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Have you? Because the rationalists I know are genuinely well-adjusted people.

It's cheap and easy to make fun of the lesswrong community as a cringy cult of AI-obsessed neckbeards. And to be fair, the writing style on LW tends to support that impression. But I've found that most of the actual people within the rationality/AI safety/effective altruism communities actually don't fit that stereotype at all.

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Yes, I was in the community for several years and then "left" but still spend a lot of time on its edges. I'm not trying to call them "neckbeards" (although I knew many of those too), only saying that there is an air of superiority without any actually radical content.

I consider EA separate but related, and it definitely qualifies as staking out a superior position within the constraints of liberal morality.

I went to a couple of meetups and found one cool dude surrounded by a group that exactly fit the stereotype, FWIW.

I went to a couple of meetups and never met anyone who would fit that description.

But then, as a lesswrongy person, maybe it's me, maybe "feeling superior" or whatever is just normal to me :shrug:

(But my actual theory is, it's probably just geographical.)

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