+15 Apr: Signal conversation with Ben—
+I'm having some ideas on how I could write my post about disillusionment with the rationalists well still not being too hostile and not leaking info from private conversations
+
+> Yeah, I think the right target to keep in mind is people like you a few years ago who haven't yet had the experiences you've had
+> So they don't actually have to freak out to the point of being imprisoned and then demand help from community leaders and not get it, they can just learn from you
+> Like, the actual sympathetic-but-naive people
+> Not the people fucking with you
+
+[...]
+
+people also deserve credit for the help they did give me (care resources from Alicorn et al.) even if I don't think there intellectual performance was good enough to deserve the Mandate of Heaven implied by the "rationalist" brand name
+
+> Yes, but we need to keep separate accounts for _personal_ gratitude, and institutional fraud
+> Like, I think that if somehow Alicorn gets hurt by the Rationalists dissolving, and we're in a position to help her, we should try to help in any way that _doesn't_ work via continuing to validate the collective narcissistic fantasy that the Rationalists are a thing
+> Insofar as that makes things hard, we have to think of it as a hostage situations
+> But, it's not obvious that this imposes undue costs on the individuals that have helped you a lot, except maybe Anna
+[...]
+> And, _not_ doing this is imposing costs on people like Michael (and all of humanity) instead, which is a lot less fair than harming Anna's interests incidentally by breaking up a scam she's drawing power from
+
+[...]
+should I just reread you posts about EA, or is there more?
+
+> People are systematically conflating corruption, accumulation of dominance, and theft, with getting things done.
+[...]
+
+> These both seem like evidence that CFAR and MIRI see themselves as building an army, not a truth-seeking intellectual community.
+[...]
+
+> This isn't about direct benefit vs harm
+> This is about what, substantively, they're doing
+> And they claimed to be cultivating an epistemically rational community while in fact building an army of loyalists
+
+[...]
+