I think the global poverty thing is great for PR and it’s very important to have a highly visible discourse on it in outer EA outposts like the subreddit because otherwise people see us talking about AI and think we’re a cult. There’s a serious problem on Reddit with many young people getting taken in by an intelligent, fashionable and dangerous anti rationalsphere group that grows at 300% per year. It’s very important that EA makes humanitarian noises on Reddit rather than just doing our usual thing of just helping people, to handle the antagonistic group. I used to frequent the sub trying to handle them and I think we got a reputation increase but right now my mental health can’t cope with that kind of emotional labour and the required self restraint and empathy for influential insane bpd people who will soon grow up to become journalists. There’s already at least one journalist who dedicates his career to attacking rationalsphere x risk and gets published in intellectually fashionable outlets like salon.com—there’s a very real danger imho that we’ll have a plague of these bastards soon and we’ll be considered the new far right, as this guy is already successfully painting us. We need to make more good PR noises and take a countering violent extremism approach to our adversaries, prevent them from turning young intelligent people against us.
I think there is serious neglect of PR in EA . EAs seem to be PR blind. Those who see the threat are often tempted to argue with nutters and make it worse. People forget that teens grow up to be adults with academic ppsts and journalism careers. I personally understand that mundane humanitarianism is relatively unimportant compared to x risk but we still need to look after the reputation side of things so I suggest retaining some humanitarian stuff on the highly visible outside of the movement and talking about it constantly is necessary for survival. I feel sometimes anti-superficial-bullshit-altruism sentiment in our glorious movement works as a kind of masochism where we basically fail to get credit for anything and invite irrational but intelligent and socially skilled people to attack us. We need a highly socially skilled and emotionally resilient counter-force to spout humanitarianism and take care of people’s feelings.
Thanks so much… this brings a lot of clarity, I think I just levelled up. I have spent too much time being a mentally ill neet on the internet.
I did write a load of explanations, clarifications and answers to your questions, but it got long winded and beside the point and risks inflaming things more, which I seem to enjoy doing. I think it’s best I just acknowledge yes, I made an irresponsible joke at the expense of both groups, with no preference for either group and no intention except illustrating a point about me not trusting non eas to understand, in a tongue in cheek way with humour and edgelordery. Not a very wise choice of humour.
As for the sneering at <130 IQ, that was a mix of snobbery, humour and serious expression. Re cultishness my position is that EA must become far more cult-like to survive. These weren’t exactly the main point of my post, just distracting indulgences on the side.
I was writing each comment to respond directly to different paragraphs, one comment per op paragraph as requested by op. I was writing quickly without editing to maximize honesty, fluency of reading and writing, mutual empathy, intuitiveness, detail, and speed. And, doing that, I got into a stream of thought, disallowed usual conditioned social anxiety stop signs that suppress so much thought and action and usually paralyse, and really enjoyed doing something fluently without my usual superstitious fears sabotaging the whole process and resuming the usual torture that is my existence.
But this usually causes chaos. I should really keep that shit to somewhere that isn’t an important and serious place like ea forums. I told myself it was fine, hardly anyone would respond, people would take it as half-joking mirth and hand wave it off if it wasn’t their cup of tea. Maybe they did, but I guess I shouldn’t risk it if I can’t easily offset the harm. I guess I should go and write my stuff somewhere else.
Wow, this was much shorter in the rewrite. Anyhow, things make sense now so thanks again for your response.