to that conclusion.
> Most "rationalists" vote Democrat,
Scott Alexander (of SlateStarCodex) did surveys of his audience. Interestingly, the culture war thread participants were split almost 50:50 between those identifying as left-wing and those identifying as right-wing.
Following the ban on discussion of culture war topics, many of the right-wing participants left for The Motte, which encouraged these conversations.
That's how there came to be a right-wing offshoot of the rationalist community.
The history is all out there. I'm surprised how many people are doubting me about this. You can read the origin story right on Scott's blog, and the Reddit post where they discuss their problems with running afoul of Reddit's content policies (necessitating a move off-platform) is still accessible: https://old.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/uaoyng/meta_like_...
> The complaint here seems to be that rationalists don't take progressive pieties as axiomatic.
No, you're putting words in my mouth. I'm not complaining about a refusal to "progressive pieties as axiomatic". I'm relaying history of rationalist communities. It's surprising to see all of the denial about the topic.
I was referring to "The Motte", which emerged after the SlateStarCodex subreddit finally banned "culture war" topics. Scott announced it in this post: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/02/22/rip-culture-war-thread...
The Ziz cult did not emerge from The Motte. I don't know why you came to that conclusion.
> Most "rationalists" vote Democrat,
Scott Alexander (of SlateStarCodex) did surveys of his audience. Interestingly, the culture war thread participants were split almost 50:50 between those identifying as left-wing and those identifying as right-wing.
Following the ban on discussion of culture war topics, many of the right-wing participants left for The Motte, which encouraged these conversations.
That's how there came to be a right-wing offshoot of the rationalist community.
The history is all out there. I'm surprised how many people are doubting me about this. You can read the origin story right on Scott's blog, and the Reddit post where they discuss their problems with running afoul of Reddit's content policies (necessitating a move off-platform) is still accessible: https://old.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/uaoyng/meta_like_...
> The complaint here seems to be that rationalists don't take progressive pieties as axiomatic.
No, you're putting words in my mouth. I'm not complaining about a refusal to "progressive pieties as axiomatic". I'm relaying history of rationalist communities. It's surprising to see all of the denial about the topic.
Being a trans vegan doesn't automatically make you left wing. Nor does voting Democrat. Being progressive is a complex set of ideals, just as conservatism is a lot more than whatever the Republican party is doing today.
>The complaint here seems to be that rationalists don't take progressive pieties as axiomatic.
A trans vegan gang murdering police officers is what's come out of this milieu.
I don't see how anyone can say they aren't taking "progressive pieties as axiomatic".
The OP is just taking the "everything I don't like is fascist" trope to it's natural conclusion. Up next: Stalin actually a Nazi.
A trans vegan gang murdering police officers is what's come out of this milieu.
I don't see how anyone can say they aren't taking "progressive pieties as axiomatic".
The OP is just taking the "everything I don't like is fascist" trope to it's natural conclusion. Up next: Stalin actually a Nazi.
> The OP is just taking the "everything I don't like is fascist" trope to it's natural conclusion.
Historically, good 90% of times I have seen what you say, the person or group in question turned out to actually be fascists later on. They just packed their fascism to nicer words at the time of the accusation. It kind of happened that those saying "everything I don't like is fascist" either a.) assumed the claim can not be true without bothering to think about what they read or b.) actually liked fascist arguments and not wanted to have them called what they are.
There is long history of "no one is fascist until they actually nazi salute and literally pay extremists" and "no one is sexist even after they literally stated their opinions on female inferiority again and again" and "no one is racist even as they literally just said that".
Historically, good 90% of times I have seen what you say, the person or group in question turned out to actually be fascists later on. They just packed their fascism to nicer words at the time of the accusation. It kind of happened that those saying "everything I don't like is fascist" either a.) assumed the claim can not be true without bothering to think about what they read or b.) actually liked fascist arguments and not wanted to have them called what they are.
There is long history of "no one is fascist until they actually nazi salute and literally pay extremists" and "no one is sexist even after they literally stated their opinions on female inferiority again and again" and "no one is racist even as they literally just said that".
It's very worrying about society that people only think Elon is a Nazi because he did the Nazi salute, when everyone was saying he was well before then. What if someone is a Nazi and is smart enough to never do a salute? We might put them in charge of the country?
> The OP is just taking the "everything I don't like is fascist" trope to it's natural conclusion.
The right-wing rationalist community (The Motte) arose when Slate Star Codex finally banned culture war topics. Scott Alexander wrote about it: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/02/22/rip-culture-war-thread...
There's also a long history of neoreactionary factions of the rationalist community as well as a fascination with fascist ideals from the likes of Curtis Yarvin.
There's some major retconning going on in this thread where people try to write all of this out of the history of rationalist communities. Either that or people weren't aware, but are resistant to the notion that it could have happened.
The right-wing rationalist community (The Motte) arose when Slate Star Codex finally banned culture war topics. Scott Alexander wrote about it: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/02/22/rip-culture-war-thread...
There's also a long history of neoreactionary factions of the rationalist community as well as a fascination with fascist ideals from the likes of Curtis Yarvin.
There's some major retconning going on in this thread where people try to write all of this out of the history of rationalist communities. Either that or people weren't aware, but are resistant to the notion that it could have happened.
Yarvin is authoritarian but very far from fascism, arguably farther than Stalin was.
>The OP is just taking the "everything I don't like is fascist" trope to it's natural conclusion. Up next: Stalin actually a Nazi.
That's terminologically wrong, yet practically sensible conclusion. Some European countries in fact ban both communist and nazi ideologies and public display of their symbols as their authoritarian and genocidal tendencies are incompatible with democratic principles in said countries constitution.
That's terminologically wrong, yet practically sensible conclusion. Some European countries in fact ban both communist and nazi ideologies and public display of their symbols as their authoritarian and genocidal tendencies are incompatible with democratic principles in said countries constitution.
Countries like Hungary.
Not a place I think anyone should try and emulate.
Not a place I think anyone should try and emulate.
This is what arguing in bad faith looks like.
The list of European countries that ban Nazi symbols includes Austria, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Slovakia, and Sweden.
When people talk about EU countries banning of Nazi symbols, they are always referring primarily to Germany. It is the archetypical example of "countries that ban Nazi symbols".
If you want to focus on one country from that list, which is a valid thing to do, you either need to pick the archetype, or acknowledge it and then say why you're focusing on another example from the list instead.
If instead, you immediately pick the one example from that list that suits your narrative, while not acknowledging that every single other example doesn't suit your narrative, that is a bad faith argument.
In any case, recent politics aside, Hungary is an amazing country. I'm not sure about emigrating there, but I definitely recommend visiting.
The list of European countries that ban Nazi symbols includes Austria, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Slovakia, and Sweden.
When people talk about EU countries banning of Nazi symbols, they are always referring primarily to Germany. It is the archetypical example of "countries that ban Nazi symbols".
If you want to focus on one country from that list, which is a valid thing to do, you either need to pick the archetype, or acknowledge it and then say why you're focusing on another example from the list instead.
If instead, you immediately pick the one example from that list that suits your narrative, while not acknowledging that every single other example doesn't suit your narrative, that is a bad faith argument.
In any case, recent politics aside, Hungary is an amazing country. I'm not sure about emigrating there, but I definitely recommend visiting.
The point was about banning both soviet and nazi symbols as equally evil
Goulash, tokay wine, vizsla dogs, Franz Liszt. A terrible people.
Edit: Ervin Laszlo, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Peter Lorre, Harry Houdini, a wide selection of pastries. :) Also Viktor Orban, but what can you do.
Edit: Ervin Laszlo, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Peter Lorre, Harry Houdini, a wide selection of pastries. :) Also Viktor Orban, but what can you do.
I have had some rather… negative vibes, for lack of a better term, from some of the American bits I've encountered online; but for what it's worth, I've not seen what you described in the German community.
There is, ironically, no escape from two facts that was well advertised at the start: (1) the easiest person for anyone to fool is themselves, and (2) politics is the mind-killer.
With no outwardly visible irony, there's a rationalist politics podcast called "the mind killer": https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/the-mind-killer/id1507...
Saying this as someone who read HPMOR and AI to Zombies and used to listen to The Bayesian Conspiracy podcast:
This is feeling a bit of that scene in Monty Python Life of Brian where everyone was chanting in unison about thinking for themselves.
There is, ironically, no escape from two facts that was well advertised at the start: (1) the easiest person for anyone to fool is themselves, and (2) politics is the mind-killer.
With no outwardly visible irony, there's a rationalist politics podcast called "the mind killer": https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/the-mind-killer/id1507...
Saying this as someone who read HPMOR and AI to Zombies and used to listen to The Bayesian Conspiracy podcast:
This is feeling a bit of that scene in Monty Python Life of Brian where everyone was chanting in unison about thinking for themselves.
The problem with "politics is the mind-killer" is that it seems to encourage either completely ignoring politics (which is mostly harmless but also results in pointlessly ceding a venue for productive action in service of one's ideals) or engaging with politics in a very Machiavellian, quasi-Nietzschean way, where you perceive yourself as slicing through the meaningless Gordian knot of politics (which results in the various extremist offshoots being discussed).
I understand that the actually rational exegesis of "politics is the mind-killer" is that it's a warning against confirmation bias and the tendency to adopt an entire truth system from one's political faction, rather than maintaining skepticism. But that doesn't seem to be how people often take it.
I understand that the actually rational exegesis of "politics is the mind-killer" is that it's a warning against confirmation bias and the tendency to adopt an entire truth system from one's political faction, rather than maintaining skepticism. But that doesn't seem to be how people often take it.
Someone who follows politics to anticipate possible consequences is considered 'rational' think of the 25% tariffs trump enacts. You dont even need to have an opinion on the matter but you shouldn't be suprised when the bill comes around. What I think people consider political destruction of the mind is when someone is consumed by the actions of a character that does not and should not have influence over their behaviour.
Politics aren't the mind killer, fear is. Politics just use fear to achieve their ends
The whole internet mainstream zeitgeist with dating among men has become identical to incel talking points from 5 years ago.
Reading about the Roko’s Basalisk saga, it seems clear that these people are quite far from rational and of extremely limited emotional development. It reads like observing a group of children who are afraid of the monster in the closet, which they definitely brought into existence by chanting a phrase in front of the bathroom mirror…
Members of these or other similar communities would do well to read anything on them dispassionately and critique anything they read. I’d also say that if they use Yudkowsy’s writings as a basis for understanding the world, that understanding is going to have to the same inadequacies of Yudkowsky and his writings. How many people without PhDs or even relevant formal education are putting out high quality writing on both philosophy and quantum mechanics (and whatever other subjects)?
Members of these or other similar communities would do well to read anything on them dispassionately and critique anything they read. I’d also say that if they use Yudkowsy’s writings as a basis for understanding the world, that understanding is going to have to the same inadequacies of Yudkowsky and his writings. How many people without PhDs or even relevant formal education are putting out high quality writing on both philosophy and quantum mechanics (and whatever other subjects)?
For what it's worth, there's a thriving liberal rationalist-adjacent community on Twitter that despises people like Roko.
DonHopkins(2)
(To answer that last procedural question: there have been assorted submissions, but none spent much time on the front page. More at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42901777)
Many people were curious here that the perpetrators were using Vim or Emacs.
After seeing this news, I recall watching a video by Julia Galef about "what is rationality". Would it be fair to say that in this situation, they lack epistemic rationality but are high in instrumental rationality?
If they had high instrumental rationality, they would be effective at achieving their goals. That doesn’t seem to be the case - by conventional standards, they would even be considered "losers": jobless, homeless, imprisoned, or on the run.
That depends on a goal. The goal of a martyr is not life.
Hard to say without hearing them speak for themself.
So far I have 0 idea of any motive.
Supposedly it should be rational, so I would at least like to hear it, before judging deeper.
So far I have 0 idea of any motive.
Supposedly it should be rational, so I would at least like to hear it, before judging deeper.
Why does a hotel clerk wear tactical gear and guns?
That sentence was slightly awkward, the hotel clerk reported that those two people were in tactical gear with guns.
Relevant link (2023): https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/T5RzkFcNpRdckGauu/link-a-com...
The top comment has an interesting take: "Unless Ziz gets back in the news, there’s not much reason for someone in 2025 or later to be reading this."
The top comment has an interesting take: "Unless Ziz gets back in the news, there’s not much reason for someone in 2025 or later to be reading this."
This whole rabbit hole of rationalism, less wrong, and ziz feels like a fever dream to me. Roaming trans veganist tatical death squads shooting border officers and stabbing 80 year olds with swords.
This is the kind of thing where it is warranted that the feds gets every single wiretap, interception, and surveillance possible on everyone involved in the zizian movement.
This is the kind of thing where it is warranted that the feds gets every single wiretap, interception, and surveillance possible on everyone involved in the zizian movement.
Calling them a roaming band or "tactical death squad" is giving far too much credit. It is a handful of crazy people who convinced themselves that a couple murders would solve their problems.
In particular the attack on border patrol was obviously random and illogical. And the fact that no one was convicted of the Pennsylvania murders seems to reflect more on the police and prosecutors than the intelligence of the perpetrators.
In particular the attack on border patrol was obviously random and illogical. And the fact that no one was convicted of the Pennsylvania murders seems to reflect more on the police and prosecutors than the intelligence of the perpetrators.
Speaking of random and illogical, what prompted the Border Patrol to stop their car in the first place, I wonder? None of the news stories have elaborated on that.
The FBI report says it was a traffic stop. The milemarker 168 seems to be about 10 miles from the Canadian border.
https://www.fbi.gov/contact-us/field-offices/albany/news/fbi...
More information from the police report:https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wycOK3UbaQ9JWZuvo2gpZiDT-0t...
On January 20, 2025, at approximately 3:00 pm, an on-duty, uniformed United States Border Patrol (USBP) Agent initiated a stop of a blue 2015 Toyota Prius Hatchback with North Carolina license plate number KLA2040 to conduct an immigration inspection as it was driving southbound on Interstate 91 in Coventry, Vermont. The registered owner of the vehicle, Felix Baukholt, a citizen of Germany, appeared to have an expired visa in a Department of Homeland Security database. YOUNGBLUT was driving the Prius, and Baukholt was the lone passenger in the Prius. Multiple uniformed Border Patrol Agents were present at the stop in three USBP vehicles with emergency lights illuminated.
(later in the same document)
Investigators had been performing periodic surveillance of Baukholt and YOUNGBLUT since on or about Tuesday, January 14, 2025. A concerned citizen-an employee of a hotel in Lyndonville, Vermont--contacted law enforcement after a male and a female had checked into the hotel to report concerns about them, including that they appeared to be dressed in all-black tactical style clothing with protective equipment, with the woman, later identified as YOUNGBLUT, carrying an apparent firearm in an exposed-carry holster. Investigators with VSP and Homeland Security Investigations attempted to initiate a consensual conversation with Baukholt and YOUNGBLUT, but they declined to have an extended conversation, claiming that they were in the vicinity to look at purchasing property. After the contact with law enforcement, the pair checked out of the Lyndonville hotel on the afternoon of January 14, 2025. Investigators later observed the pair in similar tactical dress on Sunday, January 19, 2025, walking in downtown Newport; YOUNGBLUT was observed carrying a handgun at that time.
https://www.fbi.gov/contact-us/field-offices/albany/news/fbi...
More information from the police report:https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wycOK3UbaQ9JWZuvo2gpZiDT-0t...
On January 20, 2025, at approximately 3:00 pm, an on-duty, uniformed United States Border Patrol (USBP) Agent initiated a stop of a blue 2015 Toyota Prius Hatchback with North Carolina license plate number KLA2040 to conduct an immigration inspection as it was driving southbound on Interstate 91 in Coventry, Vermont. The registered owner of the vehicle, Felix Baukholt, a citizen of Germany, appeared to have an expired visa in a Department of Homeland Security database. YOUNGBLUT was driving the Prius, and Baukholt was the lone passenger in the Prius. Multiple uniformed Border Patrol Agents were present at the stop in three USBP vehicles with emergency lights illuminated.
(later in the same document)
Investigators had been performing periodic surveillance of Baukholt and YOUNGBLUT since on or about Tuesday, January 14, 2025. A concerned citizen-an employee of a hotel in Lyndonville, Vermont--contacted law enforcement after a male and a female had checked into the hotel to report concerns about them, including that they appeared to be dressed in all-black tactical style clothing with protective equipment, with the woman, later identified as YOUNGBLUT, carrying an apparent firearm in an exposed-carry holster. Investigators with VSP and Homeland Security Investigations attempted to initiate a consensual conversation with Baukholt and YOUNGBLUT, but they declined to have an extended conversation, claiming that they were in the vicinity to look at purchasing property. After the contact with law enforcement, the pair checked out of the Lyndonville hotel on the afternoon of January 14, 2025. Investigators later observed the pair in similar tactical dress on Sunday, January 19, 2025, walking in downtown Newport; YOUNGBLUT was observed carrying a handgun at that time.
>The registered owner of the vehicle, Felix Baukholt, a citizen of Germany, appeared to have an expired visa in a Department of Homeland Security database.
Presumably the BP had a license plate scanner and this triggered.
Presumably the BP had a license plate scanner and this triggered.
Sounds like police were already on to them and they just used the excuse of an immigration stop in order to run their ID and search the car. Border patrol can pull you over and search you for any reason within a certain distance from the border — even if you did not cross the border.
Reading through zizan stuff they have this idea of “collapse the timeline” which justifies extreme violence in response to subjugation. The idea is if you are being subjugated you should act with extreme violence to deter people from subjugating you, and since you will not be subjugated the path always leads to violence, hence you should “collapse the timeline” and just go straight to violence.
The thing is, the US border patrol is not going to back down from your extreme threats of violence so if you want to collapse the timeline you mine as well put a bullet in yourself because that is how things are going to end — and did end — for them.
Reading through zizan stuff they have this idea of “collapse the timeline” which justifies extreme violence in response to subjugation. The idea is if you are being subjugated you should act with extreme violence to deter people from subjugating you, and since you will not be subjugated the path always leads to violence, hence you should “collapse the timeline” and just go straight to violence.
The thing is, the US border patrol is not going to back down from your extreme threats of violence so if you want to collapse the timeline you mine as well put a bullet in yourself because that is how things are going to end — and did end — for them.
Right, a traffic stop, but by the Border Patrol? For an "immigration inspection?"
Not to put too fine a point on it, these people don't look like the sort who might get "randomly" stopped by the Border Patrol for an "immigration inspection."
Not to put too fine a point on it, these people don't look like the sort who might get "randomly" stopped by the Border Patrol for an "immigration inspection."
edited my comment to add some other details I found
Have you ever driven near the border? You'll be flagged for doing anything out of the ordinary with your car. If you have to pull over for a moment to find your passport for example, or if you made a wrong turn and try to turn around, or really anything that looks "suspicious", you risk getting additional searches or being pulled over.
I don't know, but this is ripe material for a documentaries and podcasts, so I'm sure there will be a lot more coming out in the future.
I don't have a link handy, but they were under surveillance for a full week before they were pulled for a "traffic stop."
Conflating ziz and less wrong feels a bit like conflating Aiden Hale with the LGBTQ movement or the Branch Davidians with Christianity.
Or even just the Branch Davidians and the seventh day adventists, of whom the branch Davidians were an offshoot.
I’ve read a couple rationalist blogs for over a decade and this past week is the first I’ve ever heard of these “Zizians”
I’ve read a couple rationalist blogs for over a decade and this past week is the first I’ve ever heard of these “Zizians”
Split the beliefs from the crime. A bunch of murderers were caught. Given they are dangerous killers, one killing a witness and one faking their death yeah they should get warrants.
> Split the beliefs from the crime.
Pretty hard to do that when the beliefs explicitly endorse murder. Ziz used to run a blog on which she made thinly veiled death threats, argued for a personal philosophy of hair-trigger escalation and massive retribution, raged at the rationalist community for not agreeing with her on that philosophy and on theories of transness, and considered most people on Earth to be irredeemably evil for eating meat.
Pretty hard to do that when the beliefs explicitly endorse murder. Ziz used to run a blog on which she made thinly veiled death threats, argued for a personal philosophy of hair-trigger escalation and massive retribution, raged at the rationalist community for not agreeing with her on that philosophy and on theories of transness, and considered most people on Earth to be irredeemably evil for eating meat.
It appears the ven diagram of the beliefs and crimes overlap quite a bit. Sometimes the beliefs are that certain crimes should be committed.
This is a free country (disputably) and you should be able to think and say whatever you want, but I also think it is reasonable for law enforcement in the investigation of said crimes to also investigate links to other members in the movement.
This is a free country (disputably) and you should be able to think and say whatever you want, but I also think it is reasonable for law enforcement in the investigation of said crimes to also investigate links to other members in the movement.
> but I also think it is reasonable for law enforcement in the investigation of said crimes to also investigate links to other members in the movement.
It doesn't work. Every single time a radicalized member of the marginalized community does this kind of crime, the numbered-letter-agency dutifully reports, that they knew the person to be radicalized, but had nothing to act on, because a lot of people have weird violence-approving beliefs, talk about them openly or with friends and very few actually hijack a Boeing or two. Those who plan to do things also happen to learn about op-sec mistakes of those caught before them.
Israel knew about Hamas, and the russian empire of 19th century knew about anarchists. Pouring a lot of resources into suppressing all of that didn't do jack shit in the long term.
It doesn't work. Every single time a radicalized member of the marginalized community does this kind of crime, the numbered-letter-agency dutifully reports, that they knew the person to be radicalized, but had nothing to act on, because a lot of people have weird violence-approving beliefs, talk about them openly or with friends and very few actually hijack a Boeing or two. Those who plan to do things also happen to learn about op-sec mistakes of those caught before them.
Israel knew about Hamas, and the russian empire of 19th century knew about anarchists. Pouring a lot of resources into suppressing all of that didn't do jack shit in the long term.
> It appears the ven diagram of the beliefs and crimes overlap quite a bit.
There are hundreds of thousands of rationalists (to a greater or lesser extent). Very few go shoot people.
There are hundreds of thousands of rationalists (to a greater or lesser extent). Very few go shoot people.
I didn’t say “rationalist” should be investigated, I said “zizian” which is a small personality cult of ziz.
The Zizians are the ones whose beliefs said that shooting people was justified, not the "rationalists".
How many nazis are there in the world? Millions? How many have shoot people? A handful
Probable cause is the key term here.
Cops can do a lot without it. They can choose what leads to follow.
But not sure what you are suggesting with respect to wiretapping.
Cops can do a lot without it. They can choose what leads to follow.
But not sure what you are suggesting with respect to wiretapping.
[deleted]
Can you really split the beliefs of the nazi movement in germany in 1940 from the crimes the believers committed?
Yes, thank you for saying so- reading about all this, but especially all the people chiming in who already knew about a lot of it? The fact that the founder of LessWrong coined the term “alignment,” a subject I’ve read about many times… it feels like learning lizard people always walked among us
Honestly it feels like this is the first time people are realizing that six degrees of separation means that crazy people can usually be connected to influential people. In this case they're just realizing it with the rationalists.
At least it's clear that they aren't receiving proper sword handling training. Good grief.
gaze(2)
Rest assured, I'm pretty sure among the easiest ways to make yourself the target of surveillance is to do anything interesting at all involving technology. All serious AI researchers, for example, should assume that they are the victims of this.
>This whole rabbit hole of rationalism, less wrong, and ziz feels like a fever dream to me. Roaming trans veganist tatical death squads shooting border officers and stabbing 80 year olds with swords.
I don't exactly see how it's different from a group of habitual alcoholics discussing politics and having a fatal disagreement, which is a normal day of the week in any police department with enough demographics to have this sort of low-effort low-gain crime. It's more scandalous because of details and people involved are more interesting, but everyone will forget about it after a week, as they don't matter.
I don't exactly see how it's different from a group of habitual alcoholics discussing politics and having a fatal disagreement, which is a normal day of the week in any police department with enough demographics to have this sort of low-effort low-gain crime. It's more scandalous because of details and people involved are more interesting, but everyone will forget about it after a week, as they don't matter.
>I don't exactly see how it's different from a group of habitual alcoholics discussing politics and having a fatal disagreement
Intent, premeditation, possibly being designated a terrorist group depending on other factors. Big differences.
Intent, premeditation, possibly being designated a terrorist group depending on other factors. Big differences.
These people?
https://nypost.com/2025/01/30/us-news/killing-of-border-patr...
Is the appellation in the headline, "radical vegan trans cult," a true description?
> Authorities now say the guns used by Youngblut and Bauckholt are owned by a person of interest in other murders — and connected to a mysterious cult of transgender “geniuses” who follow a trans leader named Jack LaSota, also known by the alias “Ziz.”
Is all this murder stuff broadly correct?
https://nypost.com/2025/01/30/us-news/killing-of-border-patr...
Is the appellation in the headline, "radical vegan trans cult," a true description?
> Authorities now say the guns used by Youngblut and Bauckholt are owned by a person of interest in other murders — and connected to a mysterious cult of transgender “geniuses” who follow a trans leader named Jack LaSota, also known by the alias “Ziz.”
Is all this murder stuff broadly correct?
The NY Post tried to frame them as "radical leftist", but that's a big stretch. I don't think most rationalists would consider themselves leftist. The article also seems to be leaning into the current "trans panic" - pretty typical for the NYP.
I also dislike Right/Left categorizations. Most people don't even know the history of the terms and their roots in the French Revolution. Though the "Cult of Reason" established then certainly had the Left categorization at the time.
But is the trans element not a major part of this cult? It seemed to be from the linked story in the top link. But if there is something incorrect there, or false in the NYP reporting, you should point it out. If it is a major element of this cult, then far from complaining about NYP, I would complain about any news organization leaving it out of its reporting.
But is the trans element not a major part of this cult? It seemed to be from the linked story in the top link. But if there is something incorrect there, or false in the NYP reporting, you should point it out. If it is a major element of this cult, then far from complaining about NYP, I would complain about any news organization leaving it out of its reporting.
I don't think being trans is part of their beliefs or a requirement to be a member
That zizians.info page makes several claims about their beliefs in regards to being trans, and both articles make claims about the number of trans people involved in the events described that, if true, seem to indicate large trans representation.
But all of this may be false information. I would like to hear specifics, if so.
But all of this may be false information. I would like to hear specifics, if so.
There is, but, for example, the cult member accused of murdering the landlord isn't trans. So transness isn't intrinsic to the cult, and the violence also isn't related to trying to fight for/against anything to do with being trans.
(These aren't actually ideologically motivated killings, oddly enough: in practice they just murder people who slight them, even if "it is imperative and the greatest good that you murder people who slight you" is a key component of their decision-theoretic extremism ideology. Or at least that's how I interpret it.)
(These aren't actually ideologically motivated killings, oddly enough: in practice they just murder people who slight them, even if "it is imperative and the greatest good that you murder people who slight you" is a key component of their decision-theoretic extremism ideology. Or at least that's how I interpret it.)
Are the reports true that the two who first attacked the landlord were trans? And the two in the border patrol attack were trans? And the suspect in the Zajko killings is trans? And the leader of the cult is trans?
And also that the person whom you mention, who was accused of the landlord killing, was in fact married to one of the trans persons above?
And also that the person whom you mention, who was accused of the landlord killing, was in fact married to one of the trans persons above?
Trasmatta(2)
> I don't think most rationalists would consider themselves leftist
Yes they do.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf5FqX6XBJlfOShMd3U...
Yes they do.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf5FqX6XBJlfOShMd3U...
A naive observer would look at these numbers and say “wow, I am unsurprised that this movement is made mostly of straight white American male tech workers”.
