Can you elaborate a bit more on the rationalist community’s perceived cults? I’ve only dipped my toes into places like LessWrong, so I am curious what you see there.

Rationalism is essentially a tech-flavored self-help movement, and the people who tend to gravitate towards self-help in general tend to be emotionally vulnerable people who are strongly susceptible to cult techniques (there's a reason so many cults start out as self-help movements).

On top of that, given the tech-flavored nature of Rationalism, its adherents seem to gravitate towards strongly utilitarian ethics (evil can be justified if done for a greater good) and an almost messianic relationship towards artificial superintelligence (a good so great it can justify a lot of evil).

Finally, it seems to me that Rationalism is especially prone to producing tedious writers which create insularity (by making it impenetrable to non-insiders) and lots of schisms over minor disputes that, due to insularity, end up festering into something rather more cult-like that demands more immediate and drastic action... like the Zizians.

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/pQGFeKvjydztpgnsY/occupation...

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/MnFqyPLqbiKL8nSR7/my-experie...

https://medium.com/@zoecurzi/my-experience-with-leverage-res...

https://maxread.substack.com/p/the-zizians-and-the-rationali...

The last link and especially the second half expands from examining the latest example into the broader landscape of Rationalist cultism.

Probably referring to the Ziz cult which was born out of the rationalist community, which recently murdered bunch of innocent people.