+If you think it's "sometimes personally prudent and not community-harmful" to go out of your way to say positive things about Republican candidates and never, ever say positive things about Democratic candidates (because you live in a red state and "don't see what the alternative is besides getting shot"), you can see why people might regard you as a Republican shill, even if all the things you said were true. If you tried to defend yourself against the charge of being a Republican shill by pointing out that you've never told any specific individual, "You should vote Republican," that's a nice motte, but you shouldn't expect devoted rationalists to fall for it.
+
+Similarly, when Yudkowsky [wrote in June 2021](https://twitter.com/ESYudkowsky/status/1404697716689489921), "I have never in my own life tried to persuade anyone to go trans (or not go trans)—I don't imagine myself to understand others that much", it was a great motte. I don't doubt the literal motte stated literally.
+
+And yet it seems worth noticing that shortly after proclaiming in March 2016 that he was "over 50% probability at this point that at least 20% of the ones with penises are actually women", he made [a followup post celebrating having caused someone's transition](https://www.facebook.com/yudkowsky/posts/10154110278349228):
+
+> Just checked my filtered messages on Facebook and saw, "Your post last night was kind of the final thing I needed to realize that I'm a girl."
+> ==DOES ALL OF THE HAPPY DANCE FOREVER==
+
+In the comments, he added:
+
+> Atheists: 1000+ Anorgasmia: 2 Trans: 1
+
+He [later clarified on Twitter](https://twitter.com/ESYudkowsky/status/1404821285276774403), "It is not trans-specific. When people tell me I helped them, I mostly believe them and am happy."
+
+But if Stalin is committed to convincing gender-dysphoric males that they need to cut their dicks off, and you're committed to not disagreeing with Stalin, you _shouldn't_ mostly believe it when gender-dysphoric males thank you for providing the final piece of evidence they needed to realize that they need to cut their dicks off, for the same reason a self-aware Republican shill shouldn't uncritically believe it when people thank him for warning them against Democrat treachery. We know—he's told us very clearly—that Yudkowsky isn't trying to be a neutral purveyor of decision-relevant information on this topic. He's playing on a different chessboard.
+
+### A Fire of Inner Life
+
+"[P]eople do _know_ they're living in a half-Stalinist environment," Yudkowsky claims. "I think people are better off at the end of that," he says. But who are "people", specifically? One of the problems with utilitarianism is that it doesn't interact well with game theory. If a policy makes most people better off, at the cost of throwing a few others under the bus, is enacting that policy the right thing to do?
+
+Depending on the details, maybe—but you probably shouldn't expect the victims to meekly go under the wheels without a fight. That's why I've [been](/2023/Jul/blanchards-dangerous-idea-and-the-plight-of-the-lucid-crossdreamer/) [telling](/2023/Jul/a-hill-of-validity-in-defense-of-meaning/) [you](/2023/Dec/if-clarity-seems-like-death-to-them/) this 100,000-word sob story about how _I_ didn't know, and _I'm_ not better off.