Anyone reaching that conclusion though, would be a fool! For they would have forgotten to apply Bayes Theorem.
Anyone reaching that conclusion though, would be a fool! For they would have forgotten to apply Bayes Theorem.
liberal is not leftist
It says liberal “as in US Democratic Party” at 35% and social democrat at 2nd with 29% and Marxist at what looks like 2-3% so an easy majority (for this survey at least) the rest are libertarian, then Neo reactionary, and alt right in descending order
1.6% Marxist
Did you confuse Liberal with Leftist? Liberals are anti-left
Some portion are Libertarian but there's no distinction between so-called "ancap" and libcom so that one is murky or more often coded for the former (the Libertarian party in the US is anti-left)
Did you confuse Liberal with Leftist? Liberals are anti-left
Some portion are Libertarian but there's no distinction between so-called "ancap" and libcom so that one is murky or more often coded for the former (the Libertarian party in the US is anti-left)
Just in USA Liberals are considered leftist
> Just in USA Liberals are considered leftist
Well, for a period of time liberals were the left. In the last decade or so the illiberal left has come up in opposition to the illiberal right, the latter matching the former’s hypocrisy in false promises of equality (while driving division) with false promises of freedom (while expanding the rulebook).
Well, for a period of time liberals were the left. In the last decade or so the illiberal left has come up in opposition to the illiberal right, the latter matching the former’s hypocrisy in false promises of equality (while driving division) with false promises of freedom (while expanding the rulebook).
That’s just Culture War terms. And identification according to others (illiberal this or that) is often agenda-driven.
Self-identification is confused enough but identifying others is even more muddled.
Self-identification is confused enough but identifying others is even more muddled.
> Culture War terms
Sure. The Culture War’s belligerents are all, generally speaking, illiberal. And notably, most people steeped in it reject the term. Even those on the left.
Sure. The Culture War’s belligerents are all, generally speaking, illiberal. And notably, most people steeped in it reject the term. Even those on the left.
So what are they supposed to do then. The right makes a mountain out of a molehill. That happens to target some group, like a minority. Those on the left who reject the Culture War argue against it since they think the right’s focus will hurt the minority. They argue that the right is making a mountain out of a molehill. And yet they are now participating, begrudgingly.
What are they supposed to do.
What are they supposed to do.
The original definition of left and right came from the French Revolution. The liberals were the left wing. It is only in modern times that some people have rejected the original definition.
Does it really matter? Nazis called themselves socialists.
no true scotsman
[deleted]
Who is making a statement about "most rationalists" here? The claim is about a trans vegan murder cult, which doesn't appear to be a natural member of the right side of the political spectrum.
Many rationalists do consider themselves leftist. Many others do not. It's a big tent and anyone can wander in.
Left libertarian would be more likely, I think?
> Is the appellation in the headline, "radical vegan trans cult," a true description?
For this small group, yes. Their leader believes in Nuremberg-style trials for people who eat meat. If you want to go down the rabbit hole, it gets much weirder: https://zizians.info/
For this small group, yes. Their leader believes in Nuremberg-style trials for people who eat meat. If you want to go down the rabbit hole, it gets much weirder: https://zizians.info/
The cult does seem to target people who identify as trans - OP has some discussion of this. Not sure if that justifies calling it a "radical vegan trans cult" though. Trans folks seem to be overrepresented in rationalist communities generally, at least on the West Coast - but there may be all sorts of valid reasons for that.
None of the murder victims I'm aware of were transgender?
Target as in, target for recruitment into the group.
The targets for their victims seem chosen...as retaliation to defend their understanding of their own interests.
The targets for their victims seem chosen...as retaliation to defend their understanding of their own interests.
silexia(1)
I’m from Burlington and a couple weeks ago downtown I noticed a group of 2 or 3 people walking past me in full black clothing with ski masks (the kind you rob banks with).
I thought it was strange, having never seen that before except on Halloween, but didn’t think to alert any authorities specifically because Burlington is filled with people dressing differently and doing strange things. But 99% of the time it’s totally non violent and benign.
I’m guessing this was them. Scary!
I thought it was strange, having never seen that before except on Halloween, but didn’t think to alert any authorities specifically because Burlington is filled with people dressing differently and doing strange things. But 99% of the time it’s totally non violent and benign.
I’m guessing this was them. Scary!
I can't speak to Burlington but in philly balaclavas (which is what those masks are called) are quite common and have been since 2020. I suspect this is true of many cities. It's been the subject of some controversy involving mask bans. In fact seeing someone in all black with a ski mask on is a pretty typical, if intimidating, fashion.
Some bookmarks from early 2023 that seem relevant now:
https://zizians.info
https://old.reddit.com/r/SneerClub/
https://aiascendant.substack.com/p/extropias-children-chapte...
I do not engage with any of those people nor their weird communities.
https://zizians.info
https://old.reddit.com/r/SneerClub/
https://aiascendant.substack.com/p/extropias-children-chapte...
I do not engage with any of those people nor their weird communities.
Sneer Club is one of the most nasty, uncharitable, and bad-faith subs out there these days. They generally hate HN, as well. I think any community which exists solely to make cheap shots at another community is poison at its core, SC’s parasocial relationship with LW is a perfect example.
N-gate was among the only things that made this website worth reading. They solely existed to make "cheap shots" at HN. If that's "poison", than I don't want an antidote!
What happens if you feed the n-gate archive to an LLM and ask it to generate commentary on current HN posts in the same style?
Just wanted to say fantastic substack writing. Thanks for linking as I go down this rabbit hole
Yeah! I devoured the entire series of posts in one go back then, I had no idea about all the people and their ties. Plus it was a super engaging read, I could imagine being there.
Holy shit, there are 7 chapters to that last one. Chapter 1 is fucking mind-blowing. I could never figure out why they were obsessed with Roko's basilisk but it makes total sense now considering how it all started.
This is such an epic unbelievable story. We live in this world?
Chapter 6 covers how StarSlateCodex comes into the picture, by the way. I always wondered that too.
This is such an epic unbelievable story. We live in this world?
Chapter 6 covers how StarSlateCodex comes into the picture, by the way. I always wondered that too.
Most of the news coverage I've seen of this story is omitting what some might consider a relevant detail: almost all the members of this group are trans.
This is a divisive topic, but failing to mention this makes me worry a story is pushing a particular agenda rather than trying to tell the facts. Here's what the story looks like if the trans activism is considered central to the story:
https://thepostmillennial.com/andy-ngo-reports-trans-terror-...
While Ngo's version is definitely biased, and while I don't know enough about the story to endorse or refute his view, I think it's important to realize that this part of the story is being suppressed in most of the coverage elsewhere.
This is a divisive topic, but failing to mention this makes me worry a story is pushing a particular agenda rather than trying to tell the facts. Here's what the story looks like if the trans activism is considered central to the story:
https://thepostmillennial.com/andy-ngo-reports-trans-terror-...
While Ngo's version is definitely biased, and while I don't know enough about the story to endorse or refute his view, I think it's important to realize that this part of the story is being suppressed in most of the coverage elsewhere.
it's been an exhausting couple of weeks for me, as a trans person. one executive order after another, explicitly attacking us. scrambling to update all my documents, navigating a Kafkaesque bureaucracy with constantly shifting rules.
now this.
there are like six Zizians. there are millions of trans people. I'm sure that many of the Zizians being trans says something about the Ziz cult, but Ziz doesn't say anything about "trans activism."
any evil one trans person does, is used to stain all trans people. recognize this tendency; don't let this become like blood libel.
now this.
there are like six Zizians. there are millions of trans people. I'm sure that many of the Zizians being trans says something about the Ziz cult, but Ziz doesn't say anything about "trans activism."
any evil one trans person does, is used to stain all trans people. recognize this tendency; don't let this become like blood libel.
I’m not a big George W Bush fan but this quote of his has stuck with me for years:
> Too often, we judge other groups by their worst examples while judging ourselves by our best intentions
> Too often, we judge other groups by their worst examples while judging ourselves by our best intentions
The more readily a group tries to restrict some behaviours, the more it implicitly endorses behaviours it doesn’t attempt to restrict.
> any evil one trans person does, is used to stain all trans people. recognize this tendency; don't let this become like blood libel.
As a Christian, I can empathize. The wrongs and hypocrisies of so many are heaped on those who have no relation to the actions.
As a Christian, I can empathize. The wrongs and hypocrisies of so many are heaped on those who have no relation to the actions.
LeoPanthera(9)
kurikuri(6)
I don't think that you need to be a Christian to empathise with anyone. The big geezer's (JC) teachings imply to me that keeping quiet about your faith and simply doing good (for a given value of good) is the Way.
Declaring a religion might rile someone, before you have even engaged. I suggest that you simply proffer a hand. Empathise as best you can. Be careful.
At best, with mentioning religion, you have declared your rightful intentions and at worst you have added yet another layer of tribalism to a ... debate.
I'm pretty sure that at least the synoptic gospels and probably John too (for the full set) tell you to keep it quiet. There is no need to put your religious heart on your sleeve - that's between you and God.
Declaring a religion might rile someone, before you have even engaged. I suggest that you simply proffer a hand. Empathise as best you can. Be careful.
At best, with mentioning religion, you have declared your rightful intentions and at worst you have added yet another layer of tribalism to a ... debate.
I'm pretty sure that at least the synoptic gospels and probably John too (for the full set) tell you to keep it quiet. There is no need to put your religious heart on your sleeve - that's between you and God.
> At best, with mentioning religion, you have declared your rightful intentions and at worst you have added yet another layer of tribalism to a ... debate.
I don't think you understood what they were saying. They were saying that as a Christian, they've experienced being blamed for the misdeeds of other Christians which they personally had nothing to do with.
The most important part of that statement isn't the word "Christian": you could replace "Christian" with Muslim or atheist or whatever and there'd be someone else who could truthfully say it.
I don't think you understood what they were saying. They were saying that as a Christian, they've experienced being blamed for the misdeeds of other Christians which they personally had nothing to do with.
The most important part of that statement isn't the word "Christian": you could replace "Christian" with Muslim or atheist or whatever and there'd be someone else who could truthfully say it.
If you have any unusual identity (e.g. a person inhabited by a fox spirit) you have a responsibility to be the person you can because you could be the first person in that category they meet.
I grew up in Manchester, NH which was almost 100% white until 1990 or so. [1] My family was out for a bike ride and got a flat. A black couple (the man had just been transferred to the Raytheon factory where they make the radar for Patriot missile) came by and helped us fix the flat and shared lemonade with us in the kitchen. If you have an experience like this you think "I want more black people to move into my town."
One branch of my wife's family comes from southern Italy and is pretty conservative, one of her cousins is dating a black guy who is an EE and works on robots at Amazon. The family is pretty old school but he's won everyone over by making a point to be really awesome. He talks about every prominent thinker about what blacks in America should do from Marcus Garvey to Malcom X. He thinks it's a terrible act of racism that 'Black Wall Street' was bombed but also thinks people who are still stuck in the pathologies of the projects he escaped from need to take responsibility: he thinks it's unfair but he knows black people have to work twice as hard to get ahead and accepts the burden. He's really won the family over.
To link it to transgender issues, this poll [2] from 2022 says that 57% of Americans don't know personally know anybody transgender, and this 2024 poll of Asian-Pacific Islanders in the US [3] gives the same number.
People are getting their ideas about transgender people from the media where stories like this [4] are pretty widespread; whatever you do you don't want to live up to those stereotypes.
[1] I think because the bottom fell out of the economy at the end of the 1920s and never came back until the 1990s; you had no reason to go there unless you had family, black people leaving the south were going to Detroit because (a) there were already blacks there, and (b) the car industry was expanding despite the Great Depression.
[2] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/09/21/does-publ...
[3] https://apnorc.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/AAPI-Data-AP-N...
[4] https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-witch-trials-of-j-...
I grew up in Manchester, NH which was almost 100% white until 1990 or so. [1] My family was out for a bike ride and got a flat. A black couple (the man had just been transferred to the Raytheon factory where they make the radar for Patriot missile) came by and helped us fix the flat and shared lemonade with us in the kitchen. If you have an experience like this you think "I want more black people to move into my town."
One branch of my wife's family comes from southern Italy and is pretty conservative, one of her cousins is dating a black guy who is an EE and works on robots at Amazon. The family is pretty old school but he's won everyone over by making a point to be really awesome. He talks about every prominent thinker about what blacks in America should do from Marcus Garvey to Malcom X. He thinks it's a terrible act of racism that 'Black Wall Street' was bombed but also thinks people who are still stuck in the pathologies of the projects he escaped from need to take responsibility: he thinks it's unfair but he knows black people have to work twice as hard to get ahead and accepts the burden. He's really won the family over.
To link it to transgender issues, this poll [2] from 2022 says that 57% of Americans don't know personally know anybody transgender, and this 2024 poll of Asian-Pacific Islanders in the US [3] gives the same number.
People are getting their ideas about transgender people from the media where stories like this [4] are pretty widespread; whatever you do you don't want to live up to those stereotypes.
[1] I think because the bottom fell out of the economy at the end of the 1920s and never came back until the 1990s; you had no reason to go there unless you had family, black people leaving the south were going to Detroit because (a) there were already blacks there, and (b) the car industry was expanding despite the Great Depression.
[2] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/09/21/does-publ...
[3] https://apnorc.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/AAPI-Data-AP-N...
[4] https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-witch-trials-of-j-...
I don’t think there’s enough trans people for everyone to have first hand exposure. I’m not aware of any in my neighborhood.
Are your utterances here helping the cause of trans liberation, or hurting it?
> Are your utterances here helping the cause of trans liberation, or hurting it?
I get that it's been a rough couple of weeks for trans people, and immigrants, and people who due import and export, and grant-writers--but perhaps you should take a moment to reflect on how comments like this reflect on you and trans people to the general populace (which is adjacent to the point made by the comment you were replying to).
All you had to write was "Do you think this state of affairs works for or against trans people?", or even "I'm not sure I understand which direction you're going with this, could you elaborate?"
Instead, you picked an us-vs-them phrasing and were shitty.
Let me give some blunt feedback:
Trans people (the ones that are clockable) are a relative novelty outside of urban areas, and most of the voting public (much as the gays faced before) don't have any familiarity with them outside of either: scaremongering from the conservatives and tabloids, excessively fawning presentation in movies and shows and liberal/progressive media, or spicy tweets and posts on Twitter and Facebook.
Normies don't really know about the boring, relatable parts of being trans--finding clothes that fit correctly, struggling to feel that your body is right, dealing with stupid bureaucracy that doesn't match your needs, being unable to get competent or affordable healthcare, looking for a partner that loves you for being you and not because of how you look or what they think you are. (You'll note: these are, modulo some biological issues, exactly the same things that they face too.)
The trans people aren't doing themselves any favors (especially the ones in tech, who are incredibly privileged and until recently inhabited a rarified atmosphere of good pay and performative catering) when interacting with normies, though. When people like you act like assholes it confirms every negative stereotype.
Honestly? It's exhausting. It's tiring. It's enough to drive away the allies and friendlies that aren't already getting driven away by those of you with personality disorders.
The trans friends and partners I've had that are decent and capable of relating on a normal level are vastly outnumbered by the catty, annoying, neurotic transgendered men and women I've encountered in my career and schooling.
Go on Mastodon, go onto the Fediverse, and tell me with a straight face that your average trans poster isn't at least as likely to be as toxic as somebody on Twitter. Go look at the self-congratulatory bullshit to own the MAGA folks...all the way up until the election that has so many of you freaking out. Go look at the immediate closing of ranks and decrying "transphobe! transphobe!" when one of your group does something shitty and gets called out for it--even when they deserve it.
If you want to know why the popular support for trans people isn't great, look in the mirror and consider if you want to double down on a losing strategy for behavior.
The current swing of the pendulum is not good, it is not kind, it is not entirely fair--but it sure as hell isn't inexplicable. Good luck to you in the coming years.
I get that it's been a rough couple of weeks for trans people, and immigrants, and people who due import and export, and grant-writers--but perhaps you should take a moment to reflect on how comments like this reflect on you and trans people to the general populace (which is adjacent to the point made by the comment you were replying to).
All you had to write was "Do you think this state of affairs works for or against trans people?", or even "I'm not sure I understand which direction you're going with this, could you elaborate?"
Instead, you picked an us-vs-them phrasing and were shitty.
Let me give some blunt feedback:
Trans people (the ones that are clockable) are a relative novelty outside of urban areas, and most of the voting public (much as the gays faced before) don't have any familiarity with them outside of either: scaremongering from the conservatives and tabloids, excessively fawning presentation in movies and shows and liberal/progressive media, or spicy tweets and posts on Twitter and Facebook.
Normies don't really know about the boring, relatable parts of being trans--finding clothes that fit correctly, struggling to feel that your body is right, dealing with stupid bureaucracy that doesn't match your needs, being unable to get competent or affordable healthcare, looking for a partner that loves you for being you and not because of how you look or what they think you are. (You'll note: these are, modulo some biological issues, exactly the same things that they face too.)
The trans people aren't doing themselves any favors (especially the ones in tech, who are incredibly privileged and until recently inhabited a rarified atmosphere of good pay and performative catering) when interacting with normies, though. When people like you act like assholes it confirms every negative stereotype.
Honestly? It's exhausting. It's tiring. It's enough to drive away the allies and friendlies that aren't already getting driven away by those of you with personality disorders.
The trans friends and partners I've had that are decent and capable of relating on a normal level are vastly outnumbered by the catty, annoying, neurotic transgendered men and women I've encountered in my career and schooling.
Go on Mastodon, go onto the Fediverse, and tell me with a straight face that your average trans poster isn't at least as likely to be as toxic as somebody on Twitter. Go look at the self-congratulatory bullshit to own the MAGA folks...all the way up until the election that has so many of you freaking out. Go look at the immediate closing of ranks and decrying "transphobe! transphobe!" when one of your group does something shitty and gets called out for it--even when they deserve it.
If you want to know why the popular support for trans people isn't great, look in the mirror and consider if you want to double down on a losing strategy for behavior.
The current swing of the pendulum is not good, it is not kind, it is not entirely fair--but it sure as hell isn't inexplicable. Good luck to you in the coming years.
I'm aware that the vast majority of cis people have incorrect empirical and moral beliefs about trans people. I try to be kind and empathetic, and I have personally spent a lot of my time educating the cis people in my personal life (to some success). But the crisis we are in right now is created by cis people, not by trans people.
> I get that it's been a rough couple of weeks for trans people
Trans people are the most hated subgroup and were for years. Literal physical attack against them were going up for years now. It was not rough couple of weeks, it is systematic campaign of hate again and again and again.
> Trans people (the ones that are clockable) are a relative novelty outside of urban areas, and most of the voting public
The reason for that is violence they are and were targets of in those areas. It is also that if a kid outs itself as trans, they will likely be kicked off out of house. If not kicked, they will be mocked in those areas all the time.
> The trans friends and partners I've had that are decent and capable of relating on a normal level are vastly outnumbered by the catty, annoying, neurotic transgendered men and women I've encountered in my career and schooling.
And it did not helped those people at all. The hate is preexisting and has nothing to do with how trans actually act.
> If you want to know why the popular support for trans people isn't great, look in the mirror and consider if you want to double down on a losing strategy for behavior.
Hate for trans has nothing to do with what trans to. Conservative people feel massive disgust over crossing gender lines. It is that bad feeling they have when they hear the idea itself. And literal campaign of hate they themselves feed.
Trans people are the most hated subgroup and were for years. Literal physical attack against them were going up for years now. It was not rough couple of weeks, it is systematic campaign of hate again and again and again.
> Trans people (the ones that are clockable) are a relative novelty outside of urban areas, and most of the voting public
The reason for that is violence they are and were targets of in those areas. It is also that if a kid outs itself as trans, they will likely be kicked off out of house. If not kicked, they will be mocked in those areas all the time.
> The trans friends and partners I've had that are decent and capable of relating on a normal level are vastly outnumbered by the catty, annoying, neurotic transgendered men and women I've encountered in my career and schooling.
And it did not helped those people at all. The hate is preexisting and has nothing to do with how trans actually act.
> If you want to know why the popular support for trans people isn't great, look in the mirror and consider if you want to double down on a losing strategy for behavior.
Hate for trans has nothing to do with what trans to. Conservative people feel massive disgust over crossing gender lines. It is that bad feeling they have when they hear the idea itself. And literal campaign of hate they themselves feed.
I think it goes both ways.
I used to go out in drag in Halloween before things got so polarized. Many people thought I had a great costume but I'd always seem some microexpressions of disgust enough to know I was doing something that wasn't completely safe.
I was very inclined to think positively of transgender people ten years ago but my own experience with them on Mastodon and in other places has led me to agree with the person you're replying to. It was when I started reading their words as opposed to reading about them in the media that I became more negative. People were sharing so many hateful memes on Mastodon that I had to put in a large number of filtering rules so that I can't see anything they post except for the hateful image memes that can't be filtered because the only text is in the filter.
It's almost as if some of these people have a fascination with assholes like Kiwi Farms and see it as a template for activism, like they build their whole lives and find all their meaning out of hating and being hated. See that "Witch Hunt of J.K. Rowling" podcast -- yes, there are jerks online who say horrible stuff like that to them, but that doesn't make it a righteous cause to that to other people; by fighting for territory that they couldn't defend they may have turned people against them and lost rights that they could have kept. They mirror the hatred and intolerance of the people they hate.
So I don't agree that "Hate for trans has nothing to do with what trans to (sic)" -- they do have to overcome some hate which is intrinsic but there is a lot which is a mirror of the hateful view that many of them have about the world.
I used to go out in drag in Halloween before things got so polarized. Many people thought I had a great costume but I'd always seem some microexpressions of disgust enough to know I was doing something that wasn't completely safe.
I was very inclined to think positively of transgender people ten years ago but my own experience with them on Mastodon and in other places has led me to agree with the person you're replying to. It was when I started reading their words as opposed to reading about them in the media that I became more negative. People were sharing so many hateful memes on Mastodon that I had to put in a large number of filtering rules so that I can't see anything they post except for the hateful image memes that can't be filtered because the only text is in the filter.
It's almost as if some of these people have a fascination with assholes like Kiwi Farms and see it as a template for activism, like they build their whole lives and find all their meaning out of hating and being hated. See that "Witch Hunt of J.K. Rowling" podcast -- yes, there are jerks online who say horrible stuff like that to them, but that doesn't make it a righteous cause to that to other people; by fighting for territory that they couldn't defend they may have turned people against them and lost rights that they could have kept. They mirror the hatred and intolerance of the people they hate.
So I don't agree that "Hate for trans has nothing to do with what trans to (sic)" -- they do have to overcome some hate which is intrinsic but there is a lot which is a mirror of the hateful view that many of them have about the world.
Paul, I agree with most of the points you've raised in this thread and share your concerns about the way troubled people may be manipulated online in ways that make their problems worse. However I just want to caution you on the point of your experiences on Mastadon. As people in technology industries, it is natural for us to spend a lot of time online, particularly in places which are off the mainstream beaten path like HN, Mastadon, IRC, etc. But for much of the general public this isn't normal, they spend less time online and when they do go online it's usually in mainstream places like Facebook. People who are "very online" and off the beaten path, if not in a tech field, are very often people who have a lot of problems IRL and retreat to online spaces as a refuge of sorts. So there's a selection bias in play here, the trans people you encounter online, particularly outside of mainstream social platforms, are less likely to be socially healthy than the average trans person IRL.
In short, nerds and nutjobs are overrepresented online so any conclusion you reach about groups of people using experiences you've had online need to be taken with a massive grain of salt.
In short, nerds and nutjobs are overrepresented online so any conclusion you reach about groups of people using experiences you've had online need to be taken with a massive grain of salt.
Hate toward trans predates mastodon tho. Where I live, it is very normal to make fun of trans and gays. It is simply accepted that they are disgusting. People who talked to me about trans being disgusting were definitely not reading mastodon nor any other trans bubble. Trans being killed for being trans and then local politician using the situation to push anti-gay legal agenda is a very real thing.
I do not think it goes both ways symmetrically, really. What I think is that any misconduct by any trans person is used as excuse to mistreat all of them. And when they do not do misconduct, well, it wont help them either.
The attacks toward trans last years were not about ugly memes on mastodon. It was literally about beer can having minor ad with trans person. It is about making gender affirming care illegal, full stop. It is about transsexuality itself being disgusting. It is about pushing polite respectful trans people out of any visible situation.
Like, OP complains about people not knowing relatable things about trans. But, if they are visible, say on beer can, the hate campaign is very very real. You cant harass someone for being visibly trans and then complain you do not know about day to day trans people.
I do not think it goes both ways symmetrically, really. What I think is that any misconduct by any trans person is used as excuse to mistreat all of them. And when they do not do misconduct, well, it wont help them either.
The attacks toward trans last years were not about ugly memes on mastodon. It was literally about beer can having minor ad with trans person. It is about making gender affirming care illegal, full stop. It is about transsexuality itself being disgusting. It is about pushing polite respectful trans people out of any visible situation.
Like, OP complains about people not knowing relatable things about trans. But, if they are visible, say on beer can, the hate campaign is very very real. You cant harass someone for being visibly trans and then complain you do not know about day to day trans people.
It's reductive to say that it's one or the other.
I can say personally my feeling thermometer went from maybe 75 to 15 as a result of being on Mastodon and other online forums in the last tow years. I like trans people as individuals but I hate the movement. It's not the only place where that kind of negativity leaks out.
For instance the men's rooms in my building are stuffed with menstrual products for "men who menstruate" with a preachy card that talks about it in a reductive, narrow minded frame the same as the worst conservative Christians. This is for the benefit of 0.6% of the population at best, maybe 3 or 4 people benefit from it, out of 8 men's rooms in that building it is probably less than one person per bathroom.
It seems to me that this sucks all the air out of the room to discuss anything else. Young men are struggling. Maybe you only see the survivors in higher ed, but the K12 system is not built with boys in mind, particularly if you are in a racial minority, see
https://www.apa.org/monitor/2023/04/boys-school-challenges-r...
Instead of messaging aimed at, say, 20% of people who are struggling we get this stridently minoritiarian discourse that leaves many people feeling unheard, erased, and resentful.
I can say personally my feeling thermometer went from maybe 75 to 15 as a result of being on Mastodon and other online forums in the last tow years. I like trans people as individuals but I hate the movement. It's not the only place where that kind of negativity leaks out.
For instance the men's rooms in my building are stuffed with menstrual products for "men who menstruate" with a preachy card that talks about it in a reductive, narrow minded frame the same as the worst conservative Christians. This is for the benefit of 0.6% of the population at best, maybe 3 or 4 people benefit from it, out of 8 men's rooms in that building it is probably less than one person per bathroom.
It seems to me that this sucks all the air out of the room to discuss anything else. Young men are struggling. Maybe you only see the survivors in higher ed, but the K12 system is not built with boys in mind, particularly if you are in a racial minority, see
https://www.apa.org/monitor/2023/04/boys-school-challenges-r...
Instead of messaging aimed at, say, 20% of people who are struggling we get this stridently minoritiarian discourse that leaves many people feeling unheard, erased, and resentful.
I think their point was that they feel they have experienced the same treatment that the trans person is describing, but because of their faith. So it was kinda necessary to bring it up in order to convey that.
> don't think that you need to be a Christian to empathise
They're saying that a minority of evangelists and rapey priests have been making Christianity look bad for decades.
They're saying that a minority of evangelists and rapey priests have been making Christianity look bad for decades.
FWIW I don't think it's so much the minority of directly guilty parties, but the institutional circling of the wagons when someone is caught. This often seems to extend to literally the tippy top of whatever congregation it occurs in (including e.g. the Pope).
