The biggest topic that I haven't seen in other comments is that torture and death always seem to wind their way into the philosophizing of the Yudkowskyite. Leaving alone the Basilisk itself (lol), there is the example of the infamous dust in eye vs. torture thought "experiment" where the most rational answer is, of course, the torture of a human being for 50 years.
Sometimes it seems like this brand of "rationality" is the nerd's equivalent of making a badass boast. "See how callous I can be and still pass it off as rational!" They're just so EAGER to get to solutions that inflict horrors, for some reason.
On an unrelated note: I can't find anything on it now, but I have legit seen some of these people advocate for the abolition of all art to make people focus on science. (Methods of Rationality is okay, of course.) Might be worth looking into mining that if it's not too off-topic.
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The biggest topic that I haven't seen in other comments is that torture and death always seem to wind their way into the philosophizing of the Yudkowskyite. Leaving alone the Basilisk itself (lol), there is the example of the infamous dust in eye vs. torture thought "experiment" where the most rational answer is, of course, the torture of a human being for 50 years.
Sometimes it seems like this brand of "rationality" is the nerd's equivalent of making a badass boast. "See how callous I can be and still pass it off as rational!" They're just so EAGER to get to solutions that inflict horrors, for some reason.
On an unrelated note: I can't find anything on it now, but I have legit seen some of these people advocate for the abolition of all art to make people focus on science. (Methods of Rationality is okay, of course.) Might be worth looking into mining that if it's not too off-topic.