That thread is wild. Nate proposes techniques to get his kooky beliefs taken more seriously. Others point out that those very same techniques counterproductively pushed people to into the e/acc camp. Nate deletes those other people's comments. How rationalist of him!
This commenter may be saying something we already knew, but it's nice to have the confirmation that Anthropic is chock full of EAs:
(I work at Anthropic, though I don't claim any particular insight into the views of the cofounders. For my part I'll say that I identify as an EA, know many other employees who do, get enormous amounts of value from the EA community, and think Anthropic is vastly more EA-flavored than almost any other large company, though it is vastly less EA-flavored than, like, actual EA orgs. I think the quotes in the paragraph of the Wired article give a pretty misleading picture of Anthropic when taken in isolation and I wouldn't personally have said them, but I think "a journalist goes through your public statements looking for the most damning or hypocritical things you've ever said out of context" is an incredibly tricky situation to come out of looking good and many of the comments here seem a bit uncharitable given that.)
Sorry, when she started taking Yud's claims to be a "renowned AI researcher" at face value, I noped out.
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.
Glowfic feels like a writing format designed in a lab to be the perfect channel for Eliezer's literary diarrhea.
My P(harrassment scandal) for EA is 0.98.
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.
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.
Reading the comments led me to this entertaining sneer about our friends.