But in any case, yeah: you don't have enough information from this type of stuff to make good judgments about individuals in any scenario.
But in any case, yeah: you don't have enough information from this type of stuff to make good judgments about individuals in any scenario.
Despite what news headlines love to say, I'm not sure "circling the wagons when someone is caught" has been accurate in the English-speaking world since the 1990s. Often it's more "please don't blame the people who had no knowledge and who had already made rules that would've prevented the situation if actually followed." By far the majority of pedophiles are lone operators within the organization.
Two things that are obvious when explicitly stated but unintuitive otherwise:
* Abusers deliberately target people with a poor reputation; particularly, a known history of lying about other matters.
* If the group does their own investigation, the media will condemn them for it. If the group leaves the investigation up to the government, the media will condemn them for it.
Two things that are obvious when explicitly stated but unintuitive otherwise:
* Abusers deliberately target people with a poor reputation; particularly, a known history of lying about other matters.
* If the group does their own investigation, the media will condemn them for it. If the group leaves the investigation up to the government, the media will condemn them for it.
I encourage you to read up on George Pell. Circling wagons and protecting abusers definitely comes to mind.
There's a reason I qualified "since the 90s". For the sake of this argument I'll assume all allegations are true related to him, but that doesn't invalidate my statement.
Since the 90s we have seen 2 things, which change the picture entirely:
* organizations are acutely aware of the issue, and thus make structural actions to both make offenses less likely and improve documentation regardless; and
* technology has improved so there is much more evidence, both to convict and to acquit.
... I can't actually locate a single allegation where the occurrence was after 2000, now that I look for them.
Since the 90s we have seen 2 things, which change the picture entirely:
* organizations are acutely aware of the issue, and thus make structural actions to both make offenses less likely and improve documentation regardless; and
* technology has improved so there is much more evidence, both to convict and to acquit.
... I can't actually locate a single allegation where the occurrence was after 2000, now that I look for them.
Sometimes, sure. Sometimes it’s circling the wagons.
The GP merely mentioned their experience in support of a victim. I'm not sure why you rushed to silence the GP and belittle their understanding of their own religion.
Seems a bit prejudiced.
Seems a bit prejudiced.
> I don't think that you need to be a Christian to empathise with anyone. The big geezer's (JC) teachings imply to me that keeping quiet about your faith and simply doing good (for a given value of good) is the Way.
I encourage you to read the four gospels at the beginning of the New Testament. Jesus didn't teach "shut up and let your good works speak for you". No, he was very much more in your face than that. He spent all of his ministry preaching (IE, talking about God and religion) and teaching and healing.
> ... tell you to keep it quiet
Uh, no? See Matthew 28:18-20
> There is no need to put your religious heart on your sleeve
I spoke as one aggrieved class to another. Modern Christians get a lot of hate for things that have happened in the past, because we wear the name of our God.
As for wearing a 'religious heart on my sleeve', I have nothing if not the hope of forgiveness and grace from the Almighty. Of course I'm going to wear it on my sleeve.
I encourage you to read the four gospels at the beginning of the New Testament. Jesus didn't teach "shut up and let your good works speak for you". No, he was very much more in your face than that. He spent all of his ministry preaching (IE, talking about God and religion) and teaching and healing.
> ... tell you to keep it quiet
Uh, no? See Matthew 28:18-20
And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.
Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.
> There is no need to put your religious heart on your sleeve
I spoke as one aggrieved class to another. Modern Christians get a lot of hate for things that have happened in the past, because we wear the name of our God.
As for wearing a 'religious heart on my sleeve', I have nothing if not the hope of forgiveness and grace from the Almighty. Of course I'm going to wear it on my sleeve.
Keeping quiet about your faith is probably a wise and respectful way of navigating a multi-cultural, multi-religious society but I don’t think its particulally supported Bibically as most of the New Testamemt after the gospels is about spreading the faith.
Jesus says not to pray loudly like the Pharisees which could be interpreted as not bragging about ones faith, but he also says “Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven” so it seems like an instruction to share faith with others.
In present day USA if you loudly announce your faith its hard to escape tribalism associations so I agree with your advice, but I also think its important not to water down religion by ignoring the parts that do not fit with modern sensibilities because then we are having a totally different conversation.
Jesus says not to pray loudly like the Pharisees which could be interpreted as not bragging about ones faith, but he also says “Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven” so it seems like an instruction to share faith with others.
In present day USA if you loudly announce your faith its hard to escape tribalism associations so I agree with your advice, but I also think its important not to water down religion by ignoring the parts that do not fit with modern sensibilities because then we are having a totally different conversation.
The most genuinely good person I've known, my wife's very devout grandmother, who belonged to the United Church of Christ and whose husband was a preacher for a United Methodist Church, never once went out of her way to proselytize (in my presence at least.) That's not to say she wouldn't talk about God or her beliefs if it was somehow directly relevant to a conversation, but I never saw her trying to "spread the word" just to do so. She emphasized caring for others and the "love your neighbor as yourself," part. Her favorite scripture was the story of the Good Samaritan and that was what she requested to be read at her funeral. She didn't spend time talking about what Jesus wanted, or trying to convince you to believe, she set the example by living it.
The unfortunate part is, in my 38 years of existence, she is possibly the first "real" Christian I've known: Christian through her acts, not just her words. In the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats, Jesus bases judgment not on religious rituals or verbal professions of faith, but on acts of compassion towards others: feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, welcoming the stranger, clothing the unclothed, caring for the sick, and visiting the imprisoned. This seems to emphasize practical love and concern for the vulnerable as true evidence of discipleship, rather than one's ability to proselytize.
Isn't the most important part of the New Testament the Gospels and almost everything that comes after is more about institutional Christianity? Acts, describing the spread of Christianity after Jesus' ascension, with little new information about his teachings. Epistles focus primarily on doctrine, ethics, and church organization rather than Jesus' words and actions. Revelations...well I'll leave that to others to interpret.
If Christianity is built around Jesus, shouldn't his teachings and words be the focus rather than the institution of Christianity itself? I don't think there is anything wrong with proselytizing per se, it's obviously critical to ensuring the survival and expansion of any belief system and from an evolutionary standpoint, ideas that encourage their own reproduction tend to thrive. But it seems misguided to focus on spreading the faith rather than doing all the things Jesus says you should do.
The unfortunate part is, in my 38 years of existence, she is possibly the first "real" Christian I've known: Christian through her acts, not just her words. In the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats, Jesus bases judgment not on religious rituals or verbal professions of faith, but on acts of compassion towards others: feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, welcoming the stranger, clothing the unclothed, caring for the sick, and visiting the imprisoned. This seems to emphasize practical love and concern for the vulnerable as true evidence of discipleship, rather than one's ability to proselytize.
Isn't the most important part of the New Testament the Gospels and almost everything that comes after is more about institutional Christianity? Acts, describing the spread of Christianity after Jesus' ascension, with little new information about his teachings. Epistles focus primarily on doctrine, ethics, and church organization rather than Jesus' words and actions. Revelations...well I'll leave that to others to interpret.
If Christianity is built around Jesus, shouldn't his teachings and words be the focus rather than the institution of Christianity itself? I don't think there is anything wrong with proselytizing per se, it's obviously critical to ensuring the survival and expansion of any belief system and from an evolutionary standpoint, ideas that encourage their own reproduction tend to thrive. But it seems misguided to focus on spreading the faith rather than doing all the things Jesus says you should do.
I seem to have dug out quite a few notions on what religion is all about here on HN, from the shout from the roof tops to "a bit of a chat" - obviously my original comment was DV'd to oblivion.
For me, religion starts and stops from within. I am not an evangelist - my God is mine and your's is yours. I'll tell you what I'm about and no more.
"Still small Voice of quiet" not "Hell fire and damnation".
I will dive in with a gentle nudge but never an exhortation.
For me, religion starts and stops from within. I am not an evangelist - my God is mine and your's is yours. I'll tell you what I'm about and no more.
"Still small Voice of quiet" not "Hell fire and damnation".
I will dive in with a gentle nudge but never an exhortation.
Jesus did not instruct His disciples to remain quiet and do good as the Way. Jesus instructed His disciples to follow His commandments which includes sharing the gospel with all creatures in all the world (Mark 16:15, Luke 14:23). May the Lord bless you and keep you.
Sorry this is happening to you.
What really shatters my faith in common sense is the fact that trans is a minority of a minority and is made out to be a problem when it's not.
Just remember that you have allies in this industry. Lots of love.
What really shatters my faith in common sense is the fact that trans is a minority of a minority and is made out to be a problem when it's not.
Just remember that you have allies in this industry. Lots of love.
I know I sound crazy saying what I'm about to say but it is the truth as I understand it and I think it's important.
It appears to me that there is a certain modality of thought that occurs much more often in people with hEDS, specifically those with TNXB SNPs. If you're super deep into type theory the odds substantially increase that you have hEDS - it's how I found out that I had it. And this same group is far more likely to be trans than the general population. A link that would be far more obvious if hEDS wasn't so underdiagnosed.
Additionally, it appears to me that mental disorders are often caused by auto-immune conditions which is extremely common in those with hEDS. So with a strong selection bias on math ability and trans and you're gonna end up with a lot of hEDS people who are strongly predisposed to mental disorders. I know someone with hEDS who obsessively studies the link between hEDS and serial killers - not something I want to be associated with the stats were pretty convicting. I do think it is possible that two TNXB SNPs are sufficient to explain why I think the way I do, why I'm far more like Ted Kaczynski than I would like to be. Of note; Ted Kaczynski did consider gender reassignment back in 1966.
Which is to say two things, I think what people are observing is a real phenomena and it is not purely from personal biases, though I'm not denying personal biases play a part in perception. And perhaps with that in mind the solution is in fact in diagnosing and treating the underlying auto-immune conditions. And to put a hat on a hat on my 'crazy' I think people are going to find that GLP1-Agonists like ozempic, specifically at the lower doses, are quite helpful in managing auto-immune conditions, among other things.
It appears to me that there is a certain modality of thought that occurs much more often in people with hEDS, specifically those with TNXB SNPs. If you're super deep into type theory the odds substantially increase that you have hEDS - it's how I found out that I had it. And this same group is far more likely to be trans than the general population. A link that would be far more obvious if hEDS wasn't so underdiagnosed.
Additionally, it appears to me that mental disorders are often caused by auto-immune conditions which is extremely common in those with hEDS. So with a strong selection bias on math ability and trans and you're gonna end up with a lot of hEDS people who are strongly predisposed to mental disorders. I know someone with hEDS who obsessively studies the link between hEDS and serial killers - not something I want to be associated with the stats were pretty convicting. I do think it is possible that two TNXB SNPs are sufficient to explain why I think the way I do, why I'm far more like Ted Kaczynski than I would like to be. Of note; Ted Kaczynski did consider gender reassignment back in 1966.
Which is to say two things, I think what people are observing is a real phenomena and it is not purely from personal biases, though I'm not denying personal biases play a part in perception. And perhaps with that in mind the solution is in fact in diagnosing and treating the underlying auto-immune conditions. And to put a hat on a hat on my 'crazy' I think people are going to find that GLP1-Agonists like ozempic, specifically at the lower doses, are quite helpful in managing auto-immune conditions, among other things.
In my experience, it can often be trauma that causes the auto immunes. Seeing everything from a chemical standpoint only looks at half the picture. It’s hard to find a not traumatized autistic person for example.
> It’s hard to find a not traumatized autistic person for example.
This is an extraordinary claim and needs evidence. Do you have a source for this?
This is an extraordinary claim and needs evidence. Do you have a source for this?
Here’s one - 90% of autistic teens w mood problems reported at least one trauma. 4x likelihood of having PTSD. Perhaps I exaggerated the totality but I do think the science is in on whether autistic people are more traumatized.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK573608/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK573608/
Thanks for sharing. That's an well written study and highlights a side of autism I didn't know about.
However, throughout the study they are very careful to point out both sides of the arrow of causality.
Direction one, autism causes trauma: autistic children and adults are more likely to experience traumatic events because of being autistic. This seems relatively well known known and, sadly, understandable.
Direction two, early childhood trauma causes autism: the study says that while there is data showing a link, there's not enough for it to be clear. It definitely seems that far from all children who experience trauma will develop autism, and also that far from all autistic children got that way via trauma. Obviously this is a tricky area to get data on.
However, throughout the study they are very careful to point out both sides of the arrow of causality.
Direction one, autism causes trauma: autistic children and adults are more likely to experience traumatic events because of being autistic. This seems relatively well known known and, sadly, understandable.
Direction two, early childhood trauma causes autism: the study says that while there is data showing a link, there's not enough for it to be clear. It definitely seems that far from all children who experience trauma will develop autism, and also that far from all autistic children got that way via trauma. Obviously this is a tricky area to get data on.
This is not an extraordinary claim; it's an obvious one. Autistic sensory processing deficits make many everyday interactions traumatic, especially in childhood. It infuriates me that this isn't obvious to you and yet you posted a comment anyway.
The commenter above was claiming that trauma causes autism, not the other way around.
> it can often be trauma that causes the auto immunes... It’s hard to find a not traumatized autistic person
> it can often be trauma that causes the auto immunes... It’s hard to find a not traumatized autistic person
I interpreted taurath to be saying that it is hard to untangle causality because autistic people are almost universally traumatized. Because we know autism causes trauma, it's very hard to tell if trauma causes autism. A slight variant on this is that we know that some of the symptoms of trauma and of autism are the same, and while these symptoms are often taken to be defining characteristics of the autism syndrome, it isn't at all clear that the etiology of autism causes them through any pathway causally independent of trauma. You'd need to find a lot of non-traumatized autistic people to be able to tell, and it's hard to find any.
I think it's circular, chicken and the egg. Especially if they were traumatized by their parents who themselves suffer undiagnosed auto-immune conditions. People without the auto-immune conditions can go through much more traumatizing conditions and not be anywhere nearly as adversely affected by it.
I should also add that the auto-immune stuff can be traumatizing on its own.
This is a new and interesting idea to me. Have you or your serial killer obsessed friend written up any of this?
For a variety of reasons we prefer to stay anonymous. I just throw info over a wall every now and then to see if anyone will catch it. The serial killer aspect to me seems to be a simple function of mental illness/autoimmune and there is no doubt hEDS has numerous autoimmune comorbidities so it would stand to reason they would be overrepresented. No one would bother to look for a link if they assumed hEDS is as rare as medical researchers currently think it is. So the real question that needs answering; is hEDS even rare or is it just uncommon. I have my reasons for thinking it’s far more common than currently thought.
I think this could all be answered rather quickly with high quality Whole Genome Sequencing and a bunch of math so I’ve been going around evangelizing that idea and am working with some people who have independently come to the same conclusions.
I think this could all be answered rather quickly with high quality Whole Genome Sequencing and a bunch of math so I’ve been going around evangelizing that idea and am working with some people who have independently come to the same conclusions.
could you please contact me on Discord or email (in my profile)? I have also investigated the connections between hEDS, being trans and a specific kind of autism, along with TNXB.
Will do, I was researching generic causes into hEDS + autism in general and came across a post you made on HN in 2021 where you mentioned TNXB. Noticed your technical background and I figured that was far too close to be random. I went from thinking that TNXB is just one of many possible causes of hEDS and super rare to thinking that most definitely I have it. A WGS confirmed it. Word about it is starting to get around it helps that we tend to have similar interests and hobbies. It is statistically blindingly obvious to me but it is surprisingly really hard to convince others. Most people understand the world through a lens of social proof and can’t imagine a world where something like this could remain undiscovered.
>Of note; Ted Kaczynski did consider gender reassignment back in 1966.
That happened after he got brainwashed, from the age of 16, through the CIA's MK ULTRA experiment though.
That happened after he got brainwashed, from the age of 16, through the CIA's MK ULTRA experiment though.
Precisely.
Most US cults are made up almost entirely of cis people, but nobody jumps to conclusions about the impact of cisness on indoctrination susceptibility.
Most US cults are made up almost entirely of cis people, but nobody jumps to conclusions about the impact of cisness on indoctrination susceptibility.
Absolutely. I think the rationalists feel this way too.
Can confirm.
Zizianism is not a logical outgrowth of rationality for many, many reasons. These people are just crazy.
Zizianism is not a logical outgrowth of rationality for many, many reasons. These people are just crazy.
Keep fighting, Sterlind. Most people aren't full of hate. Just the assholes who take the time to comment mean things on social platforms.
It’s not “like blood libel.” It is blood libel. It is literally the same thing.
Nobody is literally Hitler because the man is for sure dead. Also nobody is literally nazi, as the party was disbanded, so we are all here somewhere on the spectrum between being and not being Hitlers, nazis, fascists or what not, if nothing else, by the fact of being humans (or other sort of sentient next-token-predictors).
Why did you bring up Hitler? Blood libel predates that man. Blood libel is the baseless accusation dating to pre-modern tomes that Jews were/are murderers.
Yes, this. Please. I am so very tired, every day I wake up to the news that more legal protections are being stripped from me and the people I care about. I didn't need "trans terror" flashed in my face in large boldface type on top of everything else tonight. The GP didn't make this clear, but The Post Millenial is apparently a far-right publication and the author of that article seems to have built his brand on painting large groups of people as violent.
Thank you for being you. Stay safe; the consequences of this election are ugly.
I am so so sorry you have to deal with this. As an Australian I have been watching on in horror this week at the way trans persons are being demonized and oppressed in your country. I know HN is meant to be an apolitical space, but I hope that the mods here have the sense to allow a certain amount of push back again this fascist nonsense.
It’s not about blood libel or attribution of evil. But even trans people acknowledge that transness is comorbid with other personality disorders.
Arkhadia(4)
> almost all the members of this group are trans.
The Zizians.info site (linked by one of the HN posts re: this story) mentions that the Zizians did target people who identified as transgender for indoctrination, so this is not really surprising. People who are undergoing this kind of stress and marginalization may well be more vulnerable to such tactics.
The Zizians.info site (linked by one of the HN posts re: this story) mentions that the Zizians did target people who identified as transgender for indoctrination, so this is not really surprising. People who are undergoing this kind of stress and marginalization may well be more vulnerable to such tactics.
The Ziz method of indoctrination involves convincing his minions they are trapped inside a mental framework they need to break free of. Trans people already feel trapped in a body not aligned with who they are, and are naturally susceptible to this message (and therefore natural targets for recruitment).
Following on because the edit window elapsed, the specific method of indoctrination used by ziz (but invented by Gwen) involved in novel method of sleep deprivation to induce split personalities. It’s been called “installing demons.” I wouldn’t be surprised either if the causality is the other way around: Ziz reworked these people to be trans. Ziz certainly seems to have treated the minds of the people around him/her as malleable putty.
I actually met Gwen and spent a weekend with him sometime ago. They were a roommate of my friend for a while. The person I knew doesn’t resemble the lunatic in the news article articles at all, but I have no doubt is physically/legally them. Cult indoctrination is a hell of a thing.
I actually met Gwen and spent a weekend with him sometime ago. They were a roommate of my friend for a while. The person I knew doesn’t resemble the lunatic in the news article articles at all, but I have no doubt is physically/legally them. Cult indoctrination is a hell of a thing.
Wow what a blast from the past. Sounds like /r/Tulpas. I've always thought it was a purely rhetorical trick + disassociation, and obvious what is happening and why. Sleep deprecation has always been part of it since that makes it harder to notice the errors at the edge of your perception. It goes back to at least the 2010s I think.
There is some precedent; the Twin Flame cult coerced transition in some members if I remember correctly. My guess is it was emotional manipulation used to make them do something that makes them more vulnerable to control. If you transition and you are not trans, you are going to have a hell of a lot of dysphoria, and shaming people and telling them it's because they are not trying hard enough/a good enough person/etc. would absolutely make it hard to break away.
There is some precedent; the Twin Flame cult coerced transition in some members if I remember correctly. My guess is it was emotional manipulation used to make them do something that makes them more vulnerable to control. If you transition and you are not trans, you are going to have a hell of a lot of dysphoria, and shaming people and telling them it's because they are not trying hard enough/a good enough person/etc. would absolutely make it hard to break away.
The specific technique here is unihemispherical sleep. Stimulating one side of the body while resting the other (one eye closed) to get one hemisphere to fall asleep. I think Gwen originally developed this trick to probe the mind and see if behavior was altered when one hemisphere was asleep versus the other.
However, it turns out that when you do this, the brain as a whole does not get adequate sleep, even if you alternate hemispheres. People had symptoms of sleep deprivation while still being semi-functional. Ziz took if a step further and had some sort of secret initiation process where both hemispheres were trained differently to produce multiple personalities. At least that was the assumption from those of us on the outside gathering scraps of info being dropped.
Get you 8 hours of sleep everyone. Sleep is important.
However, it turns out that when you do this, the brain as a whole does not get adequate sleep, even if you alternate hemispheres. People had symptoms of sleep deprivation while still being semi-functional. Ziz took if a step further and had some sort of secret initiation process where both hemispheres were trained differently to produce multiple personalities. At least that was the assumption from those of us on the outside gathering scraps of info being dropped.
Get you 8 hours of sleep everyone. Sleep is important.
Please note that there's no real evidence that single-hemisphere sleep is a thing in humans. Some sleep researchers suggest that a brain hemisphere can spontaneously be awake during ordinary sleep in "unfamiliar" places, and that this can be a cause of poor quality sleep - but that's a very different thing from what Ziz claims to be able to do.
Also, to the best of my knowledge, Gwern has never written anything on his site about this purported single-hemisphere sleep, see https://gwern.net/doc/zeo/index for the details of what he has written about.
Also, to the best of my knowledge, Gwern has never written anything on his site about this purported single-hemisphere sleep, see https://gwern.net/doc/zeo/index for the details of what he has written about.
Gwen, not Gwern. Gwen Danielson, if he is still alive, is wanted for his possible involvement in multiple homicides related to the Ziz cult. Not Gwern.
And unihemispheric sleep (Gwen’s word for what they do; they like to invent their own terms) is one of the techniques the Ziz cult uses.
And unihemispheric sleep (Gwen’s word for what they do; they like to invent their own terms) is one of the techniques the Ziz cult uses.
Thanks for correcting that mixup! So there's no source whatsoever for this bizarre notion other than the Zizian death cult itself. That makes it even crazier that some people (whether here or in the news media) seem to be taking it at face value, though.
I am uninvolved (thankfully, not many people have been confused) but on the topic of the meditation practice: years ago when reading the zizian.info writeup, I found the unihemispheric sleep part to be the most alarming & interesting part.
There are many strange altered states of consciousness found by experimentation, and I can totally believe that some form of auto-hypnosis + sleep deprivation - which would parallel many well-attested mind-altering practices in many different cultures & religions - could have bizarre effects or induce psychosis and hallucinating demonic entities, and turn an activist vegan into a murderer. (Their specific interpretation of 'unihemispheric' sleep may or may not be true. I would say that it's worth checking... except I'm not sure how one could either prudently or ethically investigate it, given the apparent consequences.)
And it would answer the question many people have been asking about how these unlikely-seeming murderers were made, in a way that the rest of it all does not.
There are many strange altered states of consciousness found by experimentation, and I can totally believe that some form of auto-hypnosis + sleep deprivation - which would parallel many well-attested mind-altering practices in many different cultures & religions - could have bizarre effects or induce psychosis and hallucinating demonic entities, and turn an activist vegan into a murderer. (Their specific interpretation of 'unihemispheric' sleep may or may not be true. I would say that it's worth checking... except I'm not sure how one could either prudently or ethically investigate it, given the apparent consequences.)
And it would answer the question many people have been asking about how these unlikely-seeming murderers were made, in a way that the rest of it all does not.
Generally I think it's good to take people's reports of their unusual mental experiences at face value, even when they're crazy. Not that they never lie, but that you learn more by assuming they're probably telling the truth.
I haven't attempted unihemispheric sleep, and it sounds like a phenomenon that isn't represented in the literature, but it also sounds like it wouldn't get past an IRB anytime in the last decades, so I assume it's probably real.
I haven't attempted unihemispheric sleep, and it sounds like a phenomenon that isn't represented in the literature, but it also sounds like it wouldn't get past an IRB anytime in the last decades, so I assume it's probably real.
Correct.
The technique might have 'merely' prevented deep sleep due to interruptions; similar to why uberman[1] doesn't work.
When I was younger I stayed up to see what happens. The worst experience of my life was when I lied down to sleep and felt 'too tired to go to sleep' and then started hallucinating sirens. I have no idea how long I was up; after a few days I lost track. I had to paced to stay awake, which I did the entire time. I got pronounced disassociative symptoms - which I'm prone to anyway - ("it's not me in control of my body; there is a mutiny", "my reflection is weird/scary/different; that is not me", "the lines that make up the walls and reality don't seem to lay correctly"), gaps in memory, broken pattern matching (everything looks like a spider, chasing down mundane sounds to figure out what they are), and mixing up memories and imagined thoughts (e.g., fill up a cup, go to drink from it, it is empty and I'm not sure if I filled it up and then drank from it or imagined filling it up or if my memories are out of order).
Given the loss of contact with reality, I could see it being easy to manipulate people if you are in the room with them. I was alone, but if someone told me another me talked to them and then drank from the cup, the mix up could easily seem like evidence that it had actually happened that way, especially if I was trusting, vulnerable and open-minded. And once someone has a model that suggests that, they would probably make up stories on their own to support it.
So, yeah, definitely agree on the importance of sleep.
--
1: https://polysleep.org/wiki/Uberman
When I was younger I stayed up to see what happens. The worst experience of my life was when I lied down to sleep and felt 'too tired to go to sleep' and then started hallucinating sirens. I have no idea how long I was up; after a few days I lost track. I had to paced to stay awake, which I did the entire time. I got pronounced disassociative symptoms - which I'm prone to anyway - ("it's not me in control of my body; there is a mutiny", "my reflection is weird/scary/different; that is not me", "the lines that make up the walls and reality don't seem to lay correctly"), gaps in memory, broken pattern matching (everything looks like a spider, chasing down mundane sounds to figure out what they are), and mixing up memories and imagined thoughts (e.g., fill up a cup, go to drink from it, it is empty and I'm not sure if I filled it up and then drank from it or imagined filling it up or if my memories are out of order).
Given the loss of contact with reality, I could see it being easy to manipulate people if you are in the room with them. I was alone, but if someone told me another me talked to them and then drank from the cup, the mix up could easily seem like evidence that it had actually happened that way, especially if I was trusting, vulnerable and open-minded. And once someone has a model that suggests that, they would probably make up stories on their own to support it.
So, yeah, definitely agree on the importance of sleep.
--
1: https://polysleep.org/wiki/Uberman
Did the shadows come for you?
I would guess he probably just convinced a roommate or friend they need to kill other people to accomplish their lofty goal, which would be a lot simpler (see: the Mangione fandom). Once he got a couple people to agree the rest came over from peer pressure.
This might be a different thing with the same name, but on 4chan's /x/ (paranormal) board there have always a lot of people trying really hard to summon a tulpa to be their ghost waifu. For a lot of them it's an ironic meme but I'm pretty sure some of them are serious and do it because they (perhaps correctly) believe it's more likely to work than talking to women that actually exist.
[deleted]
I was wondering if it's relevant that so many of them are young people with "data science" degrees and they call themselves "rationalists". Sounds like they have some sort of superiority complex that might make them more susceptible to justifying acts of violence when it's "rational".
> "rationalists". Sounds like they have some sort of superiority complex
Oh yes, this is totally a thing. They're also weirdly obsessed with I.Q. comparisons. They're the kind of community where you might actually witness someone talking about "High I.Q." and "Low I.Q." individuals - and making a claim like "my I.Q. is one of the highest", way before someone else made that cool.
