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PaperclipPerfector  17d ago (text post)   26764 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 2026

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Scott complains about the way Pinker characterises the AI doomers as a "cult" who recite the "catechism" of their creed. Comparing group X to a religion or a cult is indeed a cheap way to make that group seem ridiculous

And yet, per Yud, every cause wants to be a cult (Scott himself posted on this topic too). How is he of all people surprised and even offended by comparisons to cults, surely he's smart enough to look past the emotive connotations? Isn't that just evidence that they're winning, or at least are on the right track w/r/t community building?

Less charitably - now that AI doom has gone from a fringe obsession to something actually resembling a movement with visible political influence and cultural cachet, is he finally concerned about how stuff like this reads to normies, whose support is instrumental in advancing their cause?

"I'll believe AI poses a threat to the human race when someone who hasn't had sex with Aella says so."

Kek I'll remember this one, thanks. I still think calling rationalists writ large a sex cult is uncharitable - weird sexual practices aren't a defining trait of their culture - but I agree that at this point it's undeniably a trait, can't be easily written off or ignored as convenient, and is bound to cause some friction pun not intended in the long march towards the mainstream.

It's surely a tiny fraction. But still, relative to other scenes, which have zero who've made it with Aella, that's something.

weird sexual practices aren't a defining trait of their culture

I disagree, on "see what you can't critique" grounds. Complaining about the weird sexual practices generates more outrage and more circling of the wagons than critiquing mosquito nets. Everything else is thought experiments; this is personal. Ergo, it is a defining trait.

Complaining about the weird sexual practices generates more outrage and more circling of the wagons than critiquing mosquito nets.

Being more sensitive about their [personal] sex lives than their [political] beliefs is definitely not unique to rationalists, the tendency is virtually universal. Would you not object more harshly to someone criticizing you for who you sleep with, who you feel attracted to, than if they'd just called you a X-triber or tried to point out how stupid your politics are?

definitely not unique to rationalists, the tendency is virtually universal

I didn't say it was, either.

With the whole "we try to be more aware of our biases!" thing they should do a better job at not falling into the same traps as everyone else, and yet, they are only human, however much some of them resent that fact. If anything there are certain blind spots that they are worse at than non-Rationalists of similar socioeconomic status.

Would you not object more harshly to someone criticizing you for who you sleep with, who you feel attracted to

Ehhhh it depends on the context?

I mean yeah, I probably would react more harshly, but we're not talking just like "I don't like your partner" or "I don't like that you're [orientation]," and it's not specifically one-on-one either. "A meaningful swathe of your social group is into """consensual non-consent""" and projecting your morality onto the culture through AI; this will ultimately be bad for 99% of people" is not merely disliking their sex life; it's what their sex life says about their approach to morality/culture/socialization/etc.

I don't have links handy so take this with as much salt as you like, but during one of the poly discourse blowups back when the CW thread was still on the Slatestarcodex subreddit, there seemed to be a split between the vocally poly (possibly overrepresented in the Bay Area) and people that said they were poly but quiet about it (who I don't think were so geographically concentrated, and came across resentful of the vocal types for giving them a bad name). The rationalists live their sex lives quite publicly, with one in particular living hers professionally publicly, and that's what generates the circling of the wagons.

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