I wouldn’t and didn’t describe that section of the transcript, as a whole, as essentially true. I said much of it is. As the CEO might’ve learned from Tucker Carlson, who in turned learned from FOX News, we should seek to be ‘fair and balanced.’
As to the debugging part, that’s an exaggeration that must have come out the other side of a game of broken telephone on the internet. It seems that on the other side of that telephone line would’ve been some criticisms or callouts I’ve read years ago of some activities happening in or around CFAR. I don’t recollect them in super-duper precise detail right now, nor do I have the time today to spend an hour or more digging them up on the internet
For the perhaps wrongheaded practices that were introduced into CFAR workshops for a period of time other than the ones from Leverage Research, I believe the others were some introduced by Valentine (e.g., ‘againstness,’ etc.). As far as I’m aware, at least as it was applied at one time, some past iterations of Connection Theory bore at least a superficial resemblance to some aspects of ‘auditing’ as practiced by Scientologists.
As to perhaps even riskier practices, I mean they happened not “in” but “around” CFAR in the sense of not officially happening under the auspices of CFAR, or being formally condoned by them, though they occurred within the CFAR alumni community and the Bay Area rationality community. It’s murky, though there was conduct in the lives of private individuals that CFAR informally enabled or emboldened, and could’ve/should’ve done more to prevent. For the record, I’m aware CFAR has effectively admitted those past mistakes, so I don’t want to belabor any point of moral culpability beyond what has been drawn out to death on LessWrong years ago.
Anyway, activities that occurred among rationalists in the social network that in CFAR’s orbit, that arguably arose to the level of triggering behaviour comparable in extremity to psychosis, include ‘dark arts’ rationality, and some of the edgier experiments of post-rationalists. That includes some memes spread and behaviours induced in some rationalists by Michael Vassar, Brent Dill, etc.
To be fair, I’m aware much of that was a result not of spooky, pseudo-rationality techniques, but some unwitting rationalists being effectively bullied into taking wildly mind-altering drugs, as guinea pigs in some uncontrolled DIY experiment. While responsibility for these latter outcomes may not be as attributable to CFAR, they can be fairly attributed to some past mistakes of the rationality community, albeit on a vague, semi-collective level.
I wouldn’t and didn’t describe that section of the transcript, as a whole, as essentially true. I said much of it is. As the CEO might’ve learned from Tucker Carlson, who in turned learned from FOX News, we should seek to be ‘fair and balanced.’
As to the debugging part, that’s an exaggeration that must have come out the other side of a game of broken telephone on the internet. It seems that on the other side of that telephone line would’ve been some criticisms or callouts I’ve read years ago of some activities happening in or around CFAR. I don’t recollect them in super-duper precise detail right now, nor do I have the time today to spend an hour or more digging them up on the internet
For the perhaps wrongheaded practices that were introduced into CFAR workshops for a period of time other than the ones from Leverage Research, I believe the others were some introduced by Valentine (e.g., ‘againstness,’ etc.). As far as I’m aware, at least as it was applied at one time, some past iterations of Connection Theory bore at least a superficial resemblance to some aspects of ‘auditing’ as practiced by Scientologists.
As to perhaps even riskier practices, I mean they happened not “in” but “around” CFAR in the sense of not officially happening under the auspices of CFAR, or being formally condoned by them, though they occurred within the CFAR alumni community and the Bay Area rationality community. It’s murky, though there was conduct in the lives of private individuals that CFAR informally enabled or emboldened, and could’ve/should’ve done more to prevent. For the record, I’m aware CFAR has effectively admitted those past mistakes, so I don’t want to belabor any point of moral culpability beyond what has been drawn out to death on LessWrong years ago.
Anyway, activities that occurred among rationalists in the social network that in CFAR’s orbit, that arguably arose to the level of triggering behaviour comparable in extremity to psychosis, include ‘dark arts’ rationality, and some of the edgier experiments of post-rationalists. That includes some memes spread and behaviours induced in some rationalists by Michael Vassar, Brent Dill, etc.
To be fair, I’m aware much of that was a result not of spooky, pseudo-rationality techniques, but some unwitting rationalists being effectively bullied into taking wildly mind-altering drugs, as guinea pigs in some uncontrolled DIY experiment. While responsibility for these latter outcomes may not be as attributable to CFAR, they can be fairly attributed to some past mistakes of the rationality community, albeit on a vague, semi-collective level.