Oh yes, this is totally a thing. They're also weirdly obsessed with I.Q. comparisons. They're the kind of community where you might actually witness someone talking about "High I.Q." and "Low I.Q." individuals - and making a claim like "my I.Q. is one of the highest", way before someone else made that cool.
So, like Hacker News?
Never seen that happen here.
It happens, but in a more subtle way. Usually direct comparison's don't happen, but rather is expected to be inferred by the quality of arguments, whether they can prevail with their line of thinking and so on. In a sense, that variant of 'rationalist' is rather crude in comparison. I am trying to think of an appropriate example, but I am struggling a little.
Make no mistake, there are egos at play here too.
Make no mistake, there are egos at play here too.
[deleted]
Did you win the Putnam though?
[deleted]
Yeah well I've never seen violence happen in the rationalist community, but I'm sure if I keep looking I'll find instances of Hacker News posters committing murder too.
I feel like it's reasonable to assume Hans Reiser would have been on hackernews if it had existed before he murdered his wife.
Reddit ;)
Perhaps. Rationalists are also known for updating[changing] their beliefs. They do this under the guise of "doing" Bayesian reasoning. It may be that susceptibility to cults is an edge case of this meta-congnitive position. Or in other words, stubbornness of beliefs may be a defense mechanism against cults.
They are known for “updating” their beliefs to crazy things, and discounting evidence in front of their face based on abstract arguments.
let's stigmatize admitting when you were wrong. never changing your mind is the only way to avoid joining a murder cult!
Pointing out a tradeoff isn’t the same as arguing for the other extreme. That’s splitting[1], a well-documented cognitive distortion. A bit of therapy can be great for catching these patterns—sharpening your reasoning toolkit, so to speak.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splitting_(psychology)
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splitting_(psychology)
At the same time, if psychological research proves there's a class of people who are only prevented from joining a murder cult by their unthinking devotion towards conformist beliefs, would you be surprised?
That’s what “rationalist” should mean. It is not what they do in practice.
Trying to reason everything out from first principles can lead to some seriously bizarre conclusions if there's even a little bit you missed or got slightly wrong. It can be a fun exercise if you make sure to constantly look for predictions to check against observable reality, but if you're young and naive and take it too seriously without doing that...
Yes and no. Lots of people feel trapped. He/she (I’m not sure who this Ziz is) just sounds like someone who knew they could work their work into trans people.
They are also openly hated by general society and targeted for bullying by major political actors.
Most people don't hate trans people, they just think they believe things that do not correspond to biological reality; ie. they have an illness that is negatively affecting their mind and they need compassion and help. Those same people want to minimize social exposure to provably contagious, harmful, and absurd ideas like gender fluidity.
Trans people have existed for as long as there are records afaik. So it’s the same as homosexuality - just something our particular society has decided is in the out group.
The thing being pathologized here - gender fluidity - is at its heart nothing more than willful insubordination. Hate doesn't require anger, and control isn't love.
People also rejected homosexuality because it was "unnatural". Indeed, gender dysphoria is an illness, and the only effective cure is transition, as shown by the countless meta-studies on the subject.
Do you really believe Trump and his goons want to show "compassion and help" to trans people, by taking away their passports, their medicine, barring them from the military, accusing them of grooming children, etc.? The list goes on.
Do you really believe Trump and his goons want to show "compassion and help" to trans people, by taking away their passports, their medicine, barring them from the military, accusing them of grooming children, etc.? The list goes on.
Yup. 100% a cult indoctrination technique.
The vulnerability is the crowbar the cult uses
The vulnerability is the crowbar the cult uses
Yeah, all cults exploit vulnerabilities.
[deleted]
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 less support to channel their vulnerability into forms more beneficial to the cult leaders.
Yudkowsky wrote an editorial in Time advocating for the use of nuclear weapons against civilians to prevent his imagined AI doomsday... and people are surprised that some of his followers didn't get the memo that think-pieces are for only for navel gazing. If not for the fact that the goal of cult leaders is generally to freeze their victims into inaction and compliance we probably would have seen more widespread murder as a result of Yud cult's violent rhetoric.
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 less support to channel their vulnerability into forms more beneficial to the cult leaders.
Yudkowsky wrote an editorial in Time advocating for the use of nuclear weapons against civilians to prevent his imagined AI doomsday... and people are surprised that some of his followers didn't get the memo that think-pieces are for only for navel gazing. If not for the fact that the goal of cult leaders is generally to freeze their victims into inaction and compliance we probably would have seen more widespread murder as a result of Yud cult's violent rhetoric.
>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?
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?
Suicidal ideation, for example, is common in the lesswrong community, even with people pledging to end their own lives before the machine overlord is able to scan their brains and simulate an infinitude of copies of them in a state of perpetual torture.
Essentially the community in discussion is already selected for and generates mental illness, so the ordinary comorbidities of transgendered persons are likely less relevant.
Essentially the community in discussion is already selected for and generates mental illness, so the ordinary comorbidities of transgendered persons are likely less relevant.
I am not a doctor but I don't think that's how comorbidities work. You can't just say "yea he had diarrhea so it isn't relevant that he never drinks water. Clearly the diarrhea is the issue"
I shudder to ask, but what exactly is a math pet?
I was unacquainted with the term but after searching it seems that Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote several posts on a BDSM website where he fantasized about recruiting a harem of highly educated women to service him which he called "math pets".
>...recruiting a harem of highly educated women to service him which he called "math pets".
Dammit, now I have a new fetish.
Dammit, now I have a new fetish.
[deleted]
Someone that you introduce to free group actions and the Cox-Zucker machine, hairy ball theorems, stuff like that
… lesswrong apocalypse cult?
Like the guy who wrote that insufferable Harry Potter fanfiction?
Like the guy who wrote that insufferable Harry Potter fanfiction?
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 and eventually someone asked and their theory all but seemed to imply that nobody else could possibly have ... feelings and that lack of understanding made those people lesser and them greater.
It seemed to come from some concept that their experience imparted some unique understanding that nobody else could have, and that just lead down a path that lead to zero empathy / understanding with anyone outside.
Reddit encounters are always hard to understand IMO so I don't want to read too much into it, but that isolation that some people / groups feel seem to potentially lead to dark places very easily / quickly.
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 and eventually someone asked and their theory all but seemed to imply that nobody else could possibly have ... feelings and that lack of understanding made those people lesser and them greater.
It seemed to come from some concept that their experience imparted some unique understanding that nobody else could have, and that just lead down a path that lead to zero empathy / understanding with anyone outside.
Reddit encounters are always hard to understand IMO so I don't want to read too much into it, but that isolation that some people / groups feel seem to potentially lead to dark places very easily / quickly.
This group formed in the SF Bay Area, which is known for being one of the most accepting places in the world for LGBT people. If marginalization were the main cause, it seems to me that the group would have been located somewhere else. I think it's more likely that these people had an underlying mental disorder that made them likely to engage in both violent behavior and trans identity.
One big difference the Zizians have with the LessWrong community is that LW people believe that human minds cannot be rational enough to be absolute utilitarians, and therefore a certain kind of deontology is needed.[1] In contrast, the Zizians are absolutely convinced of the correctness of their views, which leads them to justify atrocities. In that way it seems similar to the psychology of jihadists.
1. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/K9ZaZXDnL3SEmYZqB/ends-don-t...
One big difference the Zizians have with the LessWrong community is that LW people believe that human minds cannot be rational enough to be absolute utilitarians, and therefore a certain kind of deontology is needed.[1] In contrast, the Zizians are absolutely convinced of the correctness of their views, which leads them to justify atrocities. In that way it seems similar to the psychology of jihadists.
1. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/K9ZaZXDnL3SEmYZqB/ends-don-t...
> the SF Bay Area, which is known for being one of the most accepting places in the world for LGBT people
I live in the Bay. Maybe that is true, but in absolute terms the level of acceptance is still very low.
Like, if Denver is 10% accepting, the Bay might be 15%. Or something like that.
And Vallejo, while part of the Bay Area is a very different place than, say, the Castro. Culturally, it’s probably more like Detroit than San Francisco.
So I’m not sure if you can really draw any conclusions from your premise.
I live in the Bay. Maybe that is true, but in absolute terms the level of acceptance is still very low.
Like, if Denver is 10% accepting, the Bay might be 15%. Or something like that.
And Vallejo, while part of the Bay Area is a very different place than, say, the Castro. Culturally, it’s probably more like Detroit than San Francisco.
So I’m not sure if you can really draw any conclusions from your premise.
Most of the Zizians who lived in Vallejo moved there from the Berkeley area. The reason they moved was because Curtis Lind felt empathetic and offered them extremely cheap rent. After not paying rent for years (despite at least one of them being an engineer at Google), they ambushed Lind, then tried to behead him and dissolve his body in a vat. Fortunately he was carrying a concealed firearm, so he shot them in self-defense, killing one. Three years later, Lind was murdered by another member before he could testify at the trial for his other attackers.
If there's any sort of marginalization by Lind in that story, I'm having a hard time finding it.
If there's any sort of marginalization by Lind in that story, I'm having a hard time finding it.
"Invest in residential rental property!" they said. "It will provide a great income stream for your retirement."
We need to keep in mind that Lind was forced by law to give them free rent for two years. He was not allowed to evict them for virtually any reason AFAIK, including nonpayment. Yes, he was supportive and generous, but at some point we all reach our limits, especially when dealing with sociopaths who are bent on taking every possible advantage.
We need to keep in mind that Lind was forced by law to give them free rent for two years. He was not allowed to evict them for virtually any reason AFAIK, including nonpayment. Yes, he was supportive and generous, but at some point we all reach our limits, especially when dealing with sociopaths who are bent on taking every possible advantage.
(deleted incorrect claim)
I don’t know where you heard that. According to every article I could find, Borhanian was shot by Lind in self-defense[1]:
> Court records show that Lind shot two of his attackers, injuring one person and killing 31-year-old Emma Borhanian.
Back in 2019, Borhanian was arrested and charged with felony child endangerment and false imprisonment in a protest against a rationalist group.[2]
1. https://openvallejo.org/2025/01/27/man-killed-in-vallejo-was...
2. https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Mystery-in-Sonom...
> Court records show that Lind shot two of his attackers, injuring one person and killing 31-year-old Emma Borhanian.
Back in 2019, Borhanian was arrested and charged with felony child endangerment and false imprisonment in a protest against a rationalist group.[2]
1. https://openvallejo.org/2025/01/27/man-killed-in-vallejo-was...
2. https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Mystery-in-Sonom...
> If marginalization were the main cause
I think they're crazy first, trans second. They were marginalised for being crazy. Then they found each other because they're trans. Many cults have random attributes shared by the members, whether it be race or sexual preferences. Their race or sexual preference didn't cause them to join a cult, they had other things going on that drove that. But when it came time to join one, they gravitated towards the one that identified with them.
I think they're crazy first, trans second. They were marginalised for being crazy. Then they found each other because they're trans. Many cults have random attributes shared by the members, whether it be race or sexual preferences. Their race or sexual preference didn't cause them to join a cult, they had other things going on that drove that. But when it came time to join one, they gravitated towards the one that identified with them.
As rachofsunshine suggested, there are quite a few factions and splinter groups within the larger "rationalist" subculture, not just people who happen to be trans and were recruited because of it. My takeaway after spending a few hours down the rabbit hole is that they all seem to be composed of very smart people who have a screw or three loose.
I'm afraid that at some point, some of these people are likely to talk themselves into doing something seriously fucked up. If I worked on AI at OpenAI or Google or Meta, I think I'd prefer to work from home... and if I occupied a visible position on the org chart, I'd hire a damned good private security company to keep an eye on my family.
I'm afraid that at some point, some of these people are likely to talk themselves into doing something seriously fucked up. If I worked on AI at OpenAI or Google or Meta, I think I'd prefer to work from home... and if I occupied a visible position on the org chart, I'd hire a damned good private security company to keep an eye on my family.
This is a wild thing to read 8O
Or more of them live there because it's one of the most accepting environments on the planet, but still not accepting enough to prevent them from being a marginalized outgroup that is quite easy to radicalize by those that would accept them?
"Even the most accepting environment on the planet is still not accepting enough" is not a very flattering description of trans-identifying folks. In fact, I'd call it rather sobering at the very least. It suggests that the ongoing perceived marginalization of trans folks is a nearly unsolvable problem, that can't be addressed simply by advocating for "doing the right thing".
Or, perhaps, we're very far from an adequate society.
That's probably true, but the larger issue is that we're unlikely to redefine society in the name of making less than 1% of the population feel better. The US has struggled for centuries with the question of how to better treat far more number minorities, such as black people... and women.
At some point the, "change society" approach is bound to create backlash that such a small movement can't sustain, and frankly we're seeing evidence of that now. There's also the reality that forget most of the US, most of the world isn't invested in this cause. This is not a universal cause, and while I personally think that's regrettable, it's also clearly just the way it is for now. Change, if it comes, will be far more gradual than some people are prepared to tolerate, and that assumes change continues in a sawtoothed manner in the right direction.
At some point the, "change society" approach is bound to create backlash that such a small movement can't sustain, and frankly we're seeing evidence of that now. There's also the reality that forget most of the US, most of the world isn't invested in this cause. This is not a universal cause, and while I personally think that's regrettable, it's also clearly just the way it is for now. Change, if it comes, will be far more gradual than some people are prepared to tolerate, and that assumes change continues in a sawtoothed manner in the right direction.
> we're unlikely to redefine society in the name of making less than 1% of the population feel better
Believe it or not, there are actually many popular, far-reaching political ideologies centered around helping "the least of us." It's not such a foreign concept.
Furthermore, the particular ways in which the transgender population is oppressed happen to coincide with many of the ways in which cis women are infamously burdened. It's not "special treatment" that will make this <1% population feel better but a dissolution of the bonds which torment us all. "Nothing to lose but our chains" type shit, yadada?
Believe it or not, there are actually many popular, far-reaching political ideologies centered around helping "the least of us." It's not such a foreign concept.
Furthermore, the particular ways in which the transgender population is oppressed happen to coincide with many of the ways in which cis women are infamously burdened. It's not "special treatment" that will make this <1% population feel better but a dissolution of the bonds which torment us all. "Nothing to lose but our chains" type shit, yadada?
> Furthermore, the particular ways in which the transgender population is oppressed happen to coincide with many of the ways in which cis women are infamously burdened. It's not "special treatment" that will make this <1% population feel better
It's worth noting that a number of cis women who associate with the feminist movement would strongly disagree with your assessment.
It's worth noting that a number of cis women who associate with the feminist movement would strongly disagree with your assessment.
Those ideologies certainly exist, but I can't say that I've ever heard of one staying in power for very long, at least not while genuinely pursuing that ideology. Far more often "for the least of us" is the pitch that gets you in the door, but no real attempt to deliver is ever made.
So again, I'm not debating the value of pursuing these rights, I'm pointing out that this is view opposed by billions. You can't just declare the rightness of your cause and hope it catches on.
So again, I'm not debating the value of pursuing these rights, I'm pointing out that this is view opposed by billions. You can't just declare the rightness of your cause and hope it catches on.
> You can't just declare the rightness of your cause and hope it catches on.
Well, duh.
Well, duh.
> we're unlikely to redefine society in the name of making less than 1% of the population feel better
If I can deal with idiot conspiracy theorists the evangelicals can deal with trans people.
If I can deal with idiot conspiracy theorists the evangelicals can deal with trans people.
>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.
The death of the author is a reasonable approach to reading a work. But what you said reminded me of the more delusional view in which a) the watcher/reader's approach is the only "correct" one, and b) anyone who disagrees is *EVIL*. An instance of this happened among Tumblrinas obsessed with the supposed homosexual relationship between Holmes and Watson on BBC's Sherlock, and who were certain that the next episode of the show would reveal this to the world. Welp. <https://np.reddit.com/r/the_meltdown/comments/5oc59t/tumblr_...>
The death of the author is a reasonable approach to reading a work. But what you said reminded me of the more delusional view in which a) the watcher/reader's approach is the only "correct" one, and b) anyone who disagrees is *EVIL*. An instance of this happened among Tumblrinas obsessed with the supposed homosexual relationship between Holmes and Watson on BBC's Sherlock, and who were certain that the next episode of the show would reveal this to the world. Welp. <https://np.reddit.com/r/the_meltdown/comments/5oc59t/tumblr_...>
You can find all kinds of ridiculous people online, and they're all mostly harmless.
I mean, every LLM post on HN gets people writing fanfic about how AI is developing human intelligence and other silly things.
There's frankly no difference between the two groups -- they are equally silly -- except one is coded female and people like to shit on those hobbies more than male-coded AI fanfic.
I mean, every LLM post on HN gets people writing fanfic about how AI is developing human intelligence and other silly things.
There's frankly no difference between the two groups -- they are equally silly -- except one is coded female and people like to shit on those hobbies more than male-coded AI fanfic.
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.
Fix the world and these problems don't exist.
>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.
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.
> Plenty of antisocial (or worse) behaviour has been promulgated by those indisputably at the top of the social food chain.
This isn't a counterpoint to "fix the world," because those "at the top of the social food chain" are, of course, partners in an oppressor/oppressed dynamic that prevents both parties from realize their full human potential.
"As the oppressors dehumanize others and violate their rights, they themselves also become dehumanized," Freire says. In a sense, both parties are mutilated by the dynamic.
So "the top of the social food chain" is not a clean sample of a fixed world.
Sorry if I am talking past your point.
This isn't a counterpoint to "fix the world," because those "at the top of the social food chain" are, of course, partners in an oppressor/oppressed dynamic that prevents both parties from realize their full human potential.
"As the oppressors dehumanize others and violate their rights, they themselves also become dehumanized," Freire says. In a sense, both parties are mutilated by the dynamic.
So "the top of the social food chain" is not a clean sample of a fixed world.
Sorry if I am talking past your point.
The whole food chain is encapsulated in “the world” in this case.
I don’t think your point stands.
I don’t think your point stands.
> I don’t think your point stands.
Elaborate?
Elaborate?
> This isn't a counterpoint to "fix the world," because those "at the top of the social food chain" are, of course, partners in an oppressor/oppressed dynamic that prevents both parties from realize their full human potential.
You described the human condition. This is “the world” we all live in today. Isolating the people at the top as somehow not part of “the world” doesn’t work.
You described the human condition. This is “the world” we all live in today. Isolating the people at the top as somehow not part of “the world” doesn’t work.
If you consider the winners to also be "dehumanised" by their ongoing winning in cultural and financial terms, as this Freire apparently did, then sure. But they themselves -- the ongoing winners -- certainly did not, that being the reason for their actions in the first place.
The other relevant opinion would be that of the "losers" -- the people oppressed by the winners. Did they feel that the winners were oppressing themselves? I'm certain they did not!
I think Freire is either deluded, or deliberately conflating the notion of what a powerful party views as good for itself with some higher, ethically tinged notion of how we all ought to behave.
The other relevant opinion would be that of the "losers" -- the people oppressed by the winners. Did they feel that the winners were oppressing themselves? I'm certain they did not!
I think Freire is either deluded, or deliberately conflating the notion of what a powerful party views as good for itself with some higher, ethically tinged notion of how we all ought to behave.
> the ongoing winners -- certainly did not
Well, how could they have known?
Well, how could they have known?
Okay, so maybe they still exist but maybe fewer people have a motive to seek violent solutions?
Isn't that implicit in what I wrote?
Of course we should strive to make society just, and this will reduce the motive for violence -- the mistake is to believe that doing so will stop all violence. This might seem a small point, but it's not: Believing that it would stop all violence is a sign that you believe that (a) people are fundamentally good, and (b) have no agency -- that we just react inevitably and helplessly to conditions imposed on us by an external environment. Both of these beliefs are dangerously wrong.
Of course we should strive to make society just, and this will reduce the motive for violence -- the mistake is to believe that doing so will stop all violence. This might seem a small point, but it's not: Believing that it would stop all violence is a sign that you believe that (a) people are fundamentally good, and (b) have no agency -- that we just react inevitably and helplessly to conditions imposed on us by an external environment. Both of these beliefs are dangerously wrong.
There is a well-documented correlation between gender dysphoria, mental health conditions, and autism spectrum disorder. These overlapping factors may contribute to increased vulnerability to manipulative groups, such as cults.
Thanks the pronouns were confusing me and making it hard for me to follow the complex story. I assumed I made a mistake when the article mentions a Jack and refers to them as Jack the whole way through but uses she at the end.
Unfortunately the gendered language we use is also the mechanism to provide clues and content as you read the story. So if I can rely on that they need to call it out to help the reader.
I'd rather the article mention it.
Why are they not? Is this a chilling effect?
Unfortunately the gendered language we use is also the mechanism to provide clues and content as you read the story. So if I can rely on that they need to call it out to help the reader.
I'd rather the article mention it.
Why are they not? Is this a chilling effect?
It goes unmentioned because there is an unwritten rule in progressive media that marginalized groups must never be perceived as doing wrong, because that will deepen their marginalization.
In practice it creates a moral blind spot where the worst extremists get a pass, in the name of protecting the rest. Non-progressive media are all too happy to fill in the gap. Cue resentment, cue backlash, cue Trump. Way to go, guys!
In practice it creates a moral blind spot where the worst extremists get a pass, in the name of protecting the rest. Non-progressive media are all too happy to fill in the gap. Cue resentment, cue backlash, cue Trump. Way to go, guys!
conservative media has the opposite rule: make every story about a trans person into a narrative about trans ideology.
this should be a story about an ideological cult with trans members, but instead it's a story about the cult of trans ideology. it's called "nut picking" - use the worst examples of a group to tarnish the group as a whole.
a good example of this is attacks against Muslim Americans after 9/11.
this should be a story about an ideological cult with trans members, but instead it's a story about the cult of trans ideology. it's called "nut picking" - use the worst examples of a group to tarnish the group as a whole.
a good example of this is attacks against Muslim Americans after 9/11.
Is it the same for judging all MAGA as Nazis?
I ask that in all earnestness. I am not a MAGA or a MAGA apologist.
I ask that in all earnestness. I am not a MAGA or a MAGA apologist.
It is much the same thing, yes. The reality that I have experienced is that most Trump voters are decent people who simply disagree with me on the best way to solve the issues facing our country. Not at all a pack of hate-filled Nazis. But humans love to pick on their outgroup, so people simply round "Trump supporter" off to "Nazi bigot" and never bother to reflect that they are simply giving into tribalism.
[deleted]
I think that’s a drastic oversimplification.
And yet trump is president.
I follow the thread and can agree in large parts. But given multiple news anchors, news programs, both traditional and online, in combination with social media, content creators and late night TV, I am wholly exhausted by Trump somehow being a magical monster responsible for (just as you’ve demonstrated) in some way every ill in modern society.
If he is a narcissist and we are aware narcissists feed on attention and drama and starve in the absence of those things, shouldn’t the best version of activism against him be to deny him mention or attribution? Regardless of how cathartic it might be to openly complain? Imagine getting to the end of this next 4 years and despite what he does, nothing of note can be said about the man. Despite all the EOs, nothing interesting could be discussed. His presidency could be a footnote in history, except for the “activists” going emotionally boneless and apoplectic at every word he says.
TBF, it’s not Trump that exhausts me, it’s this. The maniacal blaming for every problem. The incessant injection of Trump and secondarily politics into every conversation and every facet of life. This…neo-activism is as caustic of a solution as the disease it attempts to inoculate. It’s as if everyone has forgetten how to problem solve in the face of adversity. A social fragility whose only method of communication is abject outrage.
Ugh.
If he is a narcissist and we are aware narcissists feed on attention and drama and starve in the absence of those things, shouldn’t the best version of activism against him be to deny him mention or attribution? Regardless of how cathartic it might be to openly complain? Imagine getting to the end of this next 4 years and despite what he does, nothing of note can be said about the man. Despite all the EOs, nothing interesting could be discussed. His presidency could be a footnote in history, except for the “activists” going emotionally boneless and apoplectic at every word he says.
TBF, it’s not Trump that exhausts me, it’s this. The maniacal blaming for every problem. The incessant injection of Trump and secondarily politics into every conversation and every facet of life. This…neo-activism is as caustic of a solution as the disease it attempts to inoculate. It’s as if everyone has forgetten how to problem solve in the face of adversity. A social fragility whose only method of communication is abject outrage.
Ugh.
The guy is passing budgetary laws without congress, has been made untouchable by the supreme court, pardoned the violent Jan 6 rioters (despite claiming to be "pro-order"), constantly scape-goats minorites and leftists, threatens war with allies, colludes with foreign fascists, is doing a thousand illegal sh*t a minute, but somehow this is no big deal and we should just ignore it.
Scrutiny and accountability for this systematic dismantling of our democracy is the only sane thing to do. You're either very blind to the gravity of the situation or extremely dishonest.
Scrutiny and accountability for this systematic dismantling of our democracy is the only sane thing to do. You're either very blind to the gravity of the situation or extremely dishonest.
zmgsabst(2)
zmgsabst(1)
The other shoe has been on the verge of dropping for years. The pendulum has swung the other way, it was always going to happen. I read a comment on this forum today asking why it was relevant that the group of people in SF associated with a string of murders consisted of a majority trans people. Asked why this was a relevant point.
It’s relevant because for years and years the mainstream left has been pushing and pushing to normalize behavior that has been historically been considered deviant. I have no opinion on the matter, I don’t care at all if someone wants to make their genitalia look different than it did when they were born. Do it up.
Most males have a really fucking hard time contemplating rearranging their penis into a vagina. It doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t seem right. It isn’t something that can register for most people.
Which of course lead to the situation we have now. “They don’t feel like a man/woman, they feel the opposite! They are depressed and discouraged and you MUST accept them for who they are!”
That doesn’t work. And instead of pivoting, the messaging just got louder and louder. Now we see the repercussions.
Trump was given power by people who didn’t realize they gave it to him, and they’re shellshocked.
I don’t like trump or approve of his moves. I did not vote for him. Ironically, he’s doing what he said he would do, which isn’t common amongst politicians, and he’s doing it quickly.
It’s relevant because for years and years the mainstream left has been pushing and pushing to normalize behavior that has been historically been considered deviant. I have no opinion on the matter, I don’t care at all if someone wants to make their genitalia look different than it did when they were born. Do it up.
Most males have a really fucking hard time contemplating rearranging their penis into a vagina. It doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t seem right. It isn’t something that can register for most people.
Which of course lead to the situation we have now. “They don’t feel like a man/woman, they feel the opposite! They are depressed and discouraged and you MUST accept them for who they are!”
That doesn’t work. And instead of pivoting, the messaging just got louder and louder. Now we see the repercussions.
Trump was given power by people who didn’t realize they gave it to him, and they’re shellshocked.
I don’t like trump or approve of his moves. I did not vote for him. Ironically, he’s doing what he said he would do, which isn’t common amongst politicians, and he’s doing it quickly.
Proving that oversimplification sells.
Why Trump won is an interesting topic. There is a mixture of reasons but I think high up there was Biden pulling out last minute and Kamala being unpopular with little time to do a campaign. She also had the backfoot of having been in power while there was inflation and support for the Gaza genocide. Therefore Trump won less then Kamala lost.
There is a subreddit dedicate to people both democrats who refused to vote, as well as Trump voters whose policies as promised would severely harm them and their family's interesf (severe as in life/death). Why did they vote against their interests.
For example anyone on any kind of benefits, or whose mum and dad are, vets or if your cousin or uncle is one, Latino, even if you are from a long line of american citizens you may have friends who are 1st gen. More generally anyone not white, male and in the top 5-10% of wealth. Because tariffs won't be good for poor people. And poor is probably: under $1m assets.
