Fork found in kitchen

I honestly don’t know, and if anyone tries to find out he might delete his blog again. If he is on a Thiel sinecure or running his own business, he shouldn’t be using the first person

I don’t think Scott Alexander is entitled to get annoyed about excessive anti-racism programmes in the workplace given that he is well known to be very racist.

Hell, maybe he has done an above-average number of unconscious bias trainings and DEI workshops and racism book clubs, but it’s because he keeps talking about how black people are mentally inferior at work and making him do training is cheaper than firing him.

California just had a small one the other day, so maybe Scott Alexander’s shitty opinions cause earthquakes.

We wanted to be able to hold a job without reciting DEI shibboleths or filling in multiple-choice exams about how white people cause earthquakes. Instead we got a thousand scientific studies cancelled because they used the string “trans-” in a sentence on transmembrane proteins.

If you were too racist to see the wood for the trees, that’s your problem comrade! Well, actually it’s everyone’s problem now.

I think they’re claiming that they are aware of the potential issues in how knowledge is produced (bias, unconscious or not)…but they think that they are uniquely humble and aware of all the issues, they certainly aren’t influenced by ideology, and they aren’t susceptible to the same logical fallacies as everyone else.

I think starting with Sam Bankman Fried is a solid idea. Relatively informed members of the general public a) know who that guy is, and b) know that he made some really poor decisions. He does not have the silicon valley mystique that attaches itself to some other adherents, I think fewer people will think “well that guy is really smart, why would he be in a cult”. Then you can go back and explain EA and LessWrong and Yudkowsky’s role in all of this.

Everything I have read about this guy creeps me out or pisses me off.

While googling around for stuff about them I found this article about a sting Hope Not Hate did on them. They produced a slideshow of doom for a fictional wealthy investor, imagining a proposed eugenicist city state on the Isle of Man.

What is it with these people and islands? Bankman-Fried wanted to buy Nauru. I assume none of them realize the inherent economic and planning disadvantages of building your empire on a tiny island…

“pro-LGBT rights” here means “pro Peter Thiel”. He gives them a lot of money.

They don’t want to make a population level impact on demographics, they want their kids to be the new aristocracy

If nothing else, they’ll be able to start a great punk band.

Yikes !

Their attitude to kids, based on that nightmarish Guardian interview, is extremely fucked. Hopefully their children will break the cycle.

I am very sure that the only reason they talk about positive eugenics is because negative eugenics, literally forcing some people to not have kids, is taboo. Then again they are pretty stupid and arrogant so maybe they really believe they’re breeding superbabies…

I will always remember Sam Bankman Fried saying it’s obvious that Shakespeare can’t be the greatest author ever because it’s unlikely. Just because something’s unlikely doesn’t mean it’s impossible! You need to independently evaluate the evidence!

In the Going Clear documentary an author says that because Scientology was built by and for L. Ron Hubbard, people who follow Scientology are gradually moulded in his image and pick up his worst traits and neuroses. LessWrong was founded by a former child prodigy…

They seem to believe that stereotypes often have a grain of truth to them, and it’s thus ok to believe stereotypes.

It’s the glitz of Catholicism with fewer of those pesky liberals around.

Also, some Orthodox monasteries had an enslaved workforce until well into the 19th century, which must appeal to neoreactionary scum.

I happened to be at mass today. There was a little explanation in the missalette that not only did Jesus’s death redeem the sins of everyone today, he also redeemed all the sinners who lived and died before Christ came. I dunno, it reminded me of the Roko’s Basilisk eternal judgment computer simulation…

This could result in the worst podcast of all time