The Cult of Rationalism in Silicon Valley

A lot of the people designing America’s technology and close to the center of American power believe some deeply weird shit. We already talked to journalist Gil Duran about the Nerd Reich, the rise of the destructive anti-democratic ideology. In this episode, we dive into another weird section of Silicon Valley: the cult of Rationalism.
Max Read, the journalist behind the Read Max Substack, is here to help us through it. Rationalism is responsible for a lot more than you might think and Read lays out how it’s influenced the world we live in today and how it created the environment for a cult that’s got a body count.
Defining rationalism: “Something between a movement, a community, and a self-help program.”
Eliezer Yudkowsky and the dangers of AI
What the hell is AGI?
The Singleton Guide to Global Governance
The danger of thought experiments
As always, follow the money
Vulgar bayesianism
What’s a Zizian?
Sith Vegans
Anselm: Ontological Argument for God’s Existence
SBF and Effective Altruism
READ MAX!
The Zizians and the Rationalist death cults
Pausing AI Developments Isn’t Enough. We Need to Shut it All Down - Eliezer Yudkowsky’s TIME Magazine piece
Explaining Roko’s Basilisk, the Thought Experiment That Brought Elon Musk and Grimes Together
The Delirious, Violent, Impossible True Story of the Zizians
The Government Knows AGI is Coming | The Ezra Klein Show
The archived ‘Is Trump Racist’ rational post
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