+No one seemed to notice at the time, but this characterization of our movement [is actually a _declaration of failure_](https://sinceriously.fyi/cached-answers/#comment-794). There's a word, "rationalist", that I've been trying to avoid in this post, because it's the subject of so much strategic equivocation, where the motte is "anyone who studies the ideal of systematically correct reasoning, general methods of thought that result in true beliefs and successful plans", and the bailey is "members of our social scene centered around Eliezer Yudkowsky and Scott Alexander". (Since I don't think we deserve the "rationalist" brand name, I had to choose something else to refer to the social scene. Hence, "robot cult.")