Selfishness sounds like it might be his way of thinking about some of this (I don't think he could allow himself to think "I am a fundraiser and pulp writer and married with no other achievements" but I think he knows he likes to be adored and control things).

When we get a proper history of this subculture, with names and dates and diagrams of the polycules and play parties and group homes, it is going to be wild.

Jon Evans is the only person I know who has read Yud's early mailing-list posts, and he was already an AI cultist and went on to work for Metaculus and Meta Superintelligence. There is probably interesting material in there but clearly Yud already thought highly of himself, already believed he was the Chosen One, already got defensive and wordy when someone criticized his ideas, and already posted voluminous pseudo-intellectual screeds which are not as consistent and logical as he believed.

Evans loves chatbot-summaries, but some science writers spent year at it and could not make the bot spit out useful abstracts. And he says he can skim a scientific paper in 5 minutes.

I also don't understand why he objects to that story given that it gets people talking about him as weird but able to get what he wants? But the claim that he dated women at MIRI and wanted them to provide free labour attacks the narrative that MIRI is nothing like Leverage Research or the Zizians.

Missionary voice Have you tried Mastodon? That is where you find people like DeadSimpleTech and Baldur Bjarnason who think that corporate social media was always messed up and current web-development practices are a joke.

He does not admit "I was wrong" very often does he? And if I were a kinky polyamorist, I would be much quicker to respond to "have you dated staff at the organization that funds your life?" than "did you play a specific scene?"

Planecrash seems to be the 1.8 million word Pathfinder fic with tumblr's UnitOfCaring

And how the eff does someone claim to love Pterry in his dating profile but see people as things? Greg Egan is basilisk-unfriendly too.

I think that is why he trains his followers to believe that science is corrupt and incompetent, its institutions and customs are irrelevant, and a gifted child can easily outdo the whole scientific community. He is on board with the eugenics so the EAs and LessWrongers with educations and achievements can tell themselves "at least he is good for the cause." And his playmates have a fetish that needs filling.

When you are running a con like crypto or chatbot companies, it helps to know someone who is utterly naive and can't stop talking about whatever line you feed him. If this were the middle ages Kevin Roose would have an excellent collection of pigges bones and scraps of linen that the nice friar promised were relics of St Margaret of Antioch.

Good point that SlateScott commented on accusations of abuse in rationalist and adjacent organizations. Would the Goldwater Rule have applied? At least there has been some reporting on those accusations but I don't know if it was on the ground or just phoning and emailing people from NYC, Chicago, or LA.

Someone with biochem, pharmacy, or psychology training could comment on some things SlateScott has written.

So Hanson is dissing one of the few movements that supports his pet contrarian policy? After the Defence Department lost interest the only people who like prediction markets seem to be LessWrongers / EAs / tech libertarians / crypto bros / worshippers of Friend Computer.

Yes, Scott Alexander is an unusual rationalist blogger who had a credentialed professional career as a psychiatrist. After Substack became his patron, he opened his own medical practice, but the website has said "not accepting new patients at this time" since 2022. So he seems to live off gifts from fellow travelers with a side hustle in psychiatry.

It shows great confidence in their ability to find paying readers that aside from Substack's VC money they also borrowed $4 million to pay themselves. They don't need an office, printing and distribution, or a sales team and Substack provides and maintains all the IT infrastructure (maybe one admin assistant / bookkeeper).

Has Piper ever been paid to write by an organization that was not funded by her college buddies like Caroline Ellison and Open Philanthropy staffers? RationalWiki mentions Vox (EA funded), something called Asterisk (EA funded), and this Substack blog.