Google trends for tariffs surged after the election. People voted on feelings. Anger, despair or some sense of "Trump means them not me" or maybe "He is successful in business so he must be good".
Unfortunately the rational thing to do often sucks eggs!
There is a subreddit dedicate to people both democrats who refused to vote, as well as Trump voters whose policies as promised would severely harm them and their family's interesf (severe as in life/death). Why did they vote against their interests.
For example anyone on any kind of benefits, or whose mum and dad are, vets or if your cousin or uncle is one, Latino, even if you are from a long line of american citizens you may have friends who are 1st gen. More generally anyone not white, male and in the top 5-10% of wealth. Because tariffs won't be good for poor people. And poor is probably: under $1m assets.
Google trends for tariffs surged after the election. People voted on feelings. Anger, despair or some sense of "Trump means them not me" or maybe "He is successful in business so he must be good".
Unfortunately the rational thing to do often sucks eggs!
The fact that many are transgender seems to be relevant because it’s a recruiting and manipulation tactic, not because of a connection to “trans activism.” I haven’t seen any evidence of that connection besides people involved being transgender.
Why scare quotes? There are political organizations representing trans-people (and doing quite a bit of activity).
I don't think it's so much pushing an agenda, as it is avoiding a thermonuclear hot potato of modern life. If you start talking about gender identity, everyone has STRONG opinions they feel they must share. Worse, a subset of those opinions will be fairly extreme, and you're potentially exposing yourself to harassment or worse. If you sound like you're attacking trans people, that's going to end badly. If you sound like you're supporting them, especially as this new US administration takes off... that's going to end badly.
So if you can tell the story without the possibly superfluous detail of the genders of the people involved, that's a pretty obvious angle to omit. Andy Ngo is obviously not doing this, but that's really only because he has a very clear agenda and in fact his entire interest in this story probably stems from that.
So if you can tell the story without the possibly superfluous detail of the genders of the people involved, that's a pretty obvious angle to omit. Andy Ngo is obviously not doing this, but that's really only because he has a very clear agenda and in fact his entire interest in this story probably stems from that.
Yes, that's a reasonable possibility as well. It's not proof of an agenda, and might be prudent, but I do think it's a form of bias. There's a thin line between skipping "possibly superfluous" details and skipping core parts of a story that might provide evidence for viewpoints one disagrees with. The result is still that readers need to realize that they are being presented with a consciously edited narrative and not an unbiased set of facts.
It was quite easy to skim over some original source material from both sinceriously.fyi and zizians.info. By my quick reading, and taking a very high level view, the philosophy is responsible for the trans and also for the violence. But an article harping on the correlation as implied causation without focusing on the hidden variable behind them both is just trying to fuel the fire of the reactionary movement. In general, averaging two different flavors of extremist reporting is not a way for obtaining truth.
That seems like an argument for not ignoring the matter in media that wishes to avoid honing in on the sensitive issue. Now instead of reading an article that integrates but doesn't centre the trans issue, I have read one that doesn't mention it, which I now feel to be dishonest, and one which centres the trans issue above all else, which I view to be biased, but not dishonest. So well done to the authors of the OP, now I can't help but be convinced the trans factor is far more important than I might have otherwise.
Myopic focus is itself a lie of omission (of the larger context), so they're both dishonest. It seems like you're trying to obtain some agency by sorting through political trash, but the best you can get from that is trash. Never wrestle with a pig and all that.
Yeah, I agree. I think my perception of the second article was coloured by prior knowledge I had from the first, because on review, it is rather myopic too, it doesn't give useful context that was in the first. That said, I do find its myopia less sinister because I am inclined to believe that "rationalism", while I'm quite negative on it, and it probably contributes to these people's superiority complexes, is less likely the root cause than things which are.... I'm trying to be delicate here.... more sensical in light of the trans angle.
I disagree that you can't get anything useful out of trash though. Media literacy requires reading between the lines of what is written by multiple people with differing perspectives on a matter and sorting the wheat from the chaff. It's primarily trash, almost entirely trash, there is no choice but to go dumpster diving, or throw your hands up in despair and decide you're just not going to bother at all. The latter option is tenable in and of itself, but when I observe it in practice from people around me, it usually equates in practice to just lazily applying your prior biases to anything you hear about and being an obnoxious and uninteresting conversational partner.
I disagree that you can't get anything useful out of trash though. Media literacy requires reading between the lines of what is written by multiple people with differing perspectives on a matter and sorting the wheat from the chaff. It's primarily trash, almost entirely trash, there is no choice but to go dumpster diving, or throw your hands up in despair and decide you're just not going to bother at all. The latter option is tenable in and of itself, but when I observe it in practice from people around me, it usually equates in practice to just lazily applying your prior biases to anything you hear about and being an obnoxious and uninteresting conversational partner.
No, that is omitting quite a significant detail. If apparently the majority of people have X characteristic that is a tiny percentage in the overall population there is some correlation or something newsworthy there,
To quote a hot potato of a previous age: all bankers may be Jews, but not all Jews are bankers.
We know where that one took us.
We know where that one took us.
It's fashionable to invoke the baddies of Germany but let's zoom out a bit and just live in reality. Virtually no group on this planet that is not primarily about sexual characteristics or fetishes or whatever is almost entirely made up of people from this particular group and this death cult that is, presumably about "rationalist" mumbo jumbo, is primarily made up of this group. That is certainly newsworthy.
> If you sound like you're attacking trans people, that's going to end badly. If you sound like you're supporting them, especially as this new US administration takes off... that's going to end badly.
That’s not true: 99% percent of news outlets have absolutely no fear supporting trans activism.
It’s trivial to find hundreds of such cases from sfgate with a google search.
That’s not true: 99% percent of news outlets have absolutely no fear supporting trans activism.
It’s trivial to find hundreds of such cases from sfgate with a google search.
No fear yet, that may change instantly, just like it did the other way.
I don’t agree, but that’s off-topic unless you believe sfgate is specifically afraid today.
Why wouldn't it change just as instantly the other way?
They're like grass in the wind, always betting on the winning team.
They're like grass in the wind, always betting on the winning team.
I have no interest in engaging in an off-topic political discussion.
The local paper did a pretty fair job as far as I can tell.
https://sfist.com/2025/01/29/suspect-and-possible-cult-membe...
Ngo certainly notes the trans aspect with some charged words. Calls them “leftist trans militants with alleged ties to a trans terror cell.”
I suspect the answer is closer to "one trans person preyed upon the trust and vulnerability of people in their circle" and that happened to include multiple other trans people (who were likely extremely vulnerable to the charismatic charms of a cult leader).
They’re also all software developers, right?
I'm sorry, but Andy Ngo is beyond "biased" - he is deliberately derogatory towards the trans community whenever he has the opportunity.
If the gender identities of the Zizians aren't being brought up in the mainstream press, it's likely because it isn't relevant to the story. Responsible reporting includes not bringing up details that could encourage moral panic or hate crimes if they aren't demonstrably relevant to the story. This kind of "well actually" response is really no different than the racist complaints people make in the comments of every crime story that failed to mention how black the accused was, when race wasn't a factor, and nobody ever cares when the accused is white.
Most cults are filled with straight, cigender, white people. If every story about cult violence brought this up, its connection to the story would be rightfully mocked as contrived.
Citing the guy who tries to dig up dirt on every trans person he can isn't exactly a revelation. It's exactly what I would expect Ngo to do, and only because it validates his neo-fascist peers' anti-trans views.
If the gender identities of the Zizians aren't being brought up in the mainstream press, it's likely because it isn't relevant to the story. Responsible reporting includes not bringing up details that could encourage moral panic or hate crimes if they aren't demonstrably relevant to the story. This kind of "well actually" response is really no different than the racist complaints people make in the comments of every crime story that failed to mention how black the accused was, when race wasn't a factor, and nobody ever cares when the accused is white.
Most cults are filled with straight, cigender, white people. If every story about cult violence brought this up, its connection to the story would be rightfully mocked as contrived.
Citing the guy who tries to dig up dirt on every trans person he can isn't exactly a revelation. It's exactly what I would expect Ngo to do, and only because it validates his neo-fascist peers' anti-trans views.
The fact that a death/murder cult might be deliberately targeting vulnerable trans folks for recruitment and indoctrination can certainly be relevant. I agree that merely talking about "a vegan trans" murder cult, as some media outlets did, would be something rather different however.
I don't know, seems like if we're trying to do that kind of targeting, LessWrong is the better place to start. 100% of these people are LessWrong people, right?
You think LessWrong is a better place to start probably because you've heard a lot about trans young people whereas you probably haven't heard much about and probably don't know much about Less Wrong, but I am confident that if you were to get to know us, you'll find that we are mostly good people and we have a healthy community.
That is something I very definitely already believe, and my point is that trying to characterize large groups of people by the activities of a tiny number of crazy people is bogus; in this case though, if someone is going to try to deploy that kind of bogusity, fair is fair!
OK somehow I missed that interpretation of your comment.
[deleted]
> Bauckholt was a biological male who identified as trans and used feminine pronouns. He was an award-winning youth math genius who later graduated from the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada ..... Around 2021, he was hired as a quantitative trader at Tower Research Capital in New York.
Honestly, being trans is the least interesting thing about this dude (girl?). This is not some random angry person with uncontrolled emotions.
Honestly, being trans is the least interesting thing about this dude (girl?). This is not some random angry person with uncontrolled emotions.
I'm probably the furthest thing from an active supporter of trans (whatever you take it to mean, I'm old-fashioned about gender). But how does it matter to this story at all? You could take any group of people and find a crazed group of killers among them.... And people tend to stick to people like them, so again, how is it relevant?
> omitting what some might consider a relevant detail
This sounds weaselly enough to detract from the rest of the comment, even though you later say why it might be relevant.
This sounds weaselly enough to detract from the rest of the comment, even though you later say why it might be relevant.
“Ziz seems to go out of her way to target transgender people.” https://zizians.info/
Are people confusing transgender and transhumanism somehow? Looking up rationalist philosophy it seems to be about 'improving' the human species, human potential movement related, people becoming cyborgs and living forever as AI uploads, etc.? Vaguely eugenic in outlook, if more individualist. I suppose such a philosophy views gender as an irrelevant issue, so recruiting transgender people would be something they do?
A good rule of thumb is that people who view philosophy as something other than an amusing pasttime are best avoided, especially when they're spending their time trying to recruit others into their cult.
A good rule of thumb is that people who view philosophy as something other than an amusing pasttime are best avoided, especially when they're spending their time trying to recruit others into their cult.
Almost all are trans and all are rationalists. OK.
I know something else that is over-represented in killings. Soldiers. And soldiers are mostly male. So male is the natural killing machine, right?
But male humans are mostly selected to be soldiers by design. In some countries the only possible gender for soldiers.
So mabe it could be that there is some other agenda at play here? Mabe it is not related to trans but to grooming a target group into becoming cult members? Why is it that we always have to think there is a /Big Conspiracy/ somewhere? Don't spread around fud that you have no clue about with words like "omitting something I consider relevant" without making damn sure it realy is relevant. You just feed the trolls if you keep doing this.
But male humans are mostly selected to be soldiers by design. In some countries the only possible gender for soldiers.
So mabe it could be that there is some other agenda at play here? Mabe it is not related to trans but to grooming a target group into becoming cult members? Why is it that we always have to think there is a /Big Conspiracy/ somewhere? Don't spread around fud that you have no clue about with words like "omitting something I consider relevant" without making damn sure it realy is relevant. You just feed the trolls if you keep doing this.
The Post Millennial is a right-wing rag from an anticommunist sex cult and any assertion by Ngo should be discarded out of hand.
miltonlost(1)
Andy Ngo is not a credible source of news about trans people. Media Matters describes him as a “right wing troll” who spread misinformation about this issue [1] and The Advocate points out that right wing media have repeatedly ignored the facts around supposed trans shooters and continued to spread misinformation on the subject. [2]
[1] https://www.mediamatters.org/diversity-discrimination/apalac...
[2] https://www.advocate.com/news/apalachee-school-shooter-trans...
[1] https://www.mediamatters.org/diversity-discrimination/apalac...
[2] https://www.advocate.com/news/apalachee-school-shooter-trans...
Media matters is just as biased as Andy Ngo. They are the definition of a hit piece mill, and will find any reason possible to criticize popular figures with right wing beliefs.
IMO, the media frenzy on the subject was part of a corporate plot to promote certain beliefs in order to silence contrarian ideas which could trigger a conversation around corporate negligence topics such as the increase of endocrine disruptors in our environment and their effects on our health.
The plot worked for some extent. Hence, I cannot fully express myself here in clear language. We can see that health has become a central topic of American politics but we're still dancing around some of the more important issues, because implying certain connections is taboo.
The first step to fixing a problem is acknowledging it. If not fixed, it will get worse until it becomes impossible to ignore.
The plot worked for some extent. Hence, I cannot fully express myself here in clear language. We can see that health has become a central topic of American politics but we're still dancing around some of the more important issues, because implying certain connections is taboo.
The first step to fixing a problem is acknowledging it. If not fixed, it will get worse until it becomes impossible to ignore.
The main group is a sex cult and nobody wants to have sex with the trans people so they got kicked out or something.
WARNING: The Post Millennial is an extremist website.
I can’t believe that getting “news” about an extremist group from another extremist organization is a productive way to make sense of the world.
Honestly, read whatever you want but just be aware that radical extremist exist and commit horrific crimes and other radical extremist will exploit that.
It is radical extremism that’s dangerous in and of itself—not just a particular brand of radical extremism.
Carry on.
I can’t believe that getting “news” about an extremist group from another extremist organization is a productive way to make sense of the world.
Honestly, read whatever you want but just be aware that radical extremist exist and commit horrific crimes and other radical extremist will exploit that.
It is radical extremism that’s dangerous in and of itself—not just a particular brand of radical extremism.
Carry on.
* WARNING: The Post Millennial is an extremist website.*
Ok, but is there anything false stated?
Ok, but is there anything false stated?
In what way is this supposed to be a relevant detail? Unless you think that they are killing people because they are trans, why should you report that they are part of a marginalized group? If they were mostly blondes or had freckles, should that be part of the story too?
It seems as if the group targeted trans member in their recruitment - and then used evidence of general marginalization to justify their crimes.
If you look up old reddit threads about the murder of the landlord, you can see many people defending the crime as the landlord was transphobic. It's not just a random detail like freckles, it seems like the identity shaped the way this group interacted with the world.
If you look up old reddit threads about the murder of the landlord, you can see many people defending the crime as the landlord was transphobic. It's not just a random detail like freckles, it seems like the identity shaped the way this group interacted with the world.
It's basically impossible that it's a random irrelevant detail, I'd say any such detail is fair to share.
For example, if every member of this group was Indian American I'd consider that a fair detail to note, the chances of that happening at random are minuscule, yet that's orders of magnitude more probable than all of them being trans for no reason.
For example, if every member of this group was Indian American I'd consider that a fair detail to note, the chances of that happening at random are minuscule, yet that's orders of magnitude more probable than all of them being trans for no reason.
> the chances of that happening at random are minuscule
No it's not, what? People tend to hang out with people similar to them. Most gangs are racially or ethnically homogenous. That's fairly normal.
In fact, there are commonly Indian-origin gangs in Canada (I haven't heard of it in the US, but the US has much higher-income immigrants from India overall)
No it's not, what? People tend to hang out with people similar to them. Most gangs are racially or ethnically homogenous. That's fairly normal.
In fact, there are commonly Indian-origin gangs in Canada (I haven't heard of it in the US, but the US has much higher-income immigrants from India overall)
They're over-represented by ~1000x compared to background population; that's relevant.
Or what if they were rationalists? Would they include that in the headline?
casey2(1)
Doesn't sound rationalist to me (from Ziz quoted section of article linked below):
"Ziz
Impostors keep thinking it's safe to impersonate single goods. A nice place to slide in psyche/shadow, false faces, "who could ever falsify that I'm blaming it on my headmate!"
Saying you're single good is saying, "Help, I have a Yeerk in my head that's a mirror image of me. I need you to surgically destroy it, even if I'm then crippled for life or might die in the process. Then kill me if I ever do one evil act for the rest of my life. That's better than being a slave. Save me even though it is so easy to impersonate me. And you will aggro so many impostors you'll then be in a fight to the death(s) with. Might as well then kill me too if I don't pass an unthinkable gom jabbar. That'll make us both safer from them and I care zero about pain relative to freedom from my Yeerk at any cost."
It's an outsized consequentialist priority, even in a doomed timeline, to make it unsafe to impersonate single goods.
Critical to the destiny of the world. The most vulnerable souls impostors vex. To bring justice to individual people, from collective punishment."
https://openvallejo.org/2025/01/31/zizian-namesake-who-faked.... More detail.
"Ziz
Impostors keep thinking it's safe to impersonate single goods. A nice place to slide in psyche/shadow, false faces, "who could ever falsify that I'm blaming it on my headmate!"
Saying you're single good is saying, "Help, I have a Yeerk in my head that's a mirror image of me. I need you to surgically destroy it, even if I'm then crippled for life or might die in the process. Then kill me if I ever do one evil act for the rest of my life. That's better than being a slave. Save me even though it is so easy to impersonate me. And you will aggro so many impostors you'll then be in a fight to the death(s) with. Might as well then kill me too if I don't pass an unthinkable gom jabbar. That'll make us both safer from them and I care zero about pain relative to freedom from my Yeerk at any cost."
It's an outsized consequentialist priority, even in a doomed timeline, to make it unsafe to impersonate single goods.
Critical to the destiny of the world. The most vulnerable souls impostors vex. To bring justice to individual people, from collective punishment."
https://openvallejo.org/2025/01/31/zizian-namesake-who-faked.... More detail.
I put this post into Suno
https://suno.com/song/13bdb0ef-a219-4a2c-b1bf-646698593e56
https://suno.com/song/13bdb0ef-a219-4a2c-b1bf-646698593e56
needs more male falsetto
This Ziz person is really unhinged. I read some of their writing, it reminds me of every eloquent, manipulative narcissist I've met. They are never as smart as they think they are - or as smart as they want you to think they are - though they may be smart, charming, and engaging. They've created an alternate universe in their mind and haphazardly abuse whatever ideas they've encountered to justify it.
what the heck does any of this mean??
Sadly, I completely understand after reading all the links in this thread tonight.
The specific theory they're speaking in: https://zizians.info/
Backstory (7 chapters): https://aiascendant.substack.com/p/extropias-children-chapte...
The specific theory they're speaking in: https://zizians.info/
Backstory (7 chapters): https://aiascendant.substack.com/p/extropias-children-chapte...
A relevant bit from zizians.info
> This jargon serves multiple purposes. An important one is that it separates Zizians from others. The cost to read and understand Sinceriously is substantial, and most people are not willing to pay it. Another is to warp the beliefs of people who use it. The connotations and affect of Ziz's jargon encode her moral beliefs about the world separated from the quality of reasoning used to produce them. By offering language that reinforces these judgments Ziz creates conditions where even engaging with the beliefs of her followers requires the repetition and reinforcement of their frame.
> This jargon serves multiple purposes. An important one is that it separates Zizians from others. The cost to read and understand Sinceriously is substantial, and most people are not willing to pay it. Another is to warp the beliefs of people who use it. The connotations and affect of Ziz's jargon encode her moral beliefs about the world separated from the quality of reasoning used to produce them. By offering language that reinforces these judgments Ziz creates conditions where even engaging with the beliefs of her followers requires the repetition and reinforcement of their frame.
Could you offer us a translation of the first two or three sentences? Apparently this comment was interpreted as a threat of murder.
They write and talk in their group lingo so outsiders can't understand it without diving deep into their lore, mindset and community. It's a common thing. Seen it numerous times. Don't waste your time.
To be clear, this is not rationalist lingo.
I'm sure it makes sense to the most indoctrinated of the cult members.
One of the many rabbit holes, the deeper layers of.
[deleted]
Head of LessWrong and generally active rationality community leader here. Happy to answer any questions people have. These people haven't been around the community for a long time, but I am happy to answer questions with my best guesses on why they are doing what they are doing.
They've been banned on LW and practically all in-person things for like 5+ years now. My guess is the reason why they hung around the rationality community this much years ago is just that it's a community with much higher openness to people and ideas than normal, especially in the Bay Area. IMO in this instance that was quite bad and they should have been kicked out earlier than they did end up getting kicked out (which was like 4 years ago or so).
They've been banned on LW and practically all in-person things for like 5+ years now. My guess is the reason why they hung around the rationality community this much years ago is just that it's a community with much higher openness to people and ideas than normal, especially in the Bay Area. IMO in this instance that was quite bad and they should have been kicked out earlier than they did end up getting kicked out (which was like 4 years ago or so).
I don't understand how the police encountered a bail-skipping presumed dead person at a crime scene and just let them go.
This summary doc, "The Zizian Facts", is another collection of relevant information from various sources (including recent events):
https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1RpAvd5TO5eMhJrdr2kz4...
https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1RpAvd5TO5eMhJrdr2kz4...
The HN title added the word "rationalist", which isn't in the source article. This is editorializing in a way that feels kind of slander-y. Their relationship to the bay area rationalist community is that we kicked them out long before any of this started.
It does appear in the article.
> The group is a radical offshoot of the Rationalism movement, focusing on matters such as veganism and artificial intelligence destroying humanity.
You yourself seem to acknowledge this as a fact.
> The group is a radical offshoot of the Rationalism movement, focusing on matters such as veganism and artificial intelligence destroying humanity.
You yourself seem to acknowledge this as a fact.
Can you tell us more about how they were kicked out? Are there other groups that have been kicked out?
I mean, they seemed kind of visibly crazy, often saying threatening things to others, talking about doing crazy experiments with their sleep, often insinuating violence. They were pretty solidly banned from the community after their crazy "CFAR Alumni Reunion" protest stunt, and before then were already very far into the fringes.
In addition to the tragedy of the killings, I worry that this will give rationalism _as a concept_ a bad name. Deep thought is so important to progress, and already is somewhat stigmatized. My church underwent a nasty split when I was a kid, and the reason I heard was “pastor Bobby read too many books”. Obviously it wasn’t as simple as that, but the message was clear — don’t read too many books. I suspect this will interpreted similarly.
It feels that our world has a resurgence of anti-intellectual, anti-science, anti-data, etc movements. I hate that.
It feels that our world has a resurgence of anti-intellectual, anti-science, anti-data, etc movements. I hate that.
> ...our world has a resurgence of anti-intellectual...
That's the US, not the world. There has always been an anti-intellectual strain in American culture.
That's the US, not the world. There has always been an anti-intellectual strain in American culture.
I believe Stalin's purges included intellectuals as a group.
Mao's hundred flowers thing was a purge of people who dared think they knew better than him.
Or for current popular things, the US is far from alone in seeing the electorate reject the standard academic position on national borders.
Mao's hundred flowers thing was a purge of people who dared think they knew better than him.
Or for current popular things, the US is far from alone in seeing the electorate reject the standard academic position on national borders.
Pol Pot tried to kill anyone who wore glasses, and Boko Haram are literally named after anti-intellectualism.
The fact that you can make a cult of the Rationalist movement is truly a testament to the fact that some humans are able to turn anything into a cult
If anything, the reading I have done (mostly SSC and LW) have made me less radical and much much more humble
If anything, the reading I have done (mostly SSC and LW) have made me less radical and much much more humble
Rationalism has a number of characteristics typical of cults.
1. Apocalyptic world view.
2. Charismatic and/or exploitative leader.
3. Insularity.
4. Esoteric jargon.
5. Lack of transparency or accountability (often about finances or governance).
6. Communal living arrangements.
7. Sexual mores outside social norms, especially around the leader.
8. Schismatic offshoots.
9. Outsized appeal and/or outreach to the socially vulnerable.
1. Apocalyptic world view.
2. Charismatic and/or exploitative leader.
3. Insularity.
4. Esoteric jargon.
5. Lack of transparency or accountability (often about finances or governance).
6. Communal living arrangements.
7. Sexual mores outside social norms, especially around the leader.
8. Schismatic offshoots.
9. Outsized appeal and/or outreach to the socially vulnerable.
Sadly rationalism is a movement where it's easy for someone who doesn't understand to wrap their desires in "rationality" and carry them out without any moral guilt.
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 somebody in know weigh in?
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalism#History
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalism#History
You're correct. Those communities heavily overlap.
Take, for example, 80,000 Hours, among the more prominent EA organizations. Their top donors (https://80000hours.org/about/donors/) include:
- SBF and Alameda Research (you probably knew this),
- the Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative, founded (https://www.existence.org/team) by the same guy who founded CFAR (the Center for Applied Rationality, a major rationalist organization)
- the "EA infrastructure fund", whose own team page (https://funds.effectivealtruism.org/team) contains the "project lead for LessWrong.com, where he tries to build infrastructure for making intellectual progress on global catastrophic risks"
- the "long-term future fund", largely AI x-risk focused
and so on.
Take, for example, 80,000 Hours, among the more prominent EA organizations. Their top donors (https://80000hours.org/about/donors/) include:
- SBF and Alameda Research (you probably knew this),
- the Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative, founded (https://www.existence.org/team) by the same guy who founded CFAR (the Center for Applied Rationality, a major rationalist organization)
- the "EA infrastructure fund", whose own team page (https://funds.effectivealtruism.org/team) contains the "project lead for LessWrong.com, where he tries to build infrastructure for making intellectual progress on global catastrophic risks"
- the "long-term future fund", largely AI x-risk focused
and so on.
It bothers me also how the word “rationalist” suddenly means the LW crowd, while I keep thinking Leibniz
Their sneers are longer than their memories
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Rationalism is simply an error. The thing being referred to here is "LessWrong-style rationality", which is fundamentally in the empirical, not rational school. People calling it rationalism are simply confused because the words sound similar.
(Of course, the actual thing is more closely "Zizian style cultish insanity", which honestly has very very little to do with LessWrong style rationality either.)
(Of course, the actual thing is more closely "Zizian style cultish insanity", which honestly has very very little to do with LessWrong style rationality either.)
Thet're virtually identical. Seven chapter history: https://aiascendant.substack.com/p/extropias-children-chapte...
[deleted]
Just like HN grew around the writing of Paul Graham, the "rationalist community" grew around the writings of Eliezer Yudkowsky. Similar to how Paul Graham no longer participates on HN, Eliezer rarely participates on http://lesswrong.com anymore, and the benevolent dictator for life of lesswrong.com is someone other than Eliezer.
Eliezer's career has always been centered around AI. At first Eliezer was wholly optimistic about AI progress. In fact, in the 1990s, I would say that Eliezer was the loudest voice advocating for the development of AI technology that would greatly exceed human cognitive capabilities. "Intentionally causing a technological singularity," was the way he phrased it in the 1990s IIRC. (Later "singularity" would be replaced by "intelligence explosion".)
From 2001 to 2004 he started to believe that AI has a strong tendency to become very dangerous once it starts exceeding the human level of cognitive capabilities. Still, he hoped that before AI starts exceeding human capabilities, he and his organization could develop a methodology to keep it safe. As part of that effort, he coined the term "alignment". The meaning of the term has broadened drastically: when Eliezer coined it, he meant the creation of an AI that stays aligned with human values and human preferences even as its capabilities greatly exceed human capabilities. In contrast, these days, when you see the phrase "aligned AI", it is usually being applied to an AI system that is not a threat to people only because it's not cognitively capable enough to dis-empower human civilization.
