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GorillasAreForEating

@ GorillasAreForEating @awful.systems

Posts
15
Comments
73
Joined
3 yr. ago

  • Is there a prosopography of MIRI/SIAI/CFAR?

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  • Thank you!

  • Is there a prosopography of MIRI/SIAI/CFAR?

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  • Here's something crazy I just discovered: In 2015 Sam Altman bragged about pulling a "long con" that ensured that Reddit remained under the control of Silicon Valley insiders even though it had been bought by Conde Nast.

    https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3cs78i/whats_the_best_long_con_you_ever_pulled/cszwpgq/?context=1

    As you probably know last year Reddit made a deal with OpenAI to hand over data to train AI; it seems like there's a bunch of mutual back scratching that happens behind the scenes.

  • Is there a prosopography of MIRI/SIAI/CFAR?

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  • One thing that really shifted my perspective was realizing how many of the people and institutions in these rationalist and rationalist-adjacent social networks are funded either directly or indirectly by Peter Thiel - even people who seem to be ideologically opposed on the surface. I wasted so much of my time arguing with people on forums about their ideology only to realize that I had been hacking at the branches instead of the roots: Peter Thiel's money.

    (Not that I mean to put all the blame on Thiel but he's clearly a big and highly connected node in this network)

  • Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 7th December 2025 - awful.systems

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  • Ziz's blog had posts that revealed his identity and mentioned some of the BD stuff, once I found them it was just a matter of putting two and two together, so to speak

  • Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 7th December 2025 - awful.systems

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  • Damn, I missed this and now the comment is deleted. Do you happen to remember what he said?

  • Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 7th December 2025 - awful.systems

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  • Yeah, I think Rolling Stone was worried about getting sued and omitted Helm's name in the first draft (or something like that).

    I know who the alleged victim was, and I think there probably was a crime and blackmail payments but the alleged victim didn't want to come forward for a number of reasons (among other things, he's still part of the rationalist community and has faced a lot of harassment from the public after an unrelated newspaper article outed him as being trans). I'd also point out that the only person that miricult directly accused of statutory rape was one of Yudkowsky's employees rather than Yudkowsky himself. That being said, the journalist who wrote the Rolling Stone article claims she got a copy of the police report Helm filed and only Yudkowsky was named.

    Even if miricult was total bullshit I'm confident that the alleged victim was lying about not being exploited by other rationalists; a few years later he and a couple of other people posted accounts of being sexually abused by a rationalist (unrelated to miricult) and it led to the abuser being ostracized from the rationalist community.

    Anyways I know a lot more about this but I'd rather not discuss the details on a publicly viewable forum to protect the privacy of the people involved.

  • Stephen and Steven

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  • That part of the testimony was finally unredacted in the Epstein files that were released to the public recently, it turns out the scientist in question was Stephen Kosslyn, not Steven Pinker. You can see for yourself:

    https://ep-nov-12-data.greg.technology/006/HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_021174.jpg

    I searched the files for both Yudkowsky and Pinker, Epstein seems to have known who they were but there aren't any emails or direct correspondence between them and nothing incriminating (yet)

  • Is there a prosopography of MIRI/SIAI/CFAR?

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  • I've thought about making one but I never got really got past the "gathering info" stage as I tend to go on hiatus for months at a time for the sake of my sanity. That being said, here are some things you might find interesting:

    Extropia's Children - a series of substack posts about the rationalists and related groups. One of the better sources of their early history that I've found, and has links to the original sources for a lot of stuff.

    MIRI's "Top Contributors" page - which shows that Peter Thiel was their biggest donor until 2015, when he pulled funding because he felt that they had become like a luddite Burning Man Camp (and it was also a year that the Rationalists actually did go to Burning Man). Thiel was also given an honorary position in SIAI. Facebook cofounder Dustin Moskovitz has been their biggest funder since 2015 through Open Philanthropy.

    Yudkowsky coined the term "effective altruist", despite their claims to the contrary. Will MacAskill and Toby Ord were both LessWrongers before starting EA, and LessWrong was EA's biggest recruitment source for years (I think this is noteworthy because EA now tries to distance themselves from the rationalists rather than acknowledging that they're an offshoot)

    FTX was also an offshoot of the rationalists/EA (hence the polyamorous group house, FTX prediction market, etc). Caroline Ellison was a personal friend of Scott Alexander Siskind and even told him about their overleveraging strategy on tumblr a few months before FTX collapsed SBF financially supported ACX and his psychiatrist, George Lerner, worked in the same office as Scott Alexander IIRC (I've lost track of the source, will post later if I can find it).

    This recent Rolling Stone article about the Zizians - which filled in a number of gaps in my knowledge, in particular how Yudkowsky and Thiel met.

    This a timeline of events related to sexual assaults in the rationalist community that I myself compiled and posted on the subreddit. (I think I have an even longer timeline of events somewhere, I'll look for it later)

    Anyways I'd be up for sharing info, there's a bunch more stuff I know and I could basically send you a giant list of sites I've bookmarked over the years that would aid in mapping out the connections. (edit: I guess that wouldn't really be "concise" but I think if we want a concise posopography we'll have to make it ourselves)

  • Your favorite science YouTubers are misleading you about AI — how to spot lies

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  • My favorite science Youtubers? Nah, those channels are IFLScience-tier, their intended audience is literally children.

