Comment by jacquesm

I agree with the religion comparison (the "rational" conclusions of rationalism tend towards millenarianism with a scifi flavour), but the people going furthest down that rabbit hole often aren't doing what they please: on the contrary they're spending disproportionate amounts of time worrying about armageddon and optimising for stuff other people simply don't care about, or in the case of the explicit cults being actively exploited. Seems like the typical in-too-deep rationalist gets seduced by the idea that others who scoff at their choices just aren't as smart and rational as them, as part of a package deal which treats everything from their scifi interests to their on-the-spectrum approach to analysing every interaction from first principles as great insights...