By the end of 2015, Eliezer had lost most of the hope he initially had for the alignment project in part because of conversations he had with Elon Musk and Sam Altman at an AGI conference in Puerto Rico followed by Elon and Sam's actions later that year, which actions included the founding of OpenAI. Eliezer still considers the alignment problem solvable in principle if a sufficiently-smart and sufficiently-careful team attacks it, but considers it extremely unlikely any team will manage a solution before the AI labs cause human extinction.
In April 2022 he went public with his despair and announced that his organization (MIRI) will cease technical work on the alignment project and will focus on lobbying the governments of the world to ban AI (or at least the deep-learning paradigm, which he considers too hard to align) before it is too late.
The rationalist movement began in November 2006 when Eliezer began posting daily about human rationality on overcomingbias.com. (The community moved to lesswrong.com in 2009, at which time overcomingbias.com became the personal blog of Robin Hanson.) The rationalist movement was always seen by Eliezer as secondary to the AI-alignment enterprise. Specifically, Eliezer hoped that by explaining to people how to become more rational, he could increase the number of people who are capable of realizing that AI research was a potent threat to human survival.
To help advance this secondary project, the Center for Applied Rationality (CFAR) was founded as a non-profit in 2012. Eliezer is neither an employee nor a member of the board of this CFAR. He is employed by and on the board of the non-profit Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI) which was founded in 2000 as the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence.
I stress that believing that AI research is dangerous has never been a requirement for posting on lesswrong.com or for participating in workshops run by CFAR.
Effective altruism (EA) has separate roots, but the two communities have become close over the years, and EA organizations have donated millions to MIRI.
Eliezer's career has always been centered around AI. At first Eliezer was wholly optimistic about AI progress. In fact, in the 1990s, I would say that Eliezer was the loudest voice advocating for the development of AI technology that would greatly exceed human cognitive capabilities. "Intentionally causing a technological singularity," was the way he phrased it in the 1990s IIRC. (Later "singularity" would be replaced by "intelligence explosion".)
From 2001 to 2004 he started to believe that AI has a strong tendency to become very dangerous once it starts exceeding the human level of cognitive capabilities. Still, he hoped that before AI starts exceeding human capabilities, he and his organization could develop a methodology to keep it safe. As part of that effort, he coined the term "alignment". The meaning of the term has broadened drastically: when Eliezer coined it, he meant the creation of an AI that stays aligned with human values and human preferences even as its capabilities greatly exceed human capabilities. In contrast, these days, when you see the phrase "aligned AI", it is usually being applied to an AI system that is not a threat to people only because it's not cognitively capable enough to dis-empower human civilization.
By the end of 2015, Eliezer had lost most of the hope he initially had for the alignment project in part because of conversations he had with Elon Musk and Sam Altman at an AGI conference in Puerto Rico followed by Elon and Sam's actions later that year, which actions included the founding of OpenAI. Eliezer still considers the alignment problem solvable in principle if a sufficiently-smart and sufficiently-careful team attacks it, but considers it extremely unlikely any team will manage a solution before the AI labs cause human extinction.
In April 2022 he went public with his despair and announced that his organization (MIRI) will cease technical work on the alignment project and will focus on lobbying the governments of the world to ban AI (or at least the deep-learning paradigm, which he considers too hard to align) before it is too late.
The rationalist movement began in November 2006 when Eliezer began posting daily about human rationality on overcomingbias.com. (The community moved to lesswrong.com in 2009, at which time overcomingbias.com became the personal blog of Robin Hanson.) The rationalist movement was always seen by Eliezer as secondary to the AI-alignment enterprise. Specifically, Eliezer hoped that by explaining to people how to become more rational, he could increase the number of people who are capable of realizing that AI research was a potent threat to human survival.
To help advance this secondary project, the Center for Applied Rationality (CFAR) was founded as a non-profit in 2012. Eliezer is neither an employee nor a member of the board of this CFAR. He is employed by and on the board of the non-profit Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI) which was founded in 2000 as the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence.
I stress that believing that AI research is dangerous has never been a requirement for posting on lesswrong.com or for participating in workshops run by CFAR.
Effective altruism (EA) has separate roots, but the two communities have become close over the years, and EA organizations have donated millions to MIRI.
What puzzles me about Eliezer Yudkowsky is this:
He has no formal education. He hasn't produced anything in the actual AI field, ever, except his very general thoughts (first that it would come, then about alignment and doomsday scenarios).
He isn't an AI researcher except he created an institution that says he is one, kind of as if I created a club and declared myself president of that club.
He has no credentials (that aren't made up), isn't acknowledged by real AI researchers or scientists, and shows no accomplishments in the field.
His actual verifiable accomplishments seem to be having written fan fiction about Harry Potter that was well received online, and also some (dodgy) explanations of Bayes, a topic that he is bizarrely obsessed with. Apparently learning Bayes in a statistics class, where normal people learn it, isn't enough -- he had to make something mystical out of it.
Why does anyone care what EY has to say? He's just an internet celebrity for nerds.
He has no formal education. He hasn't produced anything in the actual AI field, ever, except his very general thoughts (first that it would come, then about alignment and doomsday scenarios).
He isn't an AI researcher except he created an institution that says he is one, kind of as if I created a club and declared myself president of that club.
He has no credentials (that aren't made up), isn't acknowledged by real AI researchers or scientists, and shows no accomplishments in the field.
His actual verifiable accomplishments seem to be having written fan fiction about Harry Potter that was well received online, and also some (dodgy) explanations of Bayes, a topic that he is bizarrely obsessed with. Apparently learning Bayes in a statistics class, where normal people learn it, isn't enough -- he had to make something mystical out of it.
Why does anyone care what EY has to say? He's just an internet celebrity for nerds.
It is true that he has no academic credentials, but people with academic credentials have been employed on the research program led by him: Andrew Critch for example, who has a PhD in math from UC Berkeley, and Jesse Liptrap who also has a math PhD from a prestigious department although I cannot recall which one.
Also, this page lists 3 ex-Googlers as being currently employed by Eliezer's org: https://intelligence.org/team/
Nisan Steinnon who worked for Google also did some research work for the Eliezer's org.
Also, this page lists 3 ex-Googlers as being currently employed by Eliezer's org: https://intelligence.org/team/
Nisan Steinnon who worked for Google also did some research work for the Eliezer's org.
It's not only that he has no academic credentials, he also has no accomplishments in the field. He has no relevant peer reviewed publications (in mainstream venues; of course he publishes stuff under his own institutions. I don't consider those peer reviewed). Even if you're skeptical about academia and only care about practical achievements... Yudkowsky is also not a businessman/engineer who built something. He doesn't actually work with AI, he hasn't built anything tangible, he just speaks about alignment in the most vague terms possible.
At best -- if one is feeling generous -- you could say he is a "philosopher of AI"... and not a very good one, but that's just my opinion.
Eliezer looks to me like a scifi fan who theorizes a lot, instead of a scientist. So why do (some) people pay any credence to his opinions on AI? He's not a subject matter expert!
At best -- if one is feeling generous -- you could say he is a "philosopher of AI"... and not a very good one, but that's just my opinion.
Eliezer looks to me like a scifi fan who theorizes a lot, instead of a scientist. So why do (some) people pay any credence to his opinions on AI? He's not a subject matter expert!
Ok, but hundreds of thousands of people have worked for Google without being experts on AI. Anyone who employs one, doesn't automatically become more credible. If you believe that then I want you to know that this comment was written by an ex-Google employee and thus must be authoritative ;)
Good point! If I could write the comment over again, I'd probably leave out the ex-Googlers. But I thought of another math PhD who was happy to work for Eliezer's institute, Scott Garrabrant. I could probably find more if I did a search of the web.
Math PhDs are also a dime a dozen
Yes, they are, but remember the point I was responding to, namely, Eliezer should be ignored because he has no academic credentials.
Personally I think the lack of actual output in the field is more relevant than the academic credentials.
If you believed (like Eliezer has since about 2003) that AI research is a potent danger, you are not going to do anything to help AI researchers. You are for example, not going to publish any insights you may have that might advance the AI state of the art.
Your comment is like dismissing someone who is opposed to human cloning on the grounds that he hasn't published any papers that advance the enterprise of human cloning and hasn't worked in a cloning lab.
Your comment is like dismissing someone who is opposed to human cloning on the grounds that he hasn't published any papers that advance the enterprise of human cloning and hasn't worked in a cloning lab.
> [...] remember the point I was responding to, namely, Eliezer should be ignored because he has no academic credentials.
That's not the full claim you were responding to.
You were responding to me, and I was arguing that Yudkowsky has no academic credentials, but also no background in the field he claims to be an expert on, he self-publishes and is not peer-reviewed by mainstream AI researchers or the scientific community, and he has no practical AI achievements either.
So it's not just lack of academic credentials, there's also no achievements in the field he claims to research. Both facts together present a damning picture of Yudkowsky.
To be honest he seems like a scifi author who took himself too seriously. He writes scifi, he's not a scientist.
That's not the full claim you were responding to.
You were responding to me, and I was arguing that Yudkowsky has no academic credentials, but also no background in the field he claims to be an expert on, he self-publishes and is not peer-reviewed by mainstream AI researchers or the scientific community, and he has no practical AI achievements either.
So it's not just lack of academic credentials, there's also no achievements in the field he claims to research. Both facts together present a damning picture of Yudkowsky.
To be honest he seems like a scifi author who took himself too seriously. He writes scifi, he's not a scientist.
OK, but other scientists think he is a scientist or an expert on AI. Stephen Wolfram for example sat down recently for a four-hour-long interview about AI with Eliezer, during which Wolfram refers to a previous (in-person) conversation the 2 had and says he hopes the 2 can have another (in-person) conversation in the future:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjH2B_sE_RQ
His book _Rationality: A-Z_ is widely admired including by people you would concede are machine-learning researchers: https://www.lesswrong.com/rationality
Anyway, this thread began as an answer to a question about the community of tens of thousands of people that has no better name than "the rationalists". I didn't want to get in a long conversation about Eliezer though I'm willing to continue to converse about the rationalists or on the proposition that AI is a potent extinction risk, which proposition is taken seriously by many people besides just Eliezer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjH2B_sE_RQ
His book _Rationality: A-Z_ is widely admired including by people you would concede are machine-learning researchers: https://www.lesswrong.com/rationality
Anyway, this thread began as an answer to a question about the community of tens of thousands of people that has no better name than "the rationalists". I didn't want to get in a long conversation about Eliezer though I'm willing to continue to converse about the rationalists or on the proposition that AI is a potent extinction risk, which proposition is taken seriously by many people besides just Eliezer.
He’s basically a PR person for OpenAI and Anthropic, the latter of which is fucking deep in with these long-termer creeps.
He was writing fan fiction and creepy torture shit one for ages until there was big money in influencing public policy on AI.
He was writing fan fiction and creepy torture shit one for ages until there was big money in influencing public policy on AI.
He has received a salary for working on AI since 2000 (having the title "research fellow"). In contrast, he didn't start publishing his Harry Potter fan-fiction till 2010. I seem to recall his publishing a few sci-fi short stories before then, but his non-fiction public written output has always greatly exceeded his fiction output until a few years ago after he became semi-retired due to chronic health problems.
>He’s basically a PR person for OpenAI and Anthropic
How in the world did you arrive at that belief? If it was up to him, OpenAI and Anthropic would be shut down tomorrow and their assets returned to shareholders.
Since 2004 or so, he has been of the view that most research in AI is dangerous and counterproductive and he has not been shy about saying so at length in public, e.g., getting a piece published in Time Magazine a few years ago opining that the US government should shut down all AI labs and start pressuring China and other countries to shut down the labs there.
>He’s basically a PR person for OpenAI and Anthropic
How in the world did you arrive at that belief? If it was up to him, OpenAI and Anthropic would be shut down tomorrow and their assets returned to shareholders.
Since 2004 or so, he has been of the view that most research in AI is dangerous and counterproductive and he has not been shy about saying so at length in public, e.g., getting a piece published in Time Magazine a few years ago opining that the US government should shut down all AI labs and start pressuring China and other countries to shut down the labs there.
> He has received a salary for working on AI since 2000 (having the title "research fellow")
He is a "research fellow" in an institution he created, MIRI, outside the actual AI research community (or any scientific community, for that matter). This is like creating a club and calling yourself the president. I mean, as an accomplishment it's very suspect.
As for his publications, most are self-published and very "soft" (on alignment, ethics of AI, etc). What are his bona fide AI works? What makes him a "researcher", what did he actually research, how/when was it reviewed by peers (non-MIRI adjacent peers) and how is it different to just publishing blog posts on the internet?
On what does he base his AI doomsday predictions? Which models, which assumptions? What makes him different to any scifi geek who's read and watched scifi fiction about apocalyptic scenarios?
He is a "research fellow" in an institution he created, MIRI, outside the actual AI research community (or any scientific community, for that matter). This is like creating a club and calling yourself the president. I mean, as an accomplishment it's very suspect.
As for his publications, most are self-published and very "soft" (on alignment, ethics of AI, etc). What are his bona fide AI works? What makes him a "researcher", what did he actually research, how/when was it reviewed by peers (non-MIRI adjacent peers) and how is it different to just publishing blog posts on the internet?
On what does he base his AI doomsday predictions? Which models, which assumptions? What makes him different to any scifi geek who's read and watched scifi fiction about apocalyptic scenarios?
A great example of superficially smart people creating echo chambers which then turn sour, but they can't escape. There's a very good reason that, "Buying your own press" is a cliched pejorative, and this is an extreme end of that. More generally it's just a depressing example of how rationalism in the LW sense has become a sort of cult-of-cults, with the same old existential dread packaged in a new "rational" form. No god here, just really unstable people.
My explanation for why Eliezer went from vocal AI optimist to AI pessimist is that he became more knowledgeable about AI. What is your explanation?
I've seen the explanation that AI pessimism helped Eliezer attract donations, but that does not work because his biggest donor when he started going public with his pessimism (2003 through 2006) was Peter Theil, who responded to his turn to pessimism by refusing to continue to donate (except for donations earmarked for studying the societal effects of AI, which is not the object of Eliezer's pessimism and not something Eliezer particularly wanted to study).
I suspect that most of the accusations to the effect that MIRI or Less Wrong is a cult are lazy ad-hominems by people who have a personal interest in the AI industry or an ideological attachment to technological progress.
I've seen the explanation that AI pessimism helped Eliezer attract donations, but that does not work because his biggest donor when he started going public with his pessimism (2003 through 2006) was Peter Theil, who responded to his turn to pessimism by refusing to continue to donate (except for donations earmarked for studying the societal effects of AI, which is not the object of Eliezer's pessimism and not something Eliezer particularly wanted to study).
I suspect that most of the accusations to the effect that MIRI or Less Wrong is a cult are lazy ad-hominems by people who have a personal interest in the AI industry or an ideological attachment to technological progress.
correct. there isnt a single well founded argument to dismiss AI alarmism. people are very attached to the idea that more technology is invariably better. and they are very reluctant to saddle themselves with the emotional burden of seeing whats right in front of them.
> there isnt a single well founded argument to dismiss AI alarmism.
I don't think that's entirely true. A well-founded argument against AI alarmism is that, from a cosmic perspective, human survival is not inherently more important than the emergence of AGI. AI alarmism is fundamentally a humanistic position: it frames AGI as a potential existential threat and calls for defensive measures. While that perspective is valid, it's also self-centered. Some might argue that AGI could be a natural or even beneficial step for intelligence beyond humanity. To be clear, I’m not saying one shouldn’t be humanistic, but in the context of a rationalist discussion, it's worth recognizing that AI alarmism is rooted in self-preservation rather than an absolute, objective necessity. I know this starts to sound like sci-fi, but it's a perspective worth considering.
I don't think that's entirely true. A well-founded argument against AI alarmism is that, from a cosmic perspective, human survival is not inherently more important than the emergence of AGI. AI alarmism is fundamentally a humanistic position: it frames AGI as a potential existential threat and calls for defensive measures. While that perspective is valid, it's also self-centered. Some might argue that AGI could be a natural or even beneficial step for intelligence beyond humanity. To be clear, I’m not saying one shouldn’t be humanistic, but in the context of a rationalist discussion, it's worth recognizing that AI alarmism is rooted in self-preservation rather than an absolute, objective necessity. I know this starts to sound like sci-fi, but it's a perspective worth considering.
the discussion is about what will happen, not the value of human life. even if human life is worthless, my predictions about the outcome of AI are correct and theirs are not
> What is your explanation?
A combination of a psychological break when his sibling died and that being a doomsayer brought him a lot more more money, power, and worship per unit of effort and particularly per unit of meaningful work-like effort.
It's a lot easier to be a doomsayer bullshiter than other kinds of bullshitters, the fomer just screams stop the latter is expected to accomplish something now and again.
A combination of a psychological break when his sibling died and that being a doomsayer brought him a lot more more money, power, and worship per unit of effort and particularly per unit of meaningful work-like effort.
It's a lot easier to be a doomsayer bullshiter than other kinds of bullshitters, the fomer just screams stop the latter is expected to accomplish something now and again.
>being a doomsayer brought him a lot more more money, power, and worship per unit of effort
I thought someone would bring that up, so I attempted to head it off in the second paragraph of this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42904625
He was already getting enough donations and attention from being an AI booster, enough to pay himself and pay a research team, so why would he suddenly start spouting AI doom before he had any way of knowing that doomsaying would also bring in donations? (There were no AI doomsayers that Eliezer could learn that from when Eliezer started his AI doomsaying: Bill Joy wrote an article in 2000, but never followed it up by asking for donations.)
Actually, my guess is that doomsaying never did bring in as much as AI boosterism: his org is still living off of donations made many years ago by crypto investors and crypto founders, who don't strike me as the doom-fearing type: I suspect they had fond memories of him from his optimistic AI-boosterism days and just didn't read his most recent writings before they donated.
I thought someone would bring that up, so I attempted to head it off in the second paragraph of this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42904625
He was already getting enough donations and attention from being an AI booster, enough to pay himself and pay a research team, so why would he suddenly start spouting AI doom before he had any way of knowing that doomsaying would also bring in donations? (There were no AI doomsayers that Eliezer could learn that from when Eliezer started his AI doomsaying: Bill Joy wrote an article in 2000, but never followed it up by asking for donations.)
Actually, my guess is that doomsaying never did bring in as much as AI boosterism: his org is still living off of donations made many years ago by crypto investors and crypto founders, who don't strike me as the doom-fearing type: I suspect they had fond memories of him from his optimistic AI-boosterism days and just didn't read his most recent writings before they donated.
> My explanation for why Eliezer went from vocal AI optimist to AI pessimist is that he became more knowledgeable about AI. What is your explanation?
He spoke to businessmen posing as experts, became increasingly self-referential, and frankly the quasi-religious subtext became text.
He spoke to businessmen posing as experts, became increasingly self-referential, and frankly the quasi-religious subtext became text.
Businessmen like Elon and Sam Altman, you mean?
The very ones, both of them had and have every reason to hype AI as much as possible, and still do for that matter. Altman in particular seems to relish the use of the "oh no what I'm making is so scary, it's even scaring me" fundraising method.
Eliezer was hyping AI back in the 1990s though. Really really hyping it. And by the time of the conversations with Sam and Elon in 2015, he had been employed full time as an AI researcher for 15 years.
Here is an example (written in year 2000) of Eliezer's hyping of AI:
>The Singularity holds out the possibility of winning the Grand Prize, the true Utopia, the best-of-all-possible-worlds - not just freedom from pain and stress or a sterile round of endless physical pleasures, but the prospect of endless growth for every human being - growth in mind, in intelligence, in strength of personality; life without bound, without end; experiencing everything we've dreamed of experiencing, becoming everything we've ever dreamed of being; not for a billion years, or ten-to-the-billionth years, but forever... or perhaps embarking together on some still greater adventure of which we cannot even conceive. That's the Apotheosis. If any utopia, any destiny, any happy ending is possible for the human species, it lies in the Singularity. There is no evil I have to accept because "there's nothing I can do about it". There is no abused child, no oppressed peasant, no starving beggar, no crack-addicted infant, no cancer patient, literally no one that I cannot look squarely in the eye. I'm working to save everybody, heal the planet, solve all the problems of the world.
http://web.archive.org/web/20010204095500/http://sysopmind.c...
Another example (written in 2001):
>The Plan to Singularity ("PtS" for short) is an attempt to describe the technologies and efforts needed to move from the current (2000) state of the world to the Singularity; that is, the technological creation of a smarter-than-human intelligence. The method assumed by this document is a seed AI, or self-improving Artificial Intelligence, which will successfully enhance itself to the level where it can decide what to do next.
>PtS is an interventionist timeline; that is, I am not projecting the course of the future, but describing how to change it. I believe the target date for the completion of the project should be set at 2010, with 2005 being preferable; again, this is not the most likely date, but is the probable deadline for beating other, more destructive technologies into play. (It is equally possible that progress in AI and nanotech will run at a more relaxed rate, rather than developing in "Internet time". We can't count on finishing by 2005. We also can't count on delaying until 2020.)
http://web.archive.org/web/20010213215810/http://sysopmind.c...
No longer is he hyping AI though: he's trying to get it shut down till (many decades from now) we become wise enough to handle it without killing ourselves.
Here is an example (written in year 2000) of Eliezer's hyping of AI:
>The Singularity holds out the possibility of winning the Grand Prize, the true Utopia, the best-of-all-possible-worlds - not just freedom from pain and stress or a sterile round of endless physical pleasures, but the prospect of endless growth for every human being - growth in mind, in intelligence, in strength of personality; life without bound, without end; experiencing everything we've dreamed of experiencing, becoming everything we've ever dreamed of being; not for a billion years, or ten-to-the-billionth years, but forever... or perhaps embarking together on some still greater adventure of which we cannot even conceive. That's the Apotheosis. If any utopia, any destiny, any happy ending is possible for the human species, it lies in the Singularity. There is no evil I have to accept because "there's nothing I can do about it". There is no abused child, no oppressed peasant, no starving beggar, no crack-addicted infant, no cancer patient, literally no one that I cannot look squarely in the eye. I'm working to save everybody, heal the planet, solve all the problems of the world.
http://web.archive.org/web/20010204095500/http://sysopmind.c...
Another example (written in 2001):
>The Plan to Singularity ("PtS" for short) is an attempt to describe the technologies and efforts needed to move from the current (2000) state of the world to the Singularity; that is, the technological creation of a smarter-than-human intelligence. The method assumed by this document is a seed AI, or self-improving Artificial Intelligence, which will successfully enhance itself to the level where it can decide what to do next.
>PtS is an interventionist timeline; that is, I am not projecting the course of the future, but describing how to change it. I believe the target date for the completion of the project should be set at 2010, with 2005 being preferable; again, this is not the most likely date, but is the probable deadline for beating other, more destructive technologies into play. (It is equally possible that progress in AI and nanotech will run at a more relaxed rate, rather than developing in "Internet time". We can't count on finishing by 2005. We also can't count on delaying until 2020.)
http://web.archive.org/web/20010213215810/http://sysopmind.c...
No longer is he hyping AI though: he's trying to get it shut down till (many decades from now) we become wise enough to handle it without killing ourselves.
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 whatever you'd do with it" crowd -- the fact that it was a castle shouldn't be relevant.
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 whatever you'd do with it" crowd -- the fact that it was a castle shouldn't be relevant.
Nobody wants castles anymore because they’re impractical and difficult to maintain. It’s not some sort of taboo or psychological block, it’s entirely practical.
Actually, the fact that people think castles are cool suggests that the going price for them is higher than their concrete utility would make it, since demand would be boosted by people who want a castle because it’s cool.
Did these guys have some special use case where it made sense, or did they think they were the only ones smart enough to see that it’s actually worth buying?
Actually, the fact that people think castles are cool suggests that the going price for them is higher than their concrete utility would make it, since demand would be boosted by people who want a castle because it’s cool.
Did these guys have some special use case where it made sense, or did they think they were the only ones smart enough to see that it’s actually worth buying?
> That castle was found to be more cost-effective than any other space the group could have purchased
In other words, they investigated themselves and cleared themselves of any wrongdoing.
It was obvious at the time that they didn't need a 20 million dollar castle for a meeting space, let alone any other meeting space that large.
They also put the castle up for sale 2 years later to "use the proceeds from the sale to support high-impact charities" which was what they were supposed to be doing all along.
In other words, they investigated themselves and cleared themselves of any wrongdoing.
It was obvious at the time that they didn't need a 20 million dollar castle for a meeting space, let alone any other meeting space that large.
They also put the castle up for sale 2 years later to "use the proceeds from the sale to support high-impact charities" which was what they were supposed to be doing all along.
The depressing part is that the "optics" of buying a castle are pretty good if you care about attracting interest from elite "respectable" donors, who might just look down on you if you give off the impression of being a bunch of socially inept geeks who are just obsessed with doing the most good they can for the world at large.
Both are factual, the longer statement has more nuance, which is unsurprising. If the emphasis on the castle and SBF - out of all the things and people you could highlight about EA - concisely gives away that I have a negative opinion of it then that was intended. I view SBF as an unsurprising, if extreme, consequence of that kind of thinking. I have a harder time making any sense of the OP story in this context, that's why I was seeking clarification here.
The irony of pure rationalists buying a castle, unable to see what every other market participant can.
Why buy a conference space. Most pubs will give you a seperate room if you promise to spend some money at the bar. There are probably free spaces had they researched.
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.
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.
Somewhere between “once a year” conferences hosted at hotels and the continual conferences of a university lies the point where buying a building makes sense.
The biggest downside, of course, is all your conferences are now in the same location
The biggest downside, of course, is all your conferences are now in the same location
I'd love to see the logic they used to determine the castle was the best option.
Optics are an important part of being effective
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Wow. Didn't they learn about ecosystems at school. And who says they are suffering?
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On the fringes of the rationalist community, there are obviously questionable figures who may be playing an evil game (Bankman Fried) or have lost their way intellectually and morally.
My impression from occasional visits to astral codex ten, however, is that the vast majority of people are reasonable and sometimes succeed to make the world a better place.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
My impression from occasional visits to astral codex ten, however, is that the vast majority of people are reasonable and sometimes succeed to make the world a better place.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
> My impression from occasional visits to astral codex ten, however, is that the vast majority of people are reasonable and sometimes succeed to make the world a better place.
This is a blog that for the last several months had a vigorous ongoing debate about whether or not shoplifters should be subject to capital punishment.
'Reasonable' is not the word I would choose.
This is a blog that for the last several months had a vigorous ongoing debate about whether or not shoplifters should be subject to capital punishment.
'Reasonable' is not the word I would choose.
Scott Alexander writes very well, perhaps he is blinding me.
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/in-continued-defense-of-eff...
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/in-continued-defense-of-eff...
> My impression from occasional visits to astral codex ten, however, is that the vast majority of people are reasonable and sometimes succeed to make the world a better place.
The rationalist bloggers are very good at optics and carefully distance themselves from the fringes at the surface. They have a somewhat circular definition of rationalism that defines rationalists as being reasonable, which makes it easy to create post facto rationalizations that anyone who ends up on the wrong side of public opinion was actually not part of their tribe, rewriting any history.