  • SneerClub @awful.systems
    GorillasAreForEating @awful.systems

    Kathy Forth made a facebook post about miricult.com the day before her death

    www.facebook.com /forthk/posts/2045524605731027
  • SneerClub @awful.systems
    GorillasAreForEating @awful.systems

    That Time Eliezer Yudkowsky recommended a really creepy sci-fi book to his audience

    medium.com /@collegehill/that-time-eliezer-yudkowsky-recommended-a-really-creepy-sci-fi-book-to-his-audience-b15494241a9b

  • In which a Eugenicist Effective Altruist advocates becoming a cuckold for the greater good

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    GorillasAreForEating @awful.systems

    In which a Eugenicist Effective Altruist advocates becoming a cuckold for the greater good

    nicholasdecker.substack.com /p/why-your-children-shouldnt-be-your
  • SneerClub @awful.systems
    GorillasAreForEating @awful.systems

    The Tech Baron Seeking to “Ethnically Cleanse” San Francisco

    newrepublic.com /article/180487/balaji-srinivasan-network-state-plutocrat

  • GabAI system prompt leaked

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  • When they made an alt-right equivalent of Patreon they called it "Hatreon". This stuff is like a game to them.

  • 'It’s a common misconception that we recommend all EAs “marry to give,” or marry a high-net-worth individual with the intent of redirecting much of their wealth to effective causes'

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  • Exactly

  • 'It’s a common misconception that we recommend all EAs “marry to give,” or marry a high-net-worth individual with the intent of redirecting much of their wealth to effective causes'

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  • I'd say it's half-serious satire; she did end up dating a "high net-worth individual", after all.

  • 'It’s a common misconception that we recommend all EAs “marry to give,” or marry a high-net-worth individual with the intent of redirecting much of their wealth to effective causes'

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  • If Caroline Ellison hadn't been in an actual relationship with a "high net-worth individual" I would have said it was just straightforward satire, but given the context I think she's using mask of irony to pretend she isn't revealing her true self.

    Her words may be satirical, but her actions were more like "this but unironically".

  • SneerClub @awful.systems
    GorillasAreForEating @awful.systems

    'It’s a common misconception that we recommend all EAs “marry to give,” or marry a high-net-worth individual with the intent of redirecting much of their wealth to effective causes'

    web.archive.org /web/20150831031818/http://worldoptimization.tumblr.com/post/126848111674/100000-hours-introduction

  • SBF's effective altruism and rationalism considered an aggravating circumstance in sentencing

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  • Here is the document that mentions EA as risk factor, some quotes below

    Fourth, the defendant may feel compelled to do this fraud again, or a version of it, based on his use of idiosyncratic, and ultimately for him pernicious, beliefs around altruism, utilitarianism, and expected value to place himself outside of the bounds of the law that apply to others, and to justify unlawful, selfish, and harmful conduct. Time and time again the defendant has expressed that his preferred path is the one that maximizes his version of societal value, even if imposes substantial short term harm or carries substantial risks to others... In this case, the defendant’s professed philosophy has served to rationalize a dangerous brand of megalomania—one where the defendant is convinced that he is above the law and the rules of the road that apply to everyone else, who he necessarily deems inferior in brainpower, skill, and analytical reasoning.

  • The current TPOT implosion

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  • "post-rationalists", essentially just rationalists who reject Yudkowksy's anti-woo stance

  • The current TPOT implosion

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  • I should probably confess I didn't actually read the longer ones all the way through, for the reason you just demonstrated.

  • The current TPOT implosion

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  • Yeah, seems doubtful they'd get along though I imagine both groups were present based on what I know of the rationalists.

    Also lol at the gender ratio.

  • The current TPOT implosion

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  • I should have said at least two sex offenders.

    In other threads people are saying the victim was his 9 year old stepdaughter, but who knows?

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    "As always, pedophilia is not the same as ephebophilia." - Eliezer Yudkowsky, actual quote

    www.lesswrong.com /posts/a8dCAtNKM8eK3WHAE/thought-experiment-the-transhuman-pedophile
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    GorillasAreForEating @awful.systems

    The SSC subreddit ponders the difference between Bayesianism and plain old bias

    old.reddit.com /r/slatestarcodex/comments/18i7l89/whats_the_difference_between_a_bayesian_prior_and/
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    GorillasAreForEating @awful.systems

    "Successful people create companies. More successful people create countries. The most successful people create religions."

    blog.samaltman.com /successful-people
  • SneerClub @awful.systems
    GorillasAreForEating @awful.systems

    Effective Altruism Funded the “AI Existential Risk” Ecosystem with Half a Billion Dollars

    www.aipanic.news /p/effective-altruism-funded-the-ai
  • SneerClub @awful.systems
    GorillasAreForEating @awful.systems

    "it’s like the stages of a rocket ship and racism was the first stage"

  • SneerClub @awful.systems
    GorillasAreForEating @awful.systems

    To what extent did Eliezer Yudkowsky invent the Effective Altruist movement?

    forum.effectivealtruism.org /posts/9a7xMXoSiQs3EYPA2/the-history-of-the-term-effective-altruism
  • SneerClub @awful.systems
    GorillasAreForEating @awful.systems

    Who Is @BasedBeffJezos, The Leader Of The Tech Elite’s ‘E/Acc’ Movement?

    www.forbes.com /sites/emilybaker-white/2023/12/01/who-is-basedbeffjezos-the-leader-of-effective-accelerationism-eacc
  • SneerClub @awful.systems
    GorillasAreForEating @awful.systems

    The Inside Story of Microsoft’s Partnership with OpenAI

    archive.is /s2CdK
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    GorillasAreForEating @awful.systems

    Prominent Women in Tech Say They Don't Want to Join OpenAI's All-Male Board

    www.wired.com /story/women-in-tech-openai-board/
  • SneerClub @awful.systems
    GorillasAreForEating @awful.systems

    OpenAI Employees Say Firm's Chief Scientist Has Been Making Strange Spiritual Claims

    futurism.com /openai-employees-say-firms-chief-scientist-has-been-making-strange-spiritual-claims