Any actually-reasonable person who was around for the founding craze of this era, ie., New Atheism, quickly realised that there was a deep pathