Grifters don’t usually spend their entire lives devoted to preparing for something that doesn’t yet exist, giving up whatever else they like doing to work on that problem, and spending years trying to plan out how to make things go well for everyone when that thing materializes.

Grifters are opportunistic short-termists. Whatever you can say about these rationalists, they aren’t that.

Eliezer spent his life devoted to science fiction and building a cult around himself, and now him and the rest of them are trying to vindicate themselves before they fade into obscurity.