The article specifically defines the rationalists it’s talking about:

“The rationalist community was drawn together by AI researcher Eliezer Yudkowsky’s blog post series The Sequences, a set of essays about how to think more rationally.”

Is this really a large body of disparate people spread around the world? I suspect not.

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animuchan 7 days ago | parent | next [-]

Not sure how to define "drawn together", but the anecdata is: about half of my friends love Yudkowsky's works; they live all across US, EU and Middle Eastern countries.

So I suspect yes, it's a large body of loosely coupled people.

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BlueTemplar 7 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Define "large" :

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/fall-meetups-everywhere-cal...

(One of the largest subgroups AFAIK ?)

(They still seem to be leaning heavily USA-based, and in particular California-based.)

	▲	Viliam1234 7 days ago \| parent [-]
		Maybe a better link would be to the previous wave of meetups, because some places join the event at the last moment: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/meetups-everywhere-spring-2...

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BrawnyBadger53 7 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's large in the sense that it's not a single well connected group. There are subgroups within the rationalists

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stickfigure 7 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

"Self-proclaimed rationalists" is a much broader group than people who read Yudkowsky.

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giardini 7 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Article (and this thread) is blog spam.

Arguments about who is/not a cult member (regardless of affiliation) don't seem relevant to HN. Perhaps HN should flag the thread.