It even has drug induced brainwashing and coercive sex slavery, and it sees its inner circles (and the sufficiently devout) as gods in the making. This is full Thetan tear lunacy, but because totemic magic words like "SCIENCE" and "LOGIC" are slapped all over the outer walls, it hasn't gotten the same scrutiny.
Honestly, from what I read, I just feel sorry for them. I don't even want to dunk on them, I just want to convince them to go fishing or something. This person has never even seen a blade of grass in their entire life, much less touched one.
Like sure they talk about weird fucked up shit but it seems like it's just because they're so detached from reality and humanity that it means nothing to them. And they mention something about being trans but choosing not to transition? Maybe that's why they've retreated so far into the disembodied world of ideas and abstraction?
No wonder so many "rationalists" are obsessed with "simulation theory" and want to secondhand alienate the entire world and everyone in it with their beliefs.
I would like to state once again for the record that "Simulation Theory" is very literally just the Ontological Argument but put forth by people who think they're too smart to need to learn history or religion or religious philosophy.
My favourite thing in the world is introducing these types to Morrowind Deep Lore and watching them crack in real time from accidental exposure to theology.
The Elder Scrolls lore is so much better and more fulfilling than it has any right to be. If you told me that a bunch of philosophy and theology geeks would cleverly smuggle and entire curriculum's worth of teaching in to the backstory of a video game for Xbox I'd laugh at you.
Apotheosis, Mundus style.
https://youtu.be/08I4UCKsA8E?t=159
Skooma is made from Moonsugar. Moonsugar is literally crystalized light from Tamriel's moons. Which the Khajitt occasionally visit by climbing up on each other's shoulders until they can reach the moon. This is at least as true as any other competing theory, like the theory that the Moons are the rotting body of a God after his heart was cut out and fired across the world.
Also, can you imagine the marketing department when they found out that Kirkbride et al put several hundred pages of magical philosophy in to an X-box game for 12-28 year old males>?!>!>!>!>&
That's the wages of autodidactism: stumbling upon old ideas and thinking they're new ideas and no one telling the autodidact otherwise.
I don't get the point of “Simulation Theory” (the internet one, not french philosophy). Ok, you can be convinced of this hypothesis, but what is the consequence?
Exactly. It's pure navel gazing. It's unfalsifiable and even if it is true it has no observable consequences at all!
I just feel like we're making fun of the weird nerd who sits alone at lunch after we found their diary tbh :deeper-sadness:
Would you feel as bad if that weird nerd was being paid millions by Peter Thiel for his bad Harry Potter fanfiction?
Are they? I just assumed this was some random blogger.
This entire cult is based on the babbling of one particular Harry Potter fanfiction writer that got paid a lot of money by billionaires for his "research" at the grift known as "MIRI."
Note how many Harry Potter references are in this thread's link? That is no accident. If we're talking about a weird nerd's diary, this is like several other weird nerds that have already banded together around that diary's writer and were writing manifestos of their own about which teachers and students they wanted to murder or violate. Also, the weird nerd's dad has a creepy rich friend that keeps giving him money for treats.
Also, that same weird nerd has already drugged classmates and molsted them while they were under the influence, bragging about it in the diary. Big Yud openly brags about drugging and other mind control experiments on women.
So... is this particular author the one who got paid a lot of money? Is this Big Yud, or is that someone totally different?
Also, I scrolled to the comments and found (from the author):
It seems like they have the cult's brainworms but are also kinda calling shit out? Idk the rambling isn't super intelligible and I could be wrong, but I think you might be being overzealous against this particular person.
Edit: Apparently she protested against MIRI and CFAR handing out flyers calling them fascist TERFs who betrayed the rationalist community. Just saying.
Elizer Yudkowsky's bad Harry Potter fanfiction provided the dogma and jargon that they are all using, including the "spells" being talked about in the "thought experiments."
I'm sure that some Scientologists could cite L. Ron Hubbard quotes while arguing about the ethics of Sea Og, too.
Wow you totally owned that person who's calling out abuse by a cult using the language of said cult, by pointing out that the language she's using the language of a cult.
I'm not sure what you're getting at, but your hostility seems kind of uncalled for.
I was mostly focusing on the cult's upper echelons and its leader(s), and cited this (ex) member's own blog as a basis for the scary stuff it does and continues to do.
Going back to the Sea Og comparison, that was to say that plenty of Scientologists are well meaning, especially former members, but the damage was still done and it sometimes shows in the jargon carrying on.
So... you're not dunking on the author, but rather citing her as a source? Because that was not the impression I got from the post or any of the comments on here.
Like, if you didn't know what her deal was you can just admit it, if so it's an honest mistake. It's borderline impossible to make heads or tails of any of this shit so I wouldn't blame you. I'm not trying to call you out, I just felt uneasy about dunking on her once I read a bit further into the post.
Yes, actually. I'm not dunking on the author as much as citing her blog as a basis for talking about the mind warping rabbit hole that is LessWrong and related "rationalist" cults.
What I was saying is that her experience reminds me a lot of ex-Scientologists that are still talking in the jargon (and thinking by the jargon's precepts) long after they have left.
My mistake was not making it more clear who I was focusing on with the blog as only the basis for further discussion, and yes, dunking on capital-r "Rationalists" that receive the lion's share of funding from their billionaire friends.
Ok yeah, in that case that was not clear at all. Maybe next time either explain wtf we're supposed to get from the link or find a source that the average person can interpret coherently.
I am sorry that what I wrote I was unclear.
This is 100% just a random blogger.
That blogger went dangerously deep into a cult's inner circles and I felt it was worth linking to it to get a hint of what the cult has been up to.
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