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Not sure how to define "drawn together", but the anecdata is: about half of my friends love Yudkowsky's works; they live all across US, EU and Middle Eastern countries.

So I suspect yes, it's a large body of loosely coupled people.

Define "large" :

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/fall-meetups-everywhere-cal...

(One of the largest subgroups AFAIK ?)

(They still seem to be leaning heavily USA-based, and in particular California-based.)

Maybe a better link would be to the previous wave of meetups, because some places join the event at the last moment:

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/meetups-everywhere-spring-2...

It's large in the sense that it's not a single well connected group. There are subgroups within the rationalists

"Self-proclaimed rationalists" is a much broader group than people who read Yudkowsky.

Article (and this thread) is blog spam.

Arguments about who is/not a cult member (regardless of affiliation) don't seem relevant to HN. Perhaps HN should flag the thread.