I think another contributing factor is that as a community we a) prize (and enjoy!) unconventional thinking, and b) have norms that well-presented ideas should be discussed on their merits, even if they seem strange. That means that even the non-insane members of the community often say things that sound insane from a common-sense perspective, and that many insane ideas are presented at length and discussed seriously by the community.
I think experiencing enough of this can disable your “insane idea alarm”. Normally, if someone says something that sounds insane, you go “this person is insane” and run away. But in the EA/rationalist community you instead go “hm, maybe this is actually a great but out-oft-the-box idea?”.
And then the bad state is that someone says something like “you should all come and live in a house where I am the ruler and I impose quasi-military discipline on you” and you go “hm, maybe this is an innovative productivity technique for generating world-saving teams” instead of immediately running away screaming.
I strongly resonate with this; I think this dynamic also selects for people who are open-minded in a particular way (which I broadly think is great!), so you’re going to get more of it than usual.
I think another contributing factor is that as a community we a) prize (and enjoy!) unconventional thinking, and b) have norms that well-presented ideas should be discussed on their merits, even if they seem strange. That means that even the non-insane members of the community often say things that sound insane from a common-sense perspective, and that many insane ideas are presented at length and discussed seriously by the community.
I think experiencing enough of this can disable your “insane idea alarm”. Normally, if someone says something that sounds insane, you go “this person is insane” and run away. But in the EA/rationalist community you instead go “hm, maybe this is actually a great but out-oft-the-box idea?”.
And then the bad state is that someone says something like “you should all come and live in a house where I am the ruler and I impose quasi-military discipline on you” and you go “hm, maybe this is an innovative productivity technique for generating world-saving teams” instead of immediately running away screaming.
I strongly resonate with this; I think this dynamic also selects for people who are open-minded in a particular way (which I broadly think is great!), so you’re going to get more of it than usual.