4 ms·

Is this a cult? I enjoy the was Halmos and Feynman talk about things. I've never read anything interesting from Yudkowsky...

Moshe_Silnorin 11y ago
I don't think it was a cult. LessWrong was an interesting place where interesting people gathered for a time; though LessWrong is basically on life support now. Gwern, Hal Finny, Wei Dai, Hannu Rajaniemi, Aaron Swartz, and Scott Alexander are some of the more well-known (outside of LessWrong) former members. It really was an interesting community for a while. There were meet-ups and Yudkowsky did solicit for his nonprofit, but it never seemed culty to me. And none of the people I mentioned ever seemed wary of criticizing Yudkowsky when they thought he was wrong. See, for example, Gwern's epic reply to Yudkowsky's post on automation: http://lesswrong.com/lw/hh4/the_robots_ai_and_unemployment_antifaq/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/hh4/the_robots_ai_and_unemployment_a... This doesn't seem like the type of reply an entranced follower would give their guru. The fact that this very-critical comment got twice as many upvotes as the original post is telling of the attitude of the community as a whole.
- greenrd 11y ago
  Worth noting that the community has spread out into a kind of "diaspora": some have gone into effective altruism (many retaining their AI risk beliefs, especially the ones in California); some have been hired to work on existential risks full-time; Scott Alexander now has his own (impressive) blog and some LWers still follow him there and go to meetups that he attends... Of course, it's also probably true that some have since graduated, got jobs and simply have less time to read and post stuff on the internet any more.
dTal 11y ago
Depends what you mean by "cult". They are a defined group of people that display a substantial amount of in-group closeness (google "lesswrong cuddle puddle" if you have the stomach for it), possessing unusual views, organised around a central leader figure, that believes the leader's worldview is superior. Poisoned kool-aid, however, is unlikely. Make of it what you will.

Moshe_Silnorin 11y ago

I don't think it was a cult. LessWrong was an interesting place where interesting people gathered for a time; though LessWrong is basically on life support now. Gwern, Hal Finny, Wei Dai, Hannu Rajaniemi, Aaron Swartz, and Scott Alexander are some of the more well-known (outside of LessWrong) former members. It really was an interesting community for a while. There were meet-ups and Yudkowsky did solicit for his nonprofit, but it never seemed culty to me. And none of the people I mentioned ever seemed wary of criticizing Yudkowsky when they thought he was wrong. See, for example, Gwern's epic reply to Yudkowsky's post on automation: http://lesswrong.com/lw/hh4/the_robots_ai_and_unemployment_antifaq/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/hh4/the_robots_ai_and_unemployment_a... This doesn't seem like the type of reply an entranced follower would give their guru. The fact that this very-critical comment got twice as many upvotes as the original post is telling of the attitude of the community as a whole.

greenrd 11y ago
Worth noting that the community has spread out into a kind of "diaspora": some have gone into effective altruism (many retaining their AI risk beliefs, especially the ones in California); some have been hired to work on existential risks full-time; Scott Alexander now has his own (impressive) blog and some LWers still follow him there and go to meetups that he attends... Of course, it's also probably true that some have since graduated, got jobs and simply have less time to read and post stuff on the internet any more.

dTal 11y ago

Depends what you mean by "cult". They are a defined group of people that display a substantial amount of in-group closeness (google "lesswrong cuddle puddle" if you have the stomach for it), possessing unusual views, organised around a central leader figure, that believes the leader's worldview is superior. Poisoned kool-aid, however, is unlikely. Make of it what you will.