The more uncomfortable topics are generally masked in coded language or carefully split off into isolated subforums for plausible deniability. Slate Star Codex (Astral Codex Ten’s precursor) had a “culture war thread” for years that was well known to contain a lot of very toxic positions dressed up in rationalist style language. Around 2019 they realized how much of a problem it was and split it into a separate forum (“The Motte”) for distance and plausible deniability. The Motte was a wild place where you could find people pushing things like holocaust denial or stolen election theories but wrapped up in rationalist language (I remember phrases “questions about orthodox holocaust narratives” instead of outright denial)
There’s also a long history of Slate Star Codex engaging with neoreactionary content over and over again and flirting with neoreactionary ideas in a classic rationalist “what if they’re actually right” context for plausible deniability. There have been some leaked emails from Scott revealing his engagement with the topic and it’s been an ongoing point of confusion for followers for years (See https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/9xm2p8/why_... )
The history of rationalist blogs and communities is largely lost on people who only occasionally visit the blogs and enjoy the writing style. There is a long history of some very unsavory topics not only being discussed, but given the benefit of the doubt or even upvotes. These are harder to associate with the main blogs since the 2019 split of contentious topics into “The Motte” side forum, but anyone around the community long enough remembers the ever-present weirdness of things like this Reddit thread on /r/SlateStarCodex preaches white nationalism and gets nearly 50 upvotes (in 2014): https://web.archive.org/web/20180912215243/https://www.reddi...
The rationalist bloggers are very good at optics and carefully distance themselves from the fringes at the surface. They have a somewhat circular definition of rationalism that defines rationalists as being reasonable, which makes it easy to create post facto rationalizations that anyone who ends up on the wrong side of public opinion was actually not part of their tribe, rewriting any history.
The more uncomfortable topics are generally masked in coded language or carefully split off into isolated subforums for plausible deniability. Slate Star Codex (Astral Codex Ten’s precursor) had a “culture war thread” for years that was well known to contain a lot of very toxic positions dressed up in rationalist style language. Around 2019 they realized how much of a problem it was and split it into a separate forum (“The Motte”) for distance and plausible deniability. The Motte was a wild place where you could find people pushing things like holocaust denial or stolen election theories but wrapped up in rationalist language (I remember phrases “questions about orthodox holocaust narratives” instead of outright denial)
There’s also a long history of Slate Star Codex engaging with neoreactionary content over and over again and flirting with neoreactionary ideas in a classic rationalist “what if they’re actually right” context for plausible deniability. There have been some leaked emails from Scott revealing his engagement with the topic and it’s been an ongoing point of confusion for followers for years (See https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/9xm2p8/why_... )
The history of rationalist blogs and communities is largely lost on people who only occasionally visit the blogs and enjoy the writing style. There is a long history of some very unsavory topics not only being discussed, but given the benefit of the doubt or even upvotes. These are harder to associate with the main blogs since the 2019 split of contentious topics into “The Motte” side forum, but anyone around the community long enough remembers the ever-present weirdness of things like this Reddit thread on /r/SlateStarCodex preaches white nationalism and gets nearly 50 upvotes (in 2014): https://web.archive.org/web/20180912215243/https://www.reddi...
Reading a couple SSC posts for the first time here myself, so my impression is fairly limited, but it sounds like you might be blaming SSC unfairly for simply intellectually engaging with reactionary ideas, which I can't fault someone for, and nor should you.
Can you link to some specific examples which more explicitly have the "What if they're right?" subtext you're referring to?
Can you link to some specific examples which more explicitly have the "What if they're right?" subtext you're referring to?
Slate Star Codex's engagement with neoreactionary thought is not exactly a secret. He wrote both "Reactionary philosophy in an enormous, planet-sized nutshell" https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/03/03/reactionary-philosophy... (a sympathetic treatment of these ideas) and "The Anti-Reactionary FAQ" https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/10/20/the-anti-reactionary-f...
There's also plenty of good reasons to be aware of these political ideas, given that, e.g. New Confucianism, which just happens to be quite influential in China is essentially a kind of "Neo-Reaction with Chinese Characteristics". And some people argue that the highly controversial Project 2025 - which seems to be driving policy in the new Trump administration - may be inspired by neo-reactionary ideas.
There's also plenty of good reasons to be aware of these political ideas, given that, e.g. New Confucianism, which just happens to be quite influential in China is essentially a kind of "Neo-Reaction with Chinese Characteristics". And some people argue that the highly controversial Project 2025 - which seems to be driving policy in the new Trump administration - may be inspired by neo-reactionary ideas.
That FAQ was a long and interesting read. Thanks for sharing!
> self-described “vegan Sith” ideology
Had it not been in a serious article I would have believed it had to a parody or a joke of some sort.
“We are just like Darth Maul, but we like salads and drink soy milk instead of regular milk… and then kill people while dressed in tactical black outfits”?
What is even going on? Real life now sounds like some kinda of a broken LLM hallucination.
Had it not been in a serious article I would have believed it had to a parody or a joke of some sort.
“We are just like Darth Maul, but we like salads and drink soy milk instead of regular milk… and then kill people while dressed in tactical black outfits”?
What is even going on? Real life now sounds like some kinda of a broken LLM hallucination.
"Vegan Sith"?
For just one thing, when you have a broken education system and omnipresent media franchises, you have a significant percentage of the population who know more about the Star Wars backstory structure and theories of diet than about history, civics or conventional morality.
For just one thing, when you have a broken education system and omnipresent media franchises, you have a significant percentage of the population who know more about the Star Wars backstory structure and theories of diet than about history, civics or conventional morality.
These kids were very well educated and went to some of high end schools according to the article
Exactly. Oxford isn't exactly the poster child for failed education.
You can still have a great education, but in one direction. And be clueless about everything else.
I am not defending any of this fuckwits, but I don't know that it's much different than any organized religion. All of them are stories that get retold over and over until people accept them on faith. I can envision a world where our stories (movies, books) where history is lost of their creation, become facts. "Of course there was Jedi, we've just forgotten…"
Now, they're all fuckwits, but it's not outside the realm of thought.
(BRB, gonna go start a sci-fi story.)
Now, they're all fuckwits, but it's not outside the realm of thought.
(BRB, gonna go start a sci-fi story.)
A far more likely possibility is that their ideology is actually centered around "Sith who happen to originate from Vega (a.k.a. α Lyrae)", not "Sith who abstain from animal products".
(A residual possibility is "Sith from Las Vegas, Nevada".)
(A residual possibility is "Sith from Las Vegas, Nevada".)
I don't think so. The people specifically are vegan, and their leader believes that future AI overlords will punish people retroactively for their moral failings. This is reported in some of the other posts on this page.
It's wild, but a view that is is fairly widely discussed in the rationality community, but only taken seriously by Fringe groups.[1]
My question is what Sith meant to them
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roko%27s_basiliskl
It's wild, but a view that is is fairly widely discussed in the rationality community, but only taken seriously by Fringe groups.[1]
My question is what Sith meant to them
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roko%27s_basiliskl
But punishing humans for killing animals isn't a very rational thing to do, is it? Sounds 100% emotional to me, and emotions computers do not have.
I guess if we spew enough of this BS onto the internet, AI could work it from there, but calling that rational doesn't make much sense to me.
I guess if we spew enough of this BS onto the internet, AI could work it from there, but calling that rational doesn't make much sense to me.
It is considered rational because it is meant to motivate people to not kill animals, not punishment for the sake of justice or somesuch.
It's only rational if the point of punishment is deterrence.
Communities are people. They are not definitions.
Apparently, being a Sith meant to Ziz that you should do whatever is in your power and desire to do, without other constraints. If you're "fundamentally good" (a thing she believes in), then what you end up doing will be a kind of maximization of good.
Of course, this is trite pulp nonsense, high-school nerd level philosophy at best.
Of course, this is trite pulp nonsense, high-school nerd level philosophy at best.
Look up Joshua Citarella’s coverage of the ideological milieus that Generation Z cultivated during COVID on platforms like Discord.
And then check out the term “metairony” or “postirony” and this story make more sense…at least as much sense as the absurdity of it all will allow you to make of it.
And then check out the term “metairony” or “postirony” and this story make more sense…at least as much sense as the absurdity of it all will allow you to make of it.
This post came to mind for me
https://moonmetropolis.substack.com/p/antioch-the-first-food...
https://moonmetropolis.substack.com/p/antioch-the-first-food...
We seem to live in a post-ironic moment. Look no further than the Boogaloo Boys. They want to start a second American civil war and are named after the 1984 movie "Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo".
It would be a joke except they've engaged in violent attacks up to and including murder in the service of trying to start that aforementioned civil war. Are they serious or a joke? I think their embrace of a ridiculous name makes them almost more frightening because it shows their contempt for reasonableness, for lack of a better term.
It's comparable to how the Nazi "goose step" march was terrifying precisely because it was so awkward and unnatural. It's like, if these guys are capable of doing this with a straight face, what else are they capable of?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boogaloo_movement
It would be a joke except they've engaged in violent attacks up to and including murder in the service of trying to start that aforementioned civil war. Are they serious or a joke? I think their embrace of a ridiculous name makes them almost more frightening because it shows their contempt for reasonableness, for lack of a better term.
It's comparable to how the Nazi "goose step" march was terrifying precisely because it was so awkward and unnatural. It's like, if these guys are capable of doing this with a straight face, what else are they capable of?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boogaloo_movement
Jokingly referring to something as "<subject_goes_here> 2: Electric Boogaloo" was a very common turn of phrase on certain parts of the internet in the early-mid 2010s. It sounds like a joke because it grew out of a joke.
>almost more frightening because it shows their contempt for reasonableness, for lack of a better term.
I think another way to look at it is willful nonconformance and rejection of mainstream values (and judgement). Not unlike gutter punks dressing the way they did.
I think counter culture has a long history of this, from men wearing their hair long to people dressing up as literal clowns.
I think another way to look at it is willful nonconformance and rejection of mainstream values (and judgement). Not unlike gutter punks dressing the way they did.
I think counter culture has a long history of this, from men wearing their hair long to people dressing up as literal clowns.
people can and do have mental illness. it doesn't absolve them from knowing right from wrong however.
We really need a phrase for "appears to behave normally in regular matters and is capable of independent living, does not match other DSM symptoms, but believes insane things". It's a very common component in mass shootings.
> "appears to behave normally in regular matters and is capable of independent living, does not match other DSM symptoms, but believes insane things"
I have met a lot of people in my life who fit this criteria. Not one of them has gone on to become a mass shooter.
Saying we need a phrase to label people like this in order to _stop mass killings_ sounds crazy to me.
If you really had the option to explore the psyche of everyone to the depth necessary to check for "believes insane things" if we could even agree on what that means, I wouldn't be surprised if the test came back positive on 40-70% of the population. A strict enough test and I think we could get that number to 100%.
Isn't it a meme at this point how people win the nobel prize in one field, and then say some nutty nonsense about a completely different field? The human species is rational, insane, brilliant, stupid, compassionate and vicious, ugly and beautiful all at once. All of us.
More compassion for self and others would be my preference.
I have met a lot of people in my life who fit this criteria. Not one of them has gone on to become a mass shooter.
Saying we need a phrase to label people like this in order to _stop mass killings_ sounds crazy to me.
If you really had the option to explore the psyche of everyone to the depth necessary to check for "believes insane things" if we could even agree on what that means, I wouldn't be surprised if the test came back positive on 40-70% of the population. A strict enough test and I think we could get that number to 100%.
Isn't it a meme at this point how people win the nobel prize in one field, and then say some nutty nonsense about a completely different field? The human species is rational, insane, brilliant, stupid, compassionate and vicious, ugly and beautiful all at once. All of us.
More compassion for self and others would be my preference.
> Not one of them has gone on to become a mass shooter.
No, but with a few friends getting together, cheering them along, and feeding into their collective insanity, they could very easily get together and do something serious. Most of the insurrectionists (the people who invaded Congress, not the people who went home after attending the rally) in Jan 6th can be described as such. That network of 'friends' is critical for actually motivating them to get off their ass and act on their beliefs.
> More compassion for self and others would be my preference.
The problem is that it's much easier to violently destroy, than it is to create, and the damage that a group of angry people who believe an utterly insane thing is disproportionate.
No, but with a few friends getting together, cheering them along, and feeding into their collective insanity, they could very easily get together and do something serious. Most of the insurrectionists (the people who invaded Congress, not the people who went home after attending the rally) in Jan 6th can be described as such. That network of 'friends' is critical for actually motivating them to get off their ass and act on their beliefs.
> More compassion for self and others would be my preference.
The problem is that it's much easier to violently destroy, than it is to create, and the damage that a group of angry people who believe an utterly insane thing is disproportionate.
> Isn't it a meme at this point how people win the nobel prize in one field, and then say some nutty nonsense about a completely different field?
There is a name for that; it's the "Nobel Disease" or "Nobel Syndrome". Sometimes people swap "Nobel" and "MD".
There is a name for that; it's the "Nobel Disease" or "Nobel Syndrome". Sometimes people swap "Nobel" and "MD".
The things they believe are quite possibly internally consistent and not insane at all, just so far outside the overton window of an ordinary person so as to sound insane. Rather, they are the fringes of the fringes of political ideology and in my view the prime cause of falling prey to these is social alienation.
DSM 5 already has this, called "Delusional Disorder":
A. Nonbizarre delusions (i.e., involving situations that occur in real life, such as being followed, poisoned, infected, loved at a distance, or deceived by spouse or lover, or having a disease) of at least 1 month’s duration.
B. Criterion A for schizophrenia has never been met. Note: Hallucinations, if present, are not prominent and are related to the delusion theme (e.g., the sensation of being infested with insects associated with delusions of infestation.
C. Apart from the impact of the delusion(s) or its ramifications, functioning is not markedly impaired and behavior is not obviously odd or bizarre.
[... etc ...]
A. Nonbizarre delusions (i.e., involving situations that occur in real life, such as being followed, poisoned, infected, loved at a distance, or deceived by spouse or lover, or having a disease) of at least 1 month’s duration.
B. Criterion A for schizophrenia has never been met. Note: Hallucinations, if present, are not prominent and are related to the delusion theme (e.g., the sensation of being infested with insects associated with delusions of infestation.
C. Apart from the impact of the delusion(s) or its ramifications, functioning is not markedly impaired and behavior is not obviously odd or bizarre.
[... etc ...]
That would describe everyone who follows a major religion as well.
Am I wrong? Read the quote again:
"appears to behave normally in regular matters and is capable of independent living, does not match other DSM symptoms, but believes insane things".
None of you think the major religions teach some insane things? Okay then.
"appears to behave normally in regular matters and is capable of independent living, does not match other DSM symptoms, but believes insane things".
None of you think the major religions teach some insane things? Okay then.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_cognitive_imperat...
“ Such ridicule typically will not occur after a religious conversion brings a previous non-conformist into the fold of the culture’s dominant religion.”
“ Such ridicule typically will not occur after a religious conversion brings a previous non-conformist into the fold of the culture’s dominant religion.”
What point of mine is that replying to?
"None of you think the major religions teach some insane things? Okay then."
I was on the phone so couldn't type much, but my point is the concept of the collective cognitive imperative (much better explained in the book than in Wikipedia, to be fair) would answer your question by saying "it's not that nobody thinks that: it's that enough people accept those insane things to the point that 1) they don't think they're insane things, 2) you'd be an outsider (or even considered insane) if you point out the fact that they're insane things.
I'll try to give an example that would work in my cultural context (South America): someone making a rain dance during a drought would be considered by most to be something from harmlessly silly to crazy. Someone praying to the christian god for guidance or help would be seen as normal.
I was on the phone so couldn't type much, but my point is the concept of the collective cognitive imperative (much better explained in the book than in Wikipedia, to be fair) would answer your question by saying "it's not that nobody thinks that: it's that enough people accept those insane things to the point that 1) they don't think they're insane things, 2) you'd be an outsider (or even considered insane) if you point out the fact that they're insane things.
I'll try to give an example that would work in my cultural context (South America): someone making a rain dance during a drought would be considered by most to be something from harmlessly silly to crazy. Someone praying to the christian god for guidance or help would be seen as normal.
Care to provide an example?
You’re disputing that major religions ever hold deeply implausible claims as an article of faith? Really?
I mean, if they didn’t, then they probably would be religions, just “stuff everyone believes or has reasoned discussions about”.
Spoiler: they can’t all be right.
I mean, if they didn’t, then they probably would be religions, just “stuff everyone believes or has reasoned discussions about”.
Spoiler: they can’t all be right.
I was trying to understand what you meant by “insane”, but you already moved the goalposts to “implausible”, so it’s not clear to me that you even know what you’re claiming.
However, if I were to take a guess, it’s something like “people sometimes believe things without proof”. But obviously this is not true only of religious people, other people have their own creation stories – the sole difference is their’s don’t involve worship. And I agree they can’t all be right, but perhaps one of them is.
However, if I were to take a guess, it’s something like “people sometimes believe things without proof”. But obviously this is not true only of religious people, other people have their own creation stories – the sole difference is their’s don’t involve worship. And I agree they can’t all be right, but perhaps one of them is.
I didn't move the goal posts; I just used a slightly different word. No offense, but it's ridiculous (sorry, "insane") that I'm dealing with pushback on the point the point that religious believe things that would be considered insane if not labeled as "religion". "There's an all-powerful being that is behind everything... etc." If you're not willing to give any ground on that, then it's not a productive discussion in the first place.
What about the non-religious claim: “There’s not an all-powerful being that is behind everything”? Just as “indefensible”, just as “implausible”, just as “insane”. The sole difference is that it doesn’t involve worship, and therefore categorically isn’t “religious”.
These are axioms, you cannot derive them, you can only derive from them. Saying “my axioms are rational, yours are ‘insane’!” is frankly childish, and speaks to a deep lack of understanding of the essence of reason.
These are axioms, you cannot derive them, you can only derive from them. Saying “my axioms are rational, yours are ‘insane’!” is frankly childish, and speaks to a deep lack of understanding of the essence of reason.
I think diagnosis is mostly made up jargon that doesn’t capture the complexity of the human experience. It is designed to itemize the human experience for bureaucratic consumption. Autism diagnosis gives access to school resources whereas weird child that prefers their own thoughts does not. Schizophrenia lets you lock up people with antisocial beliefs. ADHD lets you medicate away the natural hyperactivity of 7 year olds. Diagnosis is a form of societal control. This is different from modern schema therapy and cognitive behavioural therapy which focus on the individual experiences a person has such as their actions and thought patterns that allows them to disentangle themselves from patterns of behavior that harm them such as paranoid delusions, alcoholism, unhealthy sex, etc. but those things require lots of one on one work with a therapist.
> it doesn't absolve them from knowing right from wrong however
Certain mental conditions absolutely do, in a legal sense. Some conditions onset from brain injury and tumors, some to drug exposure, some are genetic, etc. For those unfortunate few who are afflicted, the most humane outcome is to intervene to keep them away from harming themselves and others, though often they are left unattended to by overstretched mental health services.
Certain mental conditions absolutely do, in a legal sense. Some conditions onset from brain injury and tumors, some to drug exposure, some are genetic, etc. For those unfortunate few who are afflicted, the most humane outcome is to intervene to keep them away from harming themselves and others, though often they are left unattended to by overstretched mental health services.
I totally agree with that, meanwhile I think mnky meant that illness doesn’t necessarily remove all your judgement. You can have totally coherent thinking on a field while being incapable to reason on another. Easy exemple : Math and Empathy, where schizophrenic may excel in the former while lacking the later. Someone affected by trisomy 21 have more chances to get the opposite. <- generalization for illustration purpose, those affections are complex and schizophrenia is a spectrum anyway.
Even for non-Ill-defined, PTS and other trauma or just learnings- can do that to anyone and age doesn’t help to escape the reasoning-habits. Wise are those that can stay free from mental cages.
Even for non-Ill-defined, PTS and other trauma or just learnings- can do that to anyone and age doesn’t help to escape the reasoning-habits. Wise are those that can stay free from mental cages.
Does it really count if the difference is "be removed from society for a while by being sent to prison" vs "be removed from society indefinitely by being sent to inpatient lockup"?
Paranoid delusions related to obsessive compulsive disorders or personality disorders stemming from post traumatic stress rarely seem to qualify insanity pleas except in episodes of law and order even though they can motivate highly irrational and self destructive behaviour.
[deleted]
Since it’s a group so wonder if a group mental illness would make sense. I guess it could work for the court “look how out of touch with reality my client is, sith vegans, clearly they didn’t know what they were doing!”
It was very cult like with Ziz cutting off members from their friends and the internet. And writing long complicated essays that didn’t make sense if you weren’t in the group.
I’m sure the court juge will look further that the funny dichotomy in their brand name. Understanding their motivations for the murders, understanding their motivation to call themselves vegan (perhaps it’s a joke for them too, perhaps they’re really vegan) and their motivation to call themselves sith (I would bet for fun joke but it may be branding : and army of determined warriors, or mental illness if their really believe to be sith - yes human brain can to that).
It’s very easy to find apparent incoherences in humans behavior by selectively picking out and not searching the motivations. This is the base attack for teenagers bullying book.
It’s very easy to find apparent incoherences in humans behavior by selectively picking out and not searching the motivations. This is the base attack for teenagers bullying book.
> I’m sure the court judge will look further that the funny dichotomy in their brand name
Oh sure, and the jury. One can do both - mock murderers and their ridiculous ideology and study it seriously to, perhaps, prevent others from taking the same path. One doesn't preclude the other, though.
To a certain degree I think these group enjoy being taken seriously, being in the news, fawned over, their writings analyzed by people going over their "deep" and "insightful" ideas. So that direction could be playing into their hands to a certain extent. For now, I'll go the "ridicule" path, I think.
Oh sure, and the jury. One can do both - mock murderers and their ridiculous ideology and study it seriously to, perhaps, prevent others from taking the same path. One doesn't preclude the other, though.
To a certain degree I think these group enjoy being taken seriously, being in the news, fawned over, their writings analyzed by people going over their "deep" and "insightful" ideas. So that direction could be playing into their hands to a certain extent. For now, I'll go the "ridicule" path, I think.
Fair points! Both that taking them seriously is probably the direction they aim, and that we shouldn’t forget to have fun and laugh!
(This was originally posted in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42849281, but we merged that thread hither)
People love to fall into these sort of traps where they convince themselves they are fighting for some sort of cause. The more hopeless the better.
What is going on: the internet is letting you know all this shit. Imagine you had a ticker feed of every story amongst the 8bn. That would be a crazy story per millisecond.
Neonlicht(2)
I don't know if these statistics are even kept, but the current social environment in the US feels like a ripe breeding ground for cults. I've had so many people in the past couple years be like "I just want to farm with my friends and family and get away from all this".
It has become a bit of a meme lately. I think there's something to be said about a malaise era leading to an uptick in erratic behavior.
But at the risk of sounding smug and condescending, as someone who actually bought 10 acres "to get away from it all", I get the sense that the type of people in this saga would pack up pretty quick after a little taste. Lesswrongers aren't exactly known for pragmatism, which is sorta the only mindset that works. There's all this work that you don't know you don't know about. I just fell down the rabbit hole of the ziz lore and goddamn do these people sound inept. Like they couldn't even fix their RV to get off their landlord's property. Lots of quasi-intellectual masturbatory posting and not a lot of skills.
All that is to say I'm not super worried about any of these cults really taking off. Logistics remain challenging.
But at the risk of sounding smug and condescending, as someone who actually bought 10 acres "to get away from it all", I get the sense that the type of people in this saga would pack up pretty quick after a little taste. Lesswrongers aren't exactly known for pragmatism, which is sorta the only mindset that works. There's all this work that you don't know you don't know about. I just fell down the rabbit hole of the ziz lore and goddamn do these people sound inept. Like they couldn't even fix their RV to get off their landlord's property. Lots of quasi-intellectual masturbatory posting and not a lot of skills.
All that is to say I'm not super worried about any of these cults really taking off. Logistics remain challenging.
How does a 27-year-old fail to kill an 80-year-old with a samurai sword?
Probably by trying to do it from first principles.
Living in a container, playing with a Samurai sword… Neal we need you to go on TV and tell these people to quit fooling around.
They failed because they didn't fold the glorious Nippon steel themselves.
I'm sure a historian could give a more detailed explanation, but my guess is that:
Once steel meets flesh the Role Play ends and all that's left is Live Action, and to take a life is not a meager task when life as you knew it was a virtual mediation.
Once steel meets flesh the Role Play ends and all that's left is Live Action, and to take a life is not a meager task when life as you knew it was a virtual mediation.
They brought a sword to a gun fight. Presumably they would have killed the landlord on the first go if he hadn't managed to shoot and kill on of the assailants first.
But it seems they went back later and finished the job. (He survived the original attack, only to be subsequently successfully murdered)
But it seems they went back later and finished the job. (He survived the original attack, only to be subsequently successfully murdered)
Most ‘samurai swords’ on the market are barely-functional wall-hangers. And the article describes it as a stabbing. Curved swords are actually quite hard to effectively stab with, so it’s hardly surprising that an untrained user using a poor-quality weapon incorrectly couldn’t cause a lethal wound.
"'He had a samurai sword stuck to his back with about a foot of it sticking out in front, his face cut up all over,' said his friend Patrick McMillan."
https://www.ktvu.com/news/two-held-in-death-of-fellow-squatt...
https://www.ktvu.com/news/two-held-in-death-of-fellow-squatt...
Perhaps they weren't trying?
He knew his Judo well.
Every time I hear about anything related to Effective Altruism, it's because people who believe this stuff have done crimes sufficient to make it in to the news.
Are there other contexts they show up where they are not doing crimes, or really non-normative things?
Are there other contexts they show up where they are not doing crimes, or really non-normative things?
Effective Altruists donate to charities which save lives, etc. They help people to choose effective charities using evidence-based approach, e.g.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GiveWell
But that doesn't get into the news. Saving people is boring. Killing people? That gets the clicks.
Suppose you have 1000 people in the movement. 998 well-adjusted people. 1 is a crook who uses movement as a shield. 1 is insane freak.
Of course, you'll hear about the crook and the freak. Well-adjusted people are not newsworthy.
But that doesn't get into the news. Saving people is boring. Killing people? That gets the clicks.
Suppose you have 1000 people in the movement. 998 well-adjusted people. 1 is a crook who uses movement as a shield. 1 is insane freak.
Of course, you'll hear about the crook and the freak. Well-adjusted people are not newsworthy.
LessWrong always felt culty and weird to me, tbh. It's why I stick to HN for my social discourse. No central personality drives this place. It's the opposite of culty. It can be a bit of an echo chamber, maybe, but that's a different problem.
I’m surprised the killing of the customs officer has gotten so little press. I guess if you want your killing spree in the press, don’t do it in Vermont.
The salacious nature of a group of trans cult members killing people across the country is story made for tabloid insanity. The hooks into Silicon Valley and side-quests about AI overlords etc are frosting on the cake.
The salacious nature of a group of trans cult members killing people across the country is story made for tabloid insanity. The hooks into Silicon Valley and side-quests about AI overlords etc are frosting on the cake.
That murder was the top story on CNN, AP and NPR for about half a day IIRC. It got pushed off because so much happened in other areas nationally. It took about two days for the prosecutors to announce the connections.
Everytime lesswrong or rationalists or Yudkowski or any derivative show up here, I try to read some of the materials around and frankly, I don't understand most of it, it's all so self referential, full of impenetrable jargon and intentionally obtuse. It sounds mentally deranged and cultish. And it turns out that it can one-shot you into a death cult.
Me too, until now.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42904925
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42904925
For related background read the (horrifying) description of Leverage, a “research” institution with links to Zizians: https://medium.com/@zoecurzi/my-experience-with-leverage-res...
There’s an undercurrent of cults and cult-like institutions in the rationalist crowd (think: lesswrong.com folks) and this is one instance of this.
There’s an undercurrent of cults and cult-like institutions in the rationalist crowd (think: lesswrong.com folks) and this is one instance of this.
I think it’s worth discussing the fact that many folks in EA- and rationalist-adjacent circles are deeply panicked about developments in AI, because they believe these systems pose a threat to human existence. (Not all of them, obviously. But a large and extraordinarily well-funded contingent.) The fear I have with these organizations is that eventually panic - in the name of saving humans - leads to violent action. And while this is just a couple of isolated examples, it does illustrate the danger that violent action can become normalized in insular organizations.
