Rationalist posts detailed catalogue of confirmed bad behaviour by EA/rationalist org Nonlinear. Second rationalist goes meta on first post: how can we even know anything, it's so unfair to Nonlinear
@dgerard 'f you want my important updates quickly summarized in four claims-plus-probabilities, jump to the section near the bottom titled "Summary of My Epistemic State"'' these are the most Peaked In High School motherfuckers who ever drew breath
One of the guys from the popular (2.3M subs) yt channel computerphile (not about AI just computer stuff and they have a lot of different people giving talks), is also an advisor. Which would be a good example for people going ‘why are yall so worried about these nerds, nobody listens to them’. (Not going to namedrop as I have no idea how involved and connected he is to all this (and I’m not going to do some sort of creepy deep dive)).
Not going to namedrop as I have no idea how involved and connected he is to all this
I totally will 😎
Robert Miles was my first heartbreaker. He seems like a great educator; I just like listening to him explaining things and talking about computer science. But damn it came as a shock to see he’s the narrator of a Rationalism for Kids cartoon series and is neck-deep in EA.
The community manager saying they were aware of the situation (and presumably took no corrective action and kept it hush-hush) was damning. As is the post that’s just like what about the reputational damage!?
Zero recognition of the fucked up power dynamics at play, and way too much ‘well, nerds will be nerds.’
Buried in a mountain of polite disclaimers and faux intellectual humility, we have this absolutely damning information which could have been the whole article:
Alice was polyamorous, and she and Drew entered into a casual romantic relationship. Kat previously had a polyamorous marriage that ended in divorce, and is now monogamously partnered with Emerson. Kat reportedly told Alice that she didn’t mind polyamory "on the other side of the world”, but couldn’t stand it right next to her, and probably either Alice would need to become monogamous or Alice should leave the organization.
This Drew character was fucking the intern? No mention of any sort of ethical entanglement regarding having casual sex with your live-in employee. Think of the utilitons you save by hiring a maid/grocery getter to have sex with instead of wasting your valuable genius-minutes actually dating.
The lack of commentary regarding it (there’s one sitting at -15 that points out the obvious) makes me wonder if this sort of thing is the norm in EA circles.
@Evinceo@dgerard The name Alice automatically makes me assume this is some kind of cryptographic problem statement. "Alice is polyamorous and wishes to enter into a casual romantic relationship with Bob."
Note that near the end of the original post the writer claims to have unilaterally decided to pay his sources a whistleblower fee of $5K each, which will probably muddy the waters a lot if this ever were to get traction outside ea/lw circles.
I’m very grateful to the two staff members involved for coming forward and eventually spending dozens of hours clarifying and explaining their experiences to me and others who were interested. To compensate them for their courage, the time and effort spent to talk with me and explain their experiences at some length, and their permission to allow me to publish a lot of this information, I (using personal funds) am going to pay them each $5,000 after publishing this post.
I think of myself as playing the role of a wise old mentor who has had lots of experience, telling stories to the young adventurers, trying to toughen them up, somewhat similar to how Prof Quirrell[8] toughens up the students in HPMOR through teaching them Defense Against the Dark Arts
[8] Note that during our conversation, Emerson brought up HPMOR and the Quirrell similarity, not me.
epistemic status: jesus fucking christ, what is your major malfunction?!
Ok, I got a chunk of the way through it, they’re running it less like a nonprofit and more like the fucking mansion family, what a horror show.
Alice and Chloe report that they were advised not to spend time with ‘low value people’, including their families, romantic partners, and anyone local to where they were staying, with the exception of guests/visitors that Nonlinear invited. Alice and Chloe report this made them very socially dependent on Kat/Emerson/Drew and otherwise very isolated.
Like if this was a journalist piece the first paragraph would contain ‘cult’ and it would relate this example, not make me wade through an entire section about his sit down interview with a Member Of The Family.
Seriously, the mandatory forced equanimity of the text went from merely off-putting to pretty gross actually as it was becoming increasingly apparent the nonlinear people are basically sociopaths who make it a point of pride to flagrantly abuse anyone who finds themselves at the other end of a business arrangement with them, not to mention that their employment model and accounting practices as described seem wildly illegal anywhere not a libertarian dystopia, even without going into the allegations about workplace romance.
Except they are EAs doing unspecified x-risk work, aka literally God’s work, so they are afforded every lenience and every benefit of a doubt, I guess.
what are these fucking clowns even supposed to be doing that’s so important? what the fuck are these numbnuts even producing that’s supposed to be any good for the world whatsoever? they’re traipsing around the world taking drugs and fucking with an entourage of poorly paid non-employees? and producing what? why are those people so invested in any way in them (and don’t look now, I’m coming back with the same questions about everybody else in those threads)?
Was it just me or did OG’s post use the epistemic status not as an epistemic status but as a way to frame how you should feel about the things?+more non epistemic things?
E: What “she was being paid the equivalent of $75k[1] per year (only $1k/month, the rest via room and board)” 62k for room and board? “The staff they hire are either remote, or live in the house with them.” for living with your boss? Wtf is wrong with those people. While also making romantic references to their employees. There were doing indentured servitude ffs. They should get lawyers.
I did not expect a ‘we tried to get our indentured sex servants to smuggle drugs for us’ story to drop.
“Epistemic status:” is such a pompous thing to say that it is automatically a head start on a joke setup. Possible completions include but are not limited to the following:
I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue
Jackin’ at the speed of light (sung to the tune of Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now”)
(Later in the article it was mentioned that even the 1k per month wasn’t paid).
“Over the 8 months she was there Alice claims she received no salary for the first 5 months, then (roughly) $1k/month salary for 2 months, and then after she quit she received a ~$6k one-off salary payment (from the funds allocated for her incubated organization). She also had a substantial number of emergency health issues covered. [there is a footnote here mentioning there was no contract which … anyway poor quokkas (yes im stealing that concept from the fascists, suck it nerdiest lovecraft cosplayer)]”
Also TIL that the custom ‘we should be rational and clear and bla bla bla bla’ software ran by the LWosphere doesn’t allow people to see that and how a post was edited. Bit weird.
The rationalist house style definitely has a way of making these guys act like this is the Tractatus they’re banging out, even when it’s pure office gossip.
During the interview, Kat openly admitted to not being productive but shared that she still appeared to be productive because she gets others to do work for her. She relies on volunteers who are willing to do free work for her, which is her top productivity advice.
Productivity pro tip: you can get a lot more done if you can just convince other people to do your work for you for free
My attention span is not what it used to be, and I couldn’t force myself to get to the end of this. A summary or TLDR (on the part of the original author) would have been helpful.
What is it with rationalists and their inability to write with concision? Is there a gene for bloviation that also predisposes them to the cult? Or are they all just mimicking Yud’s irritating style?
shot: Cult Participation Badges for dedication and effort for Just Thinking Really Hard About Things (supposedly)
chaser: but how can we be suuuuuuure. it’s, like, so hard, man. also I had a beer with $name once and they seemed great! are you sure you didn’t piss them off somehow?
also “195 comments” what the fuck find some real hobbies you weirdoes
This part of the first comment got an audible guffaw out of me:
I think that there’s been a failure to inhabit the least convenient possible world°, and the general distribution over possible outcomes, and correspondingly attempt to move to the pareto-frontier of outcomes assuming that distribution.
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