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Can we talk about how the Rationalists seem to attract mentally unstable people to their trainings in mental technology, while also targeting the young with so-
by huberway 2y ago
Can we talk about how the Rationalists seem to attract mentally unstable people to their trainings in mental technology, while also targeting the young with so-called rationality camps?
If at the apex of an organization you have a person who has organized his life in such a way as to have sex with several other people, and if many people involved in the movement pay a tithe to the organization or charities it designates, and if many of the members of this organization go crazy thinking about the impending hell (of AGI), how is this different from a cult?
- palisade 2y agoThat cult is kind of the opposite tho, they were looking forward to the impending hell of AGI and thought they were doing things that would get on the good side of the evil overseer AI of the future. If anything they weren't going crazy over it they felt comforted.
- plagiarist 2y agoThey are too rational for religion but desperately need meaning (or whatever) so they convinced themselves they could literally talk directly to god (after he exists he will simulate their exact personalities at this exact moment in time).
- arresin 2y agoThese are the people too smart for regular cults?
- Wololooo 2y agoThe unfortunate truth is that everyone can be manipulated and everyone can be conditioned. It just takes time and/or the right circumstances. This includes propaganda.
- rtkwe 2y agoThey probably believe(d) they are/were but cults exploit a lot of fundamental human biases, desires and weaknesses. Pretty much anyone could fall in with a cult given the right approach. IMO all believing you're too smart for a cult gets you is a blind spot that lets the right cult sneak up on you even easier.
- fortran77 2y ago> Can we talk about how the Rationalists seem to attract mentally unstable people to their trainings in mental technology, while also targeting the young with so-called rationality camps? Probably not, at least not here.
- sva_ 2y ago> seem to attract mentally unstable people This AGI doomerism, which is now also popularized on YouTube etc, is very closely related to the kind of existential questions that mentally unstable people probably ask themselves. The bar of entry is pretty low, as you need no skills really. You can bootstrap ideas that sound convincing to yourself from nothing pretty quick. That's my hot take anyways.
- prododev 2y agoAI doomerism I've seen largely boils down to pretty standard critiques of capitalism -- who controls the means of production (the capital class), who will benefit most from increases in productivity (capital class), who is going to end up poorer (working class). Unless you mean the folks who believe AI will become AGI and start hurting people directly. Those folks are pretty fringe.
- lupusreal 2y agoSva did say AGI doomerism, which I think is distinct from the more mundane and grounded concerns about how extant "AI" systems will effect the labor market, and related concerns. The LessWrong people talking about AIs exterminating humanity because we failed to worship it correctly, not the artists complaining about AI mimicking their style and turning art into a commodities available to anybody.
- throw16180339 2y agoIt's a cult whose members think they're too smart for cults.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- mmooss 2y agoThat unfortunately describes many people in a political grouping that focuses on disinformation and disruption.
- willy_k 2y agoSays the subscriber to the other one. Both sides are rank with this, there are surface differences and differences in MO but this has become the default state of both. If one vehemently disagree with that, their side has done its job well.
- mmooss 2y agoYou dictate what someone else thinks and if they disagree with you, they must be manipulated. That's quite a powerful position to be in.
- willy_k 2y agoYour previous comment implies the same. Regardless, I’m not saying that anyone who disagrees is necessarily, just observing that the natural consequence of said manipulation would be to hold a dogmatic insistence that “it’s them, not me”.
- mmooss 2y agoIt's mis- or disinformation to say that all sides, all people are the same. It's the ultimate cover for people doing wrong - it eliminates any 'wrongness'. A corrupt politician might say, 'everyone is corrupt'. Now their flaw is wiped away, in a relative sense. But it's not true.
- bhaney 2y agoAm I missing something? The only mention of "rationalists" in this article is a note about how this cult leader considers rationalists to be her enemies. What's the relevance of your hostility towards them?
- nl 2y agoThey are apparently a "a radical offshoot of the rationalist community"[1]. I suspect that as with many off-shots they hate the original community. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/vermont-border-agent-death-exposed-violence-linked-cultlike-zizian-group/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/vermont-border-agent-death-expo... is a better, longer form of this article [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_David_Maland https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_David_Maland
- nl 2y ago"Ziz"'s old blog: https://web.archive.org/web/20230315071531/https://sinceriously.fyi/ https://web.archive.org/web/20230315071531/https://sinceriou... It seem they were a fan of Eliezer Yudkowsky and maybe Nick Bostrom (although a bit unclear) but they hate MIRI LessWrong has a summary of their involvement: https://www.lesswrong.com/w/j-lasota-ziz https://www.lesswrong.com/w/j-lasota-ziz
- justlikereddit 2y agoYet another episode of "people who think Elizer Yudkowsky isn't a lunatic are as batshit insane as he is". Calling themselves rationalists are more ironic than a concentration camp having a sign promising freedom to those who work.
