Extropia's Children, Chapter 2: This Demon-Haunted World

(This chapter goes to some very strange and dark places, including psychosis and suicide. What follows is largely a curated compilation of blog posts and comments, i.e. an online oral history. After consideration I've decided to generally not include unsubstantiated secondhand hearsay accusations such as “I heard X did Y to Z,” but you can find plenty if you dig deeper. Which claims to trust, who to believe, where to be skeptical, where to be derisive ... is up to you. My own confidence levels admit considerable room for error. Yours probably should too.) [See Chapter 1 for full backstory; it depicted the growth of the rationalism movement around the work of Eliezer Yudkowsky, who founded the Singularity Institute, and whose “Sequences” describing rationalism seeded the online community LessWrong.] Gradient Ascendant is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Leverage Research was introduced to LessWrong in

(This chapter goes to some very strange and dark places, including psychosis and suicide. What follows is largely a curated compilation of blog posts and comments, i.e. an online oral history. After consideration I've decided to generally not include unsubstantiated secondhand hearsay accusations such as “I heard X did Y to Z,” but you can find plenty if you dig deeper. Which claims to trust, who to believe, where to be skeptical, where to be derisive ... is up to you. My own confidence levels admit considerable room for error. Yours probably should too.) [See Chapter 1 for full backstory; it