3 ms·

Looked up LessWrong. Eh, philosophy people, also known for that "Roko's basilisk" meme. I'm gonna pass.

solenoid0937 3mo ago
It's a rationalist community, IMHO their methodology of thought leads to much more well-reasoned takes on AI than on HN, where the discussion here is often very emotionally charged or led by wishful thinking. When it comes to AI, LessWrong has been discussing topics for years, that HN has just started to consider, so they are much further along in the philosophical "chain of thought" so to say. LW fully understood and gamed out the risks of LLMs back when most of HN was calling them "stochastic parrots." https://ai-2027.com/ https://ai-2027.com/
- senderista 3mo ago
  Well at least HN hasn't (yet?) spawned a murderous death cult. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zizians https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zizians
  - gizajob 3mo ago
    “Reason is the slave of the passions” - Hume
    - ahartmetz 3mo ago
      One could also say that a logical agent needs ultimate goals to do anything and it cannot choose them by logical means. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEUO6pjwFOo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEUO6pjwFOo
  - frollogaston 3mo ago
    Anarchism, eh? If anything, HN cult would be pro-Arch.
    - overfeed 3mo ago
      TBQH, probably fashy.
  - jodrellblank 3mo ago
    https://aiascendant.com/p/extropias-children https://aiascendant.com/p/extropias-children
- frollogaston 3mo ago
  "Rationalist" just sounds like people calling themselves smart. There's a little AI skepticism on HN, but not a ton. When ChatGPT 3 and 3.5 came out, most of the comments were remarking how well it can write code.
  - solenoid0937 3mo ago
    No, it's not just people calling themselves smart, it is a specific philosophy of how to think. Whether you think that philosophy works or not is another matter. IMO it has its flaws but is far superior to vibes-based hot takes you see on HN.
- magimas 3mo ago
  oh please... lesswrong was full of idiots already in 2010 when people outside of that community were laughing about "self-taught expert" Yudkowsky's bullshit physics takes. They are not "further along" the AI discussion, they are a bunch of wackos LARPing as scientists living out their personal sci-fi scenarios.
- jdub 3mo ago
  Sounds like you've interpreted the "stochastic parrot" metaphor dismissively, and/or that it somehow precludes potential LLM risks.
  - solenoid0937 3mo ago
    HN was definitely using "stochastic parrot" throughout most of 2024 and a good half of 2025 to dismiss AI capabilities.
- tpm 3mo ago
  LessWrong has been obsessed with AI. They certainly are much further along, but along a road which has diverged with reality long time ago and they relatively overweight AI risks so much it's not even funny anymore.
FeepingCreature 3mo ago
Through no fault of our own, I should note. We're basically permanently associated with something Roko decided to post one day. We did not spread or popularize it; quite the opposite. The Basilisk has seen enormously more use as "a thing rationalists believe" than as a thing rationalists actually believe.
- RussianBot9580 3mo ago
  > quite the opposite Apparently living on the net still doesn't guarantee that one has heard of the Streisand Effect. In any case, my first association with LessWrong is Zizians, not Roko.
  - FeepingCreature 3mo ago
    As a mod you have to delete harmful things. I think the spread of Roko's is entirely due to its own memetic strength as an idea, and the Streisand effect has very little to do with it past the first dozen people who saw it. We also have done nothing to signal-boost the Zizians. :) If we can be accused of anything in this context, it's not kicking bad people out aggressively enough, which seems very different from fostering bad ideas. Zizianism is not a widespread ideology in rationalist circles, in fact it was confined to a very small circle right around Ziz themselves. It unfortunately is the case that we have a lot of psychologically vulnerable people and we don't always do the utmost we can to protect them, in large part because a lot of rationalists have trauma about being excluded from communities.
    - Shog9 3mo ago
      > If we can be accused of anything in this context, it's not kicking bad people out aggressively enough, which seems very different from fostering bad ideas. It's not very different. It's barely different at all. Right now, I have five tomato plants growing in my garden. Two of them I planted; the other three grew from seeds left in the ground by tomatoes that dropped from plants growing last year. All I did was refuse to uproot them when they sprouted. Five healthy plants, with different origins, but the differences are largely insignificant. Groups and behaviors are much the same way. I've worked with hundreds of moderators over the years who wished to keep their hands clean and yet express some sort of dismay as to the sorry state of the communities they were nominally responsible for... Such moderators, like a gardener who does not want dirt under their nails, are best encouraged to find other hobbies.

