Comment by pavlov
4 days ago
The article specifically defines the rationalists it’s talking about:
“The rationalist community was drawn together by AI researcher Eliezer Yudkowsky’s blog post series The Sequences, a set of essays about how to think more rationally.”
Is this really a large body of disparate people spread around the world? I suspect not.
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.