> “Yes,” I replied, not bothering to correct the “physicist” part.
Didn't read much beyond that part. He'll fit right in with the rationalist crowd...
I skimmed a bit here and there after that but this comes off as plain grandiosity. Even the title is a line you can imagine a hollywood character speaking out loud as they look into the camera, before giving a smug smirk.
0.o
> No actual person talks like that
I think it is plausible that there are people (readers) that find other people (bloggers) basically always right, and that would be the first think they would say to them if they met them. n=1, but there are some bloggers that I think are basically always right, and I am socially bad, so there is no telling what would I blurt out if I met them.
Someone spending a lot of time to build one or multiple skills doesn't make them an expert on everything, but when they start talking like they are an expert on everything because of the perceived difficulties of one or more skills then red flags start to pop up and most reasonable people will notice them and swiftly call them out.
For example Elon Musk saying "At this point I think I know more about manufacturing than anyone currently alive on earth" even if you rationalize that as an out of context deadpan joke it's still completely correct to call that out as nonsense at the very least.
The more a person rationalizes statements like ("AI WILL KILL US ALL") these made by a person or cult the more likely it is that they are a cult member and they lack independent critical thinking, as they outsourced their thinking to group. Maybe their thinking is "the best thoughts", in-fact it probably is, but it's dependent on the group so their individual thinking muscle is weaken, which increases their morbidity (Airstricking a data center will get you killed or arrested by the US Gov. So it's better for the individual to question such statements rather than try to rationalize them using unprovable nonsense like god or AGI).
Which of course the blog article is not, but then at least the complaint wouldn't sound so obviously shallow.
> they gave off some (not all) of the vibes of a cult
...after describing his visit with an atmosphere that sounds extremely cult-like.
Cult member: It's not a cult! It's an organization that promotes love and..
Hank Hill: This is it.
Thanks for clarifying though! Oh wait, you didn't.
Edit: Oh, but you call him "Guru" ... so on reflection you were probably (?) making the same point... (whoosh, sorry).
You don't understand how anxious the rationalist community was around that time. We're not talking self-assured confident people here. These articles were written primarily to calm down people who were panickedly asking "we're not a cult, are we" approximately every five minutes.
For more info, the Behind the Bastards podcast [2] did a pretty good series on how the Zizians sprung up out of the Bay area Rationalist scene. I'd highly recommend giving it a listen if you want a non-rationalist perspective on the Rationalist movement.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zizians [2]: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236...
Those are only named cults though; they just love self-organizing into such patterns. Of course, living in group homes is a "rational" response to Bay Area rents.
> the fertile soil which is perfect for growing cults
This is true but it's not rationalism, it's just that they're from Berkeley. As far as I can tell if you live in Berkeley you just end up joining a cult.
Most of the rationalists I met in the Bay Area moved there specifically to be closer to the community.
Stopped reading thereafter. Nobody speaking like this will have anything I want to hear.
*Guess I’m a rationalist now.
GRRM famously written some pretty awkward sentences but it'd be a shame if someone turned down his work for that alone.
I'd like to thank my useless brain for deciding to write that one down.