Re: BAP, there's also the option to point out that what he's saying is pathetic nonsense, that he hides behind irony because he can barely string together an actual sentence let alone an argument, etc.
Good post, but I don’t quite agree that “the rationalist method … helps keep the extremophile, label-loving zoomers out.” As an extremophile zoomer myself, it was precisely the high strangeness of taking AI, transhumanism, anthropics, etc. seriously that attracted me to rationalist writing when I was 13; I was drawn to Yudkowsky for the same reason I was to Nick Land. It turned out to be the correct thing to pay attention to, for sure, but no less extreme for that — being a rationalist right now is what it must have felt like to be a Marxist in 1917…
It's why politicians appealing to "common sense" drives me up the wall. Part of growing up is (or should be) realizing that Life Is Complicated.
Re: BAP, there's also the option to point out that what he's saying is pathetic nonsense, that he hides behind irony because he can barely string together an actual sentence let alone an argument, etc.
Good post, but I don’t quite agree that “the rationalist method … helps keep the extremophile, label-loving zoomers out.” As an extremophile zoomer myself, it was precisely the high strangeness of taking AI, transhumanism, anthropics, etc. seriously that attracted me to rationalist writing when I was 13; I was drawn to Yudkowsky for the same reason I was to Nick Land. It turned out to be the correct thing to pay attention to, for sure, but no less extreme for that — being a rationalist right now is what it must have felt like to be a Marxist in 1917…
yeah idk what the hell i was on about there