It's a rationalist community, IMHO their methodology of thought leads to much more well-reasoned takes on AI than on HN, where the discussion here is often very emotionally charged or led by wishful thinking. When it comes to AI, LessWrong has been discussing topics for years, that HN has just started to consider, so they are much further along in the philosophical "chain of thought" so to say. LW fully understood and gamed out the risks of LLMs back when most of HN was calling them "stochastic parrots." https://ai-2027.com/ https://ai-2027.com/

senderista 3mo ago
Well at least HN hasn't (yet?) spawned a murderous death cult. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zizians https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zizians
- gizajob 3mo ago
  “Reason is the slave of the passions” - Hume
  - ahartmetz 3mo ago
    One could also say that a logical agent needs ultimate goals to do anything and it cannot choose them by logical means. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEUO6pjwFOo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEUO6pjwFOo
- frollogaston 3mo ago
  Anarchism, eh? If anything, HN cult would be pro-Arch.
  - overfeed 3mo ago
    TBQH, probably fashy.
- jodrellblank 3mo ago
  https://aiascendant.com/p/extropias-children https://aiascendant.com/p/extropias-children
frollogaston 3mo ago
"Rationalist" just sounds like people calling themselves smart. There's a little AI skepticism on HN, but not a ton. When ChatGPT 3 and 3.5 came out, most of the comments were remarking how well it can write code.
- solenoid0937 3mo ago
  No, it's not just people calling themselves smart, it is a specific philosophy of how to think. Whether you think that philosophy works or not is another matter. IMO it has its flaws but is far superior to vibes-based hot takes you see on HN.
magimas 3mo ago
oh please... lesswrong was full of idiots already in 2010 when people outside of that community were laughing about "self-taught expert" Yudkowsky's bullshit physics takes. They are not "further along" the AI discussion, they are a bunch of wackos LARPing as scientists living out their personal sci-fi scenarios.
jdub 3mo ago
Sounds like you've interpreted the "stochastic parrot" metaphor dismissively, and/or that it somehow precludes potential LLM risks.
- solenoid0937 3mo ago
  HN was definitely using "stochastic parrot" throughout most of 2024 and a good half of 2025 to dismiss AI capabilities.
tpm 3mo ago
LessWrong has been obsessed with AI. They certainly are much further along, but along a road which has diverged with reality long time ago and they relatively overweight AI risks so much it's not even funny anymore.

FeepingCreature 3mo ago

Through no fault of our own, I should note. We're basically permanently associated with something Roko decided to post one day. We did not spread or popularize it; quite the opposite. The Basilisk has seen enormously more use as "a thing rationalists believe" than as a thing rationalists actually believe.

RussianBot9580 3mo ago
> quite the opposite Apparently living on the net still doesn't guarantee that one has heard of the Streisand Effect. In any case, my first association with LessWrong is Zizians, not Roko.
- FeepingCreature 3mo ago
  As a mod you have to delete harmful things. I think the spread of Roko's is entirely due to its own memetic strength as an idea, and the Streisand effect has very little to do with it past the first dozen people who saw it. We also have done nothing to signal-boost the Zizians. :) If we can be accused of anything in this context, it's not kicking bad people out aggressively enough, which seems very different from fostering bad ideas. Zizianism is not a widespread ideology in rationalist circles, in fact it was confined to a very small circle right around Ziz themselves. It unfortunately is the case that we have a lot of psychologically vulnerable people and we don't always do the utmost we can to protect them, in large part because a lot of rationalists have trauma about being excluded from communities.
  - Shog9 3mo ago
    > If we can be accused of anything in this context, it's not kicking bad people out aggressively enough, which seems very different from fostering bad ideas. It's not very different. It's barely different at all. Right now, I have five tomato plants growing in my garden. Two of them I planted; the other three grew from seeds left in the ground by tomatoes that dropped from plants growing last year. All I did was refuse to uproot them when they sprouted. Five healthy plants, with different origins, but the differences are largely insignificant. Groups and behaviors are much the same way. I've worked with hundreds of moderators over the years who wished to keep their hands clean and yet express some sort of dismay as to the sorry state of the communities they were nominally responsible for... Such moderators, like a gardener who does not want dirt under their nails, are best encouraged to find other hobbies.