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I get people are probably going to flag this like they did the other article (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42897871 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id

by _zagj 2y ago

I get people are probably going to flag this like they did the other article (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42897871 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42897871), probably more so out of concern for the trans optics (Ziz and many in her orbit are trans/non-binary) than how it reflects on the wider rationalist community. But we should be able to discuss why this group, which is influential in discussions of AI alignment, is producing these people. Zizians aren't the only ones. Luigi Mangione was also a rationalist (and cis), and I remember a thread on a certain website that documented some other oddball fellow travelers. How does a community dedicated to "rationalism," whose leader writes Harry Potter fanfics, produce people like this? Does it attract maladjusted people to begin with? One common thread seems to be psychedelics. Mangione, for example, experimented with psychedelics heavily (possibly to treat pain) not long before he assassinated the United CEO.

Viliam1234 2y ago
> Luigi Mangione was also a rationalist What? Okay, my first reaction was "I should check Wikipedia, because if this is true (and probably even if it is not), David Gerard will certainly make a huge subsection on Wikipedia about it". Turns out, what Wikipedia says about Mangione and rationalist is only this: > Journalist Robert Evans described Mangione as being associated with a loosely-defined online subculture called the "gray tribe" or the "rationalist movement", whose members he described as "self-consciously intellectual and open-minded, [and] preoccupied with learning how to overcome their own mental biases. Ok, checking the journalist's article: > ”Increasingly looks like we've got our first gray tribe shooter, and boy howdy is the media not ready for that,” wrote the journalist and extremism expert Robert Evans, who analysed Mangione’s online life earlier this week. > There's no single accepted name for this loose, extremely online subculture of bloggers, philosophers, shitposters and Silicon Valley coders. "The gray tribe” is one term; ”the rationalist movement” is another. Ok, checking another link: > The term “Gray Tribe” was coined by an influential rationalist blogger and psychiatrist named Scott Alexander Siskind. He used it to refer to an intersection of nerd culture with Silicon Valley-influenced ideology descended from the online rationalist movement. Ok, checking the Slate Star Codex: > [Grey Tribe is defined by] libertarian political beliefs, Dawkins-style atheism, vague annoyance that the question of gay rights even comes up, eating paleo, drinking Soylent, calling in rides on Uber, reading lots of blogs, calling American football “sportsball”, getting conspicuously upset about the War on Drugs and the NSA, and listening to filk So... to wrap it up, the reason for calling Mangione a rationalist is that he is "associated with" "libertarianism, Dawkins-style atheism, etc.", which have "descended from the rationalist movement". Somehow I am not convinced. (Among other reasons, I am pretty sure that libertarianism and Dawkins-style atheism are older than the rationalist movement.)

by _zagj 2y ago

Viliam1234 2y ago

> Luigi Mangione was also a rationalist What? Okay, my first reaction was "I should check Wikipedia, because if this is true (and probably even if it is not), David Gerard will certainly make a huge subsection on Wikipedia about it". Turns out, what Wikipedia says about Mangione and rationalist is only this: > Journalist Robert Evans described Mangione as being associated with a loosely-defined online subculture called the "gray tribe" or the "rationalist movement", whose members he described as "self-consciously intellectual and open-minded, [and] preoccupied with learning how to overcome their own mental biases. Ok, checking the journalist's article: > ”Increasingly looks like we've got our first gray tribe shooter, and boy howdy is the media not ready for that,” wrote the journalist and extremism expert Robert Evans, who analysed Mangione’s online life earlier this week. > There's no single accepted name for this loose, extremely online subculture of bloggers, philosophers, shitposters and Silicon Valley coders. "The gray tribe” is one term; ”the rationalist movement” is another. Ok, checking another link: > The term “Gray Tribe” was coined by an influential rationalist blogger and psychiatrist named Scott Alexander Siskind. He used it to refer to an intersection of nerd culture with Silicon Valley-influenced ideology descended from the online rationalist movement. Ok, checking the Slate Star Codex: > [Grey Tribe is defined by] libertarian political beliefs, Dawkins-style atheism, vague annoyance that the question of gay rights even comes up, eating paleo, drinking Soylent, calling in rides on Uber, reading lots of blogs, calling American football “sportsball”, getting conspicuously upset about the War on Drugs and the NSA, and listening to filk So... to wrap it up, the reason for calling Mangione a rationalist is that he is "associated with" "libertarianism, Dawkins-style atheism, etc.", which have "descended from the rationalist movement". Somehow I am not convinced. (Among other reasons, I am pretty sure that libertarianism and Dawkins-style atheism are older than the rationalist movement.)