I'm probably not saying anything you didn't already know, but Vox's "Future Perfect" section, of which this article is a part, was explicitly founded as a booster for effective altruism. They've also memory-holed the fact that it was funded in large part by FTX. Anything by one of its regular writers (particularly Dylan Matthews or Kelsey Piper) should be mentally filed into the rationalist propaganda folder. I mean, this article throws in an off-hand remark by Scott Alexander as if it's just taken for granted that he's some kind of visionary genius.

Non-paywall link.

It's kind of fascinating how rotten the "New Atheist" movement turned out to be. Whether it's Richard Dawkins revealing his inner racist-misogynist, Michael Shermer being rapey AF, or James Lindsay turning into a Christofascist, the movement seems to have spawned and/or revealed a lot of really problematic people. I guess it's no surprise that the rationalist scene had such a membership overlap.

I haven't read Scott's comment sections in a long time, so I don't know if they're all this bad, but that one is a total dumpster fire. It's a hive of Trump stans, anti-woke circle-jerkers, scientific racists, and self-proclaimed Motte posters. It certainly reveals the present demographic and political profile of his audience.

Scott has always tried to hide his reactionary beliefs, but I've noticed he's letting the mask slip a bit more lately.

It's absolutely bizarre that Scott labels Rufo a journalist. Rufo is a right-wing activist who has only ever worked for right-wing think tanks. He first came to my attention as a part of the Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based "think tank" best known for promoting creationism.

Then again, Scott has previously said that he's impressed by the arguments of creationist Michael Behe, another Discovery Institute lackey.

My P(harrassment scandal) for EA is 0.98.

Exactly. It would be easier to take Scott's argument more seriously if it wasn't coming from the very same person who previously labeled as unstable and thereby non-credible a woman who accused his rationalist buddies of sexual harrassment -- a woman who, by the way, went on to die by suicide.

So fuck him and his contrived rationalizations.

Reading his timeline since the revelation is weird and creepy. It's full of SV investors robotically pledging their money (and fealty) to his future efforts. If anyone still needs evidence that SV is a hive mind of distorted and dangerous group-think, this is it.

All factual and counter-factual statements are evidence for my position. Heads I win, tails you lose.

I wonder if he's ever applied this advice to himself. Because one could argue that trauma was a significant factor in his obsession with transhumanism and the singularity.

When Yud's younger brother died tragically at age 19, it clearly traumatized him. In this case, X was "the death of my little brother". From this he learned Y: to be angry and fearful of death ("You do not make peace with Death!"). His fascination with the singularity can be seen in this light as a wish to cheat death, while his more recent AI doomerism is the singularity's fatalistic counterpart: an eschatological distortion and acceleration of the reality that death comes for us all.

Is it wrong to hope they manage to realize one of these libertarian paradise fantasies? I'd really love to see how quickly it devolves into a Mad Max Thunderdome situation.

If brevity is the soul of wit, then Yud is witless.