LessWrong has had a few cults emerge from the ecosystem, but at least some of the hate for e.g Leverage is basically just because Leverage holds up a mirror to mainstream EA/rationalism and mainstream EA just really hates the reflection. “Yes, we are a cult, and what do you think you guys are?”
(incidentally, no one ever talks about the companies/institutions that came out of Leverage, but surely this should be factored into our calculations when we think about the costs & benefits!)
I don’t think that’s really inconsistent with anything I said. And I think that I am arguing here in relative favor of the less cult-y bits of EA. I’ve also never heard anything like the Leverage testimony about any non-rationalist EA org, though obviously that’s not proof it isn’t happening.
I mean, what about Alameda and FTX? Also early CEA. Also what about nonlinear? Of course not exactly the same as Leverage, but neither has any other rationalist-adjacent org.
FTX and Alameda sound extremely bad (obviously worse in effect than Leverage!) to me in a way that is not particularly “cult”, although I get that’s a bit vague (and stories of SBF threatening people are closer to that, as opposed to the massive fraud.) As for the other stuff, I haven’t heard the relevant stories, but you may be right, I am not particularly clued into this stuff, and it’s possible it’s just coincidence I have heard about crazy founder worship, and sleep deprivation etc. , vague stuff about cleansing yourself of “metaphorically” demonic forces, at Leverage but not at those other places. I recall bullying accusations against someone high up at Nonlinear, but not the details. Probably I shouldn’t have made the relative comparison between rationalists and non-rationalists, because I haven’t really been following who all the orgs are, and what they’ve been doing. Though on the other hand, I feel like the rationalists have hit a high enough level of cult-y incidents that the default is probably that other orgs are less like that. But maybe I should have just stuck to ‘there are conflicting reports on whether epistemics are actually all that good in the Bay scene, and some reasonable evidence against.’
LessWrong has had a few cults emerge from the ecosystem, but at least some of the hate for e.g Leverage is basically just because Leverage holds up a mirror to mainstream EA/rationalism and mainstream EA just really hates the reflection. “Yes, we are a cult, and what do you think you guys are?”
(incidentally, no one ever talks about the companies/institutions that came out of Leverage, but surely this should be factored into our calculations when we think about the costs & benefits!)
I don’t think that’s really inconsistent with anything I said. And I think that I am arguing here in relative favor of the less cult-y bits of EA. I’ve also never heard anything like the Leverage testimony about any non-rationalist EA org, though obviously that’s not proof it isn’t happening.
I mean, what about Alameda and FTX? Also early CEA. Also what about nonlinear? Of course not exactly the same as Leverage, but neither has any other rationalist-adjacent org.
FTX and Alameda sound extremely bad (obviously worse in effect than Leverage!) to me in a way that is not particularly “cult”, although I get that’s a bit vague (and stories of SBF threatening people are closer to that, as opposed to the massive fraud.) As for the other stuff, I haven’t heard the relevant stories, but you may be right, I am not particularly clued into this stuff, and it’s possible it’s just coincidence I have heard about crazy founder worship, and sleep deprivation etc. , vague stuff about cleansing yourself of “metaphorically” demonic forces, at Leverage but not at those other places. I recall bullying accusations against someone high up at Nonlinear, but not the details. Probably I shouldn’t have made the relative comparison between rationalists and non-rationalists, because I haven’t really been following who all the orgs are, and what they’ve been doing. Though on the other hand, I feel like the rationalists have hit a high enough level of cult-y incidents that the default is probably that other orgs are less like that. But maybe I should have just stuck to ‘there are conflicting reports on whether epistemics are actually all that good in the Bay scene, and some reasonable evidence against.’