- Viliam1234 2y agoAbout ten years ago, Ziz participated in a workshop (multiple workshops? not sure) organized by the so-called rationalist community in the Bay Area. Later she was banned from the community, organized a protest against it, got briefly arrested, faked her suicide and disappeared... now appeared again... She also recruited some of her cult members from the community (not sure which ones). So, if you want, you can frame it as the rationalist community being a dangerous place that attracts sick people. Or you could frame is as anarchists being violent, vegans being intolerant, or trans women being crazy... because the Zizans are all of that. Everyone is free to chose their own story about them. It may or may not be important that most rationalists / anarchists / vegans / trans women are not crazy murderers, so maybe the story is mostly about Ziz being Ziz and succeeding to get a few (less than ten) followers.
- hollerith 2y agoIs there any AI-doomer group or individual that in your opinion is neither "mentally unstable", cult-like, "crazy" nor duped by a cult leader? By "AI-doomer", I mean any person or group that believes that AI research is a threat to human survival.
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- lmm 2y agoPick your favourite cult checklist and see how much applies. Rationalists certainly have some cult-like characteristics, but e.g. practically any environmentalist group has all the ones you list and more (especially the targeting the young part). In particular the Rationalists I know don't discourage questioning and dissent (quite the opposite), don't focus much on bringing in money or members, don't give their leaders any exalted status or obey them unquestioningly (quite the opposite), don't encourage people to break the law or disobey the proper authorities, and don't try to isolate people from their outside friends or family.
- nl 2y agoI suggest you read the section starting "The Zizians, believe it or not, are not the only cult-like groupuscule to have emerged from the heady stew of the Rationalist community" from [1] Some quotes: > (Alignment Group) would attempt to articulate a ‘demon’ which had infiltrated our psyches from one of the rival groups, its nature and effects, and get it out of our systems using debugging tools > there were also psychotic breaks involving demonic subprocess narratives,” and where people in positions of power would “debug” underlings. “I experienced myself and others being distanced from old family and friends, who didn't understand how high-impact the work we were doing was,” > Scott Alexander, maybe the most prominent Rationalist besides Yudkowsky, suggested that the problem was not really M.I.R.I. or C.F.A.R. so much as that Taylor was in a cult-like group centered around a former M.I.R.I. head > I don’t know that I have the patience or energy to really get to the bottom of it all except to say: It all kinda sounds pretty culty to me! And I haven’t even gotten into the Burning Man camp Black Lotus or the Monastic Academy for the Preservation of Life on Earth etc [1] https://maxread.substack.com/p/the-zizians-and-the-rationalist-death https://maxread.substack.com/p/the-zizians-and-the-rationali...
- lmm 2y agoI'd read it already, thank you very much. > The Zizians, believe it or not, are not the only cult-like groupuscule to have emerged from the heady stew of the Rationalist community Many communities have cultlike offshoots. What frequency, what proportion are we talking about? And surely the fact that mainstream Rationalists have been loudly denouncing and warning people about the Zizians for the past 5 years counts for something. > (Alignment Group) would attempt to articulate a ‘demon’ which had infiltrated our psyches from one of the rival groups, its nature and effects, and get it out of our systems using debugging tools > there were also psychotic breaks involving demonic subprocess narratives,” and where people in positions of power would “debug” underlings. Yeah, that's crazy. I don't think any of the people I know would get involved in anything like that. Again, is that "normal Rationalists" or is that what a snake-handler sect is to Christians? > I don’t know that I have the patience or energy to really get to the bottom of it all except to say: It all kinda sounds pretty culty to me! This is the kind of thing you'd say if you wanted to smear a group but knew the dirt was actually pretty limited.
- rtkwe 2y agoIt has a lot in common with cults and religions, "we've found a way of thinking that can let you make perfect decisions and figure out things in new fields quickly sometime even figuring out things that elude 'experts' in that field". It's not inherently cultish but that idea can attract the same kinds of people who might get sucked into other cults but don't because they're atheist or agnostic.
- Manuel_D 2y agoFrom what I can glean, the Zizians were largely rejected by rationalists and ultimately had a falling out.
- throwme0827349 2y agoI think this is about as reasonable as conflating all hippies with Manson, or all Christians with the Waco people. I have met a few "rationalist" types, and I went to a "rationalist" meetup in San Francisco, although they called it something else and didn't care for that label, but couldn't really get other people to stop calling them that. The overall vibe was like a tech meetup crossed with a church picnic. There were a lot of programmers and grad students there to do a little professional networking, talk about books they like, whether they should be donating to charity a little, which charities worked best, and how to avoid throwing away the leftover cookies. The subject of AI millennialism was not broached in my presence, all though I did meet some people who were working on AI. If there were any psychos or cult leaders there (or trans people for that matter), I didn't notice, and no one tried to recruit me to anything. It was a totally normal and pleasant experience.