My falling-out with the rationalist community
12 hours ago
- The author resisted writing about the rationalist community due to its effective marketing and fear of appearing irrational, even after scandals like Sam Bankman-Fried and the Zizians.
- The movement originated from 1990s internet skeptic culture, which involved hunting 'cranks' and honing rhetorical skills, sometimes crossing into cruelty (e.g., Timecube affair).
- In the late 2000s, the skeptic community in the SF Bay Area rebranded as rationalists, focusing on proactively finding correct answers to big questions, but remained prone to biases.
- Rationalists often used post-hoc justifications to support pre-existing preferences, exemplified by effective altruism's conclusion that working for crypto/AI startups is the most ethical choice.
- The community practiced selective argumentation (sealioning), as seen in the James Damore memo incident, where a personal belief was framed as a rationalist inquiry to force an unwanted workplace debate.
- The author felt the urge to respond to Damore with a charge of 'motivated reasoning' but realized the futility of such rhetorical games and deleted the draft.