I do hope people “on the inside” are aware of this and are working to make sure those organizations don’t have bad ideas that hurt real people.
I do hope people “on the inside” are aware of this and are working to make sure those organizations don’t have bad ideas that hurt real people.
I think this is a variant of Walter Russell Mead's abrahamic bomb [1].
when you remove the theology from Psychology based on Judeo Christian Morality, it recreates it's facsimile In this case, AI judgment Day precedes either eternal damnation or salvation. Ziz, like other "radical rationalists" even believe that the singularity AI will punish people retroactively for their moral failings, such as eating meat.
https://www.hudson.org/domestic-policy/abraham-bomb-walter-r...
when you remove the theology from Psychology based on Judeo Christian Morality, it recreates it's facsimile In this case, AI judgment Day precedes either eternal damnation or salvation. Ziz, like other "radical rationalists" even believe that the singularity AI will punish people retroactively for their moral failings, such as eating meat.
https://www.hudson.org/domestic-policy/abraham-bomb-walter-r...
So my speculation from your comment is the data scientists in the group saw what they were doing up close as leading to something that was anathema to what they wanted the world to be, it seemed like a weird trivial connection in the news article, but in context of violent rejection of AI makes sense.
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/bay-area-death-cult-z...
Scared to click the link!
> focusing on matters such as veganism and artificial intelligence destroying humanity
Not sure if they are proponents of veganism or if they think it will, in addition to AI, destroy humanity.
Not sure if they are proponents of veganism or if they think it will, in addition to AI, destroy humanity.
This title here is editorialized. The original title on the website is
"String of recent killings linked to Bay Area 'death cult'"
No mention of "rationalist".
"String of recent killings linked to Bay Area 'death cult'"
No mention of "rationalist".
But it’s an accurate and useful summary. This group is specifically organized around the principles of veganism and Rationalism.
Ziz clearly doesn't consider himself/herself a "Bay Area rationalist": E.g. he/she uses that term twice here, both times to talk negatively about them:
https://web.archive.org/web/20230531043930/https://sinceriou...
https://web.archive.org/web/20230531043930/https://sinceriou...
Coming soon from Scott Alexander:
Rationalist Death Cult House Party
Well should be pretty easy for the prosecutor, it sounds like, by their own definition, they meet the criteria for rico. Should be able to wrap up every zizian and at least shake them down for a plea.
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 connection to 'Zizian' rationalist group - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42849281
Edit: I guess we can have the current thread be about the recent events and keep https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42897871 for discussing / arguing about the generic aspects. Sorry for the complexity but in this case it appears to be essential not accidental.
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 connection to 'Zizian' rationalist group - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42849281
Edit: I guess we can have the current thread be about the recent events and keep https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42897871 for discussing / arguing about the generic aspects. Sorry for the complexity but in this case it appears to be essential not accidental.
i’ve seen so many posts about this on HN i can’t help but wonder if it’s a recruiting drive…
I'm sure it's just the usual sensationalism, but if there are other recent posts with comments, I'd appreciate links in case it makes sense to merge them.
Edit: incidentally, I hadn't seen anything about it on HN until today. A reminder of how much randomness affects these perceptions.
Edit: incidentally, I hadn't seen anything about it on HN until today. A reminder of how much randomness affects these perceptions.
The submitter of this story inserted 'rationalist' into the title; it's not in the headline and IMO it's calumny. Would you take it back out?
I also inserted “rationalist” into my submission of this story because it’s an accurate description of the group.
HN guidelines: "Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize."
Perhaps you would also describe the Manson family as a Christian death cult.
Perhaps you would also describe the Manson family as a Christian death cult.
Probably not the Manson family, but probably the Branch Dividians. Just like I’d call the Salvation Army a Christian paramilitary.
Sure.
Edit: I think "death cult" is linkbaity though, so I replaced it with "Zizians". I hope that's neutral enough for everybody because I'll be offline soon.
(Replacing a general-sensational term with a proper noun is often a good debaiting trick.)
Edit: I think "death cult" is linkbaity though, so I replaced it with "Zizians". I hope that's neutral enough for everybody because I'll be offline soon.
(Replacing a general-sensational term with a proper noun is often a good debaiting trick.)
Thanks!
Neat term, debaiting -- though I misread it for a moment.
Neat term, debaiting -- though I misread it for a moment.
Transgender technology cult that kills people somehow doesn't seem "rationalist" to me but who am I to judge.
Most religious wars don't seem that Christlike either.
What people preach and what they do often diverge.
What people preach and what they do often diverge.
With religion I think we largely just go with "this is what the group identifies themselves with / as" and leave it as that.
Arguably the politically active "religious right" in the US has long since abandoned most everything Jesus had to offer. We still identify them as such.
Arguably the politically active "religious right" in the US has long since abandoned most everything Jesus had to offer. We still identify them as such.
They self-identify as such.
I call them "anti-Christians" because it's more biblically accurate.
I call them "anti-Christians" because it's more biblically accurate.
The problem with this approach is that there are also parts of the mainstream Christian doctrine (both modern and historical) that don't have Biblical basis, Trinity being one prominent example. One could go further still and reasonably argue that most of mainstream Christianity is basically teachings of Paul rather than Jesus.
And yes, there are also valid arguments against either one of those points. But to meaningfully engage in such a discussion, one needs to be well-versed in theology - more so than the vast majority of people who self-identify and are normally identified as Christians.
And yes, there are also valid arguments against either one of those points. But to meaningfully engage in such a discussion, one needs to be well-versed in theology - more so than the vast majority of people who self-identify and are normally identified as Christians.
Eh, I don't think the "it's all based on Paul" can be a reasonable argument at all. Even when people do argue it, they only ever allege the same 2 points, which even assuming those points are valid would only be a tiny fraction of Christian belief, both theoretically and practically; you don't need theology for this. Of course, to those whose sole exposure to Χianity is Internet arguments this might not be obvious.
The whole focus on "Trinity" is weird but makes a little more sense if you realize it was originally developed to stand against certain heresies, but later mutated (often re-entering those same heresies again). This one is indeed theological ... or perhaps we need a word that is to theology as historiography is to history.
But this is diverging quite far from this thread.
The whole focus on "Trinity" is weird but makes a little more sense if you realize it was originally developed to stand against certain heresies, but later mutated (often re-entering those same heresies again). This one is indeed theological ... or perhaps we need a word that is to theology as historiography is to history.
But this is diverging quite far from this thread.
If you think of the suffix "ist" as a form of negation then it makes sense.
The Zizians were only ever a tiny fraction of lesswrong.com, which gets about 2 million page views per month (according to a site maintainer) -- not as much as HN surely, but not a small web site.
Lesswrong.com has been in operation since 2009 and is closely related to the SL4 mailing list which dates back to 1998 or 1999.
Lesswrong.com has been in operation since 2009 and is closely related to the SL4 mailing list which dates back to 1998 or 1999.
And yet so many cults and politically extreme movements seem to originate out of the LessWrong-o-sphere. Strange, that.
What politically extreme movement do you imagine originated out of Less Wrong?
Eliezer is very idealistic and attracted many idealistic young people. On one or 2 or 3 occasions, some man with sociopathic or narcissistic tendencies on the periphery of the community around Eliezer has taken advantage of some of the idealist young people (which BTW got these one or 2 or 3 men banned from Less Wrong and banned from in-person gatherings).
Eliezer is very idealistic and attracted many idealistic young people. On one or 2 or 3 occasions, some man with sociopathic or narcissistic tendencies on the periphery of the community around Eliezer has taken advantage of some of the idealist young people (which BTW got these one or 2 or 3 men banned from Less Wrong and banned from in-person gatherings).
True Anon just did a great episode on this.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/121111568?utm_campaign=postsha...
https://www.patreon.com/posts/121111568?utm_campaign=postsha...
https://soundcloud.com/trueanonpod/zizian-murder-cult-1 the latest episode of trueanon is about these rationalist wierdos
not very informative, throws a lot of mud
Pretty sure Zizians haven't been considered rationalists for at least five years.
The more I read about these Zizians, the more I'm reminded of Final Fantasy House, whose members had been led to believe, or at least go along with, the idea that they were spiritual manifestations of Final Fantasy VII characters, and were manipulated and exploited by the house's dysfunctional leader, "Jenova":
http://www.demon-sushi.com/warning/
But with deadly consequences in the Zizians' case.
http://www.demon-sushi.com/warning/
But with deadly consequences in the Zizians' case.
Related thread from a few hours earlier:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42897871
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42897871
Is there a grand figure of rationalist philosophy? Someone like a rationalist “Satre” or “Heidegger”?
I think a lot of the weirdness of rational communities comes from them not properly integrating the existing canon of western philosophy and rediscovering pitfalls.
Without the benefit of centuries of discussions it’s easy to come to strange conclusions.
I think a lot of the weirdness of rational communities comes from them not properly integrating the existing canon of western philosophy and rediscovering pitfalls.
Without the benefit of centuries of discussions it’s easy to come to strange conclusions.
Yes, https://aiascendant.substack.com/p/extropias-children-chapte...
I agree with your diagnosis as well. It's Dunning-Krueger. They keep re-inventing the wheel poorly due to their ignorance which is maintained because of their confidence which stems from their ignorance.
I agree with your diagnosis as well. It's Dunning-Krueger. They keep re-inventing the wheel poorly due to their ignorance which is maintained because of their confidence which stems from their ignorance.
The link you provided is unsettling. I cannot verify it’s claims, but if true that would indeed explain a lot.
The NYPost has an article about them: https://nypost.com/2025/01/30/us-news/killing-of-border-patr...
Every time I hear about these "rationalist" guys they always seem completely bonkers. Not rational at all.
Ziz (the cult leader) had a blog at sinceriously.fyi, where she elaborated on her philosophy. The blog has since devolved into a string of death threads and subsequently been deleted, but anyone who's interested in the backstory can still find some posts on archive.ph (e.g. [1]) and more on web.archive.org.
From Ziz and other cult members' writings, it's obvious that the cult has been in conflict with the rationalist community, rather than part of it, for years. It's disappointing but not surprising that SFGATE decided to pin the murders on the rationalist community while contorting their writing to avoid mentioning the elephant in the room: the cult leader is a trans vegan, almost all of the members are also trans vegans, and these are core parts of their ideology. They were discussed over and over on Ziz's blog.
In fact, after the katana stabbing and the self-defense shooting by the wounded landlord, another cult member used her blog to blame Zack for the events. Zack wasn't involved, physically present, or in communication with the cult at the time, but he does believe in a different theory of transness than they do [2], so they can't stop being enraged at him. That theory was actually one of the main reasons the cult has split off from the rationalist community. I'm worried that Zack may be in danger.
[1] https://archive.ph/jChxP
[2] http://unremediatedgender.space/about/
From Ziz and other cult members' writings, it's obvious that the cult has been in conflict with the rationalist community, rather than part of it, for years. It's disappointing but not surprising that SFGATE decided to pin the murders on the rationalist community while contorting their writing to avoid mentioning the elephant in the room: the cult leader is a trans vegan, almost all of the members are also trans vegans, and these are core parts of their ideology. They were discussed over and over on Ziz's blog.
In fact, after the katana stabbing and the self-defense shooting by the wounded landlord, another cult member used her blog to blame Zack for the events. Zack wasn't involved, physically present, or in communication with the cult at the time, but he does believe in a different theory of transness than they do [2], so they can't stop being enraged at him. That theory was actually one of the main reasons the cult has split off from the rationalist community. I'm worried that Zack may be in danger.
[1] https://archive.ph/jChxP
[2] http://unremediatedgender.space/about/
"Trans vegan 'Siths' who kill people with katanas" is not a sentence I thought I'd ever read, let alone type, yet here we are, in the most ludicrous timeline.
It's an actual Zizian belief that you must always do the craziest thing you can possibly think of, in order to "collapse" the weight of your current timeline in some sort of totally counterfactual probability space... This is arguably the closest linkage they share to actual Rationalist-ish ideas. (Many Rationalists do genuinely advocate for some sort of improvement to animal welfare - but I don't know of any Rationalist who thinks that an ant has the exact same right to moral worth as the average human, which is the actual Zizian position on the matter - including the "and if you disagree with this, it means you're double-plus nongood" part)
Yep. I'm not sure about the particulars because while the writing is clearly intelligent, it's also clearly insane. But it does seem that Ziz sincerely believes
1) Most people aren't vegan, therefore the average person is a moral monster barely worthy of consideration. What's one more murder when most people are already mass murderers of animals?
2) Some people in the rationalist community have a theory of transness which doesn't match what we know to be true from our internal experience. Therefore, you can't trust even smart people to get factual questions right. They will get them maliciously wrong. Trust our cult instead.
3) Due to [extremely convoluted game-theoretic reasons], it is imperative that you never back down in any disagreement about values. You must escalate, even if that means killing the other person. You must also take disproportionate revenge on those who have wronged you.
1) Most people aren't vegan, therefore the average person is a moral monster barely worthy of consideration. What's one more murder when most people are already mass murderers of animals?
2) Some people in the rationalist community have a theory of transness which doesn't match what we know to be true from our internal experience. Therefore, you can't trust even smart people to get factual questions right. They will get them maliciously wrong. Trust our cult instead.
3) Due to [extremely convoluted game-theoretic reasons], it is imperative that you never back down in any disagreement about values. You must escalate, even if that means killing the other person. You must also take disproportionate revenge on those who have wronged you.
Isn’t that a plot point in “everything everywhere all at once”? Did she watch that movie and take the silliest element way too seriously?
Pretty much, except that Zizianism is like the evil nihilist version of the main character who has just looked into the Everything-Bagel, taken to the most ludicrous extreme; whereas in the movie, the good and empathetic version ultimately prevails.
any violence that is adjacent to rationalism will see a media response like this and a healthy dose of astroturfing to support it. the cia is very eager to make rationalists persona non grata because they provide a cultural nucleation point for anti-AI sentiment. they want to suppress these ideas so that our victory in the AI arms race is secure — unhindered by pesky human rights nonsense. they killed suchir balaji, too.
Lots of parallels here with Luigi Mangione who also referenced a lot of LessWrong ideas
Couldn't be more different.
[deleted]
this cult leader hatched a scheme to house people on a fleet of boats… this is a great analogy for the rest of the story. she could have just moved.
Yeah they're TPOT adjacent. While the original rationalists group were pretty good about watching their biases the later ones are more accurately rationalizers. Some TPOT people have warned them they're making mistakes to no avail.
It's just the MOPs, geeks, sociopaths and Eternal September thing again. They all use the jargon and reach absurd conclusions and don't have the wisdom to realize that an absurd conclusion with a sound argument means a false assumption.
Just because you say "my priors" like priests say "my prayers" doesn't make you rational. They are in the midwit area where you can reason.
The fool dismisses the absurd conclusion because he cannot reason. The wise man because he knows what it means. The average rationalist decides it's true.
It's just the MOPs, geeks, sociopaths and Eternal September thing again. They all use the jargon and reach absurd conclusions and don't have the wisdom to realize that an absurd conclusion with a sound argument means a false assumption.
Just because you say "my priors" like priests say "my prayers" doesn't make you rational. They are in the midwit area where you can reason.
The fool dismisses the absurd conclusion because he cannot reason. The wise man because he knows what it means. The average rationalist decides it's true.
When will people learn to identify and stay away from narcissists?
Almost everybody does. But probably there will always be those who don't. Some people's lives are a sad story, and manipulators can learn who is most vulnerable.
[deleted]
By "string" here, we mean one.
Not to imply the Zizians aren't embracing some dangerous ideas, but this is the strangest use of "string of killings" I've ever seen. Author could have gone with "wave of violence," but even then they'd be talking about a "wave" of three incidents in three years.
Not to imply the Zizians aren't embracing some dangerous ideas, but this is the strangest use of "string of killings" I've ever seen. Author could have gone with "wave of violence," but even then they'd be talking about a "wave" of three incidents in three years.
Four killings. The landlord in Villejo, Michelle Zajko's parents Richard and Rita in Pennsylvania, and now the border patrol agent in Vermont.
Ah, thank you. Developing story; I'd only heard of the two, and now we seem to be investigating six.
Six is a lot, but still a bit unclear whether we have a Manson Family situation or a One Serial Killer Who Read Too Much Nietzsche situation.
Six is a lot, but still a bit unclear whether we have a Manson Family situation or a One Serial Killer Who Read Too Much Nietzsche situation.
Who is Ziz? Is she still alive and active and free? Does anyone know her real identity?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42902017 covers your questions
Psyops and synthetic narratives out of nowhere always look like this
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=US&q=zizian&hl=...
This whole story is so bizarre. I honestly can barely wrap my head around it.
It also vaguely reminds me of a Monk episode.
Who are these people?
Some sort or EA on steroids?
Eugenics?
Genuinely curious: what are their typical beliefs?
Some sort or EA on steroids?
Eugenics?
Genuinely curious: what are their typical beliefs?
This story goes as mad as a sub-plot in a Philip Dick novel. If a lot of weird stuff happens, how would this affect observers' estimation for the probability that we live in a simulation? I wonder if that was one of the intents.
I'm so annoyed at how popular rationalism is. Human rationality (along with symbolic creativity) is only useful at generating testable hypothesis, not for direct knowledge of reality. Once someone grant the axioms of rationality they become delusional and spiral (half life of around 6 years)
What I find interesting about these cases and the seemingly unrelated United Healthcare CEO assassination is that all were committed by extremely online data scientists who went to elite universities.
I’ve been fairly skeptical of the right wing narrative that these schools have been “radicalized” (seeing as universities and young people have always been the hotbeds of leftist thought, how soon we forget the hippie movement)…but this definitely has me wondering.
Also, why is data science a common thread?
I’ve been fairly skeptical of the right wing narrative that these schools have been “radicalized” (seeing as universities and young people have always been the hotbeds of leftist thought, how soon we forget the hippie movement)…but this definitely has me wondering.
Also, why is data science a common thread?
Probably because they are focusing on "artificial intelligence destroying humanity", as the article says? Many data scientists work on AI nowadays.
Because the size is so small, you can connect many dots.
>Also, why is data science a common thread?
People on the spectrum as susceptible to mind-viruses and enjoy grand ideas. At least two of them it seems.
People on the spectrum as susceptible to mind-viruses and enjoy grand ideas. At least two of them it seems.
a good chunk of the current administration is ivy league trained
Feels like we're going back to a period of political decentralization. History suggests that large empires tend to collapse after the rule of law loses its meaning and power. I've been predicting the rise of political gangs for a long time.
It already feels like everyone is in a tribe... Now the level of violence is being dialed up and the overarching structures are losing their ability to enforce the law. Look at how many criminals have been pardoned, nobody cares anymore. Nobody even agrees about what a criminal is.
How can we reduce crime if we cannot even agree on what it means?
It already feels like everyone is in a tribe... Now the level of violence is being dialed up and the overarching structures are losing their ability to enforce the law. Look at how many criminals have been pardoned, nobody cares anymore. Nobody even agrees about what a criminal is.
How can we reduce crime if we cannot even agree on what it means?
So these are related to the "Effective Altruism" far-right movement?
If so, I'm not surprised they've started killing.
If so, I'm not surprised they've started killing.
most 2025 headline I have yet to see
Is this thread an exemplary performance of bleeding edge AI models or just a bunch of delusional e/acc zealots on too much Prozac?
Uhhh… what? Is this a Aum Shinrikyo type of thing?
"Rationalism"
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yikes the results of attention seeking mentally ill being normalized and not getting the attention they feel they deserve for snipping themselves. maybe we shouldnt normalize mental illnesses..
drawkward(1)
catigula(1)
what nonsense, the gall to call this rationalist
Pardon the cult-like musings ahead of time, but it’s par for the course.
My initial thought was rationalism is obviously egoic and selfobsessed, loving and trusting ones own thoughts. Set theory should tell you that you cant make a mental image of yourself to act by that will be more encompassing than the totality of what you are. You can’t build a mental model inside of your ego that will work better than your natural instinct for all interaction with reality. Trust sheer emotion to say that rationalising any loss of life means an upside down philosophy, a castle in the sky. This cult with its ”functional decision theory” […that the normative principle for action is to treat one’s decision as the output of a fixed mathematical function”] makes actions a sort of cold choice without emotion. Like people using religion in war to remain cool when killing, a misuse of a neutral idea such as a mathematical function.
But it can’t be that easy to handwave it away. When Aum Shinrikyo was mentioned down below, I changed my mind, there’s no easy answers. A sick leader can justify anything and you can judge any tree from its fruits. From doctrine section on that wikipedia: ”Their teachings claimed a nuclear apocalypse was predicted to occur soon” (Parallell to AI now in rationalism), ”Furthermore, Lifton believes, Asahara "interpreted the Tibetan Buddhist concept of phowa in order to claim that by killing someone contrary to the group's aims, they were preventing them from accumulating bad karma and thus saving them" ” (Parallell to rational behavior guidance gone wrong, these datascientists just lost touch, Norm Macdonald would say theyre real jerks pardon the humor).
I just the other day listened to Eckhart Tolles podcast where he talked about doomsday fear, on the bottom of the transcript it says: [“There's also an unconscious desire in many human beings for what we could call the collapse of the human made world.
Because most humans experience the world as a burden. They have to live in this world, but the world is problematic. The world has a heaviness to it.
You have your job, you have the taxes, you have money, and the world is complex and heavy. And there's an unconscious longing for people in what we might bluntly call the end of the world. But ultimately, what they are longing for is, yes, it is a kind of liberation, but the ultimate liberation that they are really longing for is the liberation from themselves, the liberation from what they experience as their problematic, heavy sense of self that's inseparable from the so-called outer world.
And so there's a longing in every human for that. But that's not going to happen yet.”] Eckhart Tolle: Essential Teachings: Essential Teachings Special: Challenging Times Can Awaken Us 30 jan. 2025
Obvious parallell to AI doomsaying can be drawn.
When we were children we experienced unfiltered reality without formulas to replace our decisions. But we could even then be wrong, stupid, or convinced to do stupid shit by a charismatic playground bully. But when we were wrong it resulted in falling and scraping our knee or whatever. Theres no reality checks in internet culture bubbles.
This is sick people huddling together under a sick charismatic warlord-ish leader whose castle in the sky is so selfcoherent that it makes others want to systemize it aided by the brainwashing methods.[”Zizians believe normal ideas about morality are mostly obfuscated nonsense. They think real morality is simple and has already been put to paper by Jeremy Bentham with his utilitarian ideas. Bentham famously predicted an expanding scope of moral concern. He says if humanity is honest with itself it will eventually adopt uncompromising veganism. Zizians think arguments which don't acknowledge this are not about morality at all, they're about local struggles for power delaying the removal of an unjust status quo.”] Insert Watchmen pic of grandiose narc Adrian Veidt asking Dr Manhattan if utilitarian masskilling was the right choice
And then the sleep deprivation indoctrination method dulls even their rationality even further. So they can all become ego clones of the cultleader.
And that other link in this thread mentioned other groups of rationalists debugging from demons sent by adversary groups and other psychotic stuff, yeah is it the chicken or the egg where those people gather in a place where people loop with their mind or is it the mindlooping that sends them in a downwards spiral. Maybe we should calculate the bayesian.
My initial thought was rationalism is obviously egoic and selfobsessed, loving and trusting ones own thoughts. Set theory should tell you that you cant make a mental image of yourself to act by that will be more encompassing than the totality of what you are. You can’t build a mental model inside of your ego that will work better than your natural instinct for all interaction with reality. Trust sheer emotion to say that rationalising any loss of life means an upside down philosophy, a castle in the sky. This cult with its ”functional decision theory” […that the normative principle for action is to treat one’s decision as the output of a fixed mathematical function”] makes actions a sort of cold choice without emotion. Like people using religion in war to remain cool when killing, a misuse of a neutral idea such as a mathematical function.
But it can’t be that easy to handwave it away. When Aum Shinrikyo was mentioned down below, I changed my mind, there’s no easy answers. A sick leader can justify anything and you can judge any tree from its fruits. From doctrine section on that wikipedia: ”Their teachings claimed a nuclear apocalypse was predicted to occur soon” (Parallell to AI now in rationalism), ”Furthermore, Lifton believes, Asahara "interpreted the Tibetan Buddhist concept of phowa in order to claim that by killing someone contrary to the group's aims, they were preventing them from accumulating bad karma and thus saving them" ” (Parallell to rational behavior guidance gone wrong, these datascientists just lost touch, Norm Macdonald would say theyre real jerks pardon the humor).
I just the other day listened to Eckhart Tolles podcast where he talked about doomsday fear, on the bottom of the transcript it says: [“There's also an unconscious desire in many human beings for what we could call the collapse of the human made world.
Because most humans experience the world as a burden. They have to live in this world, but the world is problematic. The world has a heaviness to it.
You have your job, you have the taxes, you have money, and the world is complex and heavy. And there's an unconscious longing for people in what we might bluntly call the end of the world. But ultimately, what they are longing for is, yes, it is a kind of liberation, but the ultimate liberation that they are really longing for is the liberation from themselves, the liberation from what they experience as their problematic, heavy sense of self that's inseparable from the so-called outer world.
And so there's a longing in every human for that. But that's not going to happen yet.”] Eckhart Tolle: Essential Teachings: Essential Teachings Special: Challenging Times Can Awaken Us 30 jan. 2025
Obvious parallell to AI doomsaying can be drawn.
When we were children we experienced unfiltered reality without formulas to replace our decisions. But we could even then be wrong, stupid, or convinced to do stupid shit by a charismatic playground bully. But when we were wrong it resulted in falling and scraping our knee or whatever. Theres no reality checks in internet culture bubbles.
This is sick people huddling together under a sick charismatic warlord-ish leader whose castle in the sky is so selfcoherent that it makes others want to systemize it aided by the brainwashing methods.[”Zizians believe normal ideas about morality are mostly obfuscated nonsense. They think real morality is simple and has already been put to paper by Jeremy Bentham with his utilitarian ideas. Bentham famously predicted an expanding scope of moral concern. He says if humanity is honest with itself it will eventually adopt uncompromising veganism. Zizians think arguments which don't acknowledge this are not about morality at all, they're about local struggles for power delaying the removal of an unjust status quo.”] Insert Watchmen pic of grandiose narc Adrian Veidt asking Dr Manhattan if utilitarian masskilling was the right choice
And then the sleep deprivation indoctrination method dulls even their rationality even further. So they can all become ego clones of the cultleader.
And that other link in this thread mentioned other groups of rationalists debugging from demons sent by adversary groups and other psychotic stuff, yeah is it the chicken or the egg where those people gather in a place where people loop with their mind or is it the mindlooping that sends them in a downwards spiral. Maybe we should calculate the bayesian.
Holly crap, it reads like the anti Electric coolaid acid test, with petty revenge ,guns, and murder dejour,instead of , instead of, well, an epic road party that is still going......bobby just played the gramys...there were glitches with the sound system and they raised 15 mill
I like some of what Aella has written, but had no idea that ,Rationalists, had just rebranded nialistic hate.....so cleverly.
Well they haven't. It's one group of fewer than 10 people, considerably removed from "the rationalists" as this point.
Stuff like what is happening around ziz, the zit, is all too common.
I have met and conversed with people out on the fringes of the intelectual edge,in protest camps and anarchist communes,etc,and they very much discuss and rationalise getting there murder on.....when not bieng all glowy about aliens...and rightious about gender(s), so many))
pronouns, and the rest, but since they play chess a lot, they are rational, right.
Guaranteed there will/is more of the same.
We are not alone in our own minds. There is an exogenous driving us crazy from within.