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Extropia's Children, Chapter 1: The Wunderkind

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Back in the nineties, a self-taught teenage supergenius joined an obscure mailing list. That odd seed led directly, via Harry Potter fanfic, to today's prominent Effective Altruism and AI Risk movements; to bizarre, cult-like communities whose highly intelligent members feared demons in their minds might cause them to create hells or accidentally exterminate humanity; and, indirectly, to the birth of Bitcoin. Intrigued? Come down the rabbit hole into the epic, surreal, barely plausible saga of Extropia's Children. Gradient Ascendant is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. “I don't have time to be a teenager,” wrote 17-year-old Eliezer Yudkowsky, already obsessed with his lifelong mission to save humanity from itself. Poor kid. He had already put up a web page informing the world of his genius, including the important points “I am not a Nazi,” “I am not a teenager,” “I don't think I'm better than 'normals,

Back in the nineties, a self-taught teenage supergenius joined an obscure mailing list. That odd seed led directly, via Harry Potter fanfic, to today's prominent Effective Altruism and AI Risk movements; to bizarre, cult-like communities whose highly intelligent members feared demons in their minds might cause them to create hells or accidentally exterminate humanity; and, indirectly, to the birth of Bitcoin. Intrigued? Come down the rabbit hole into the epic, surreal saga of Extropia's Children. (The seven chapters of this tale are now listed & linked on a single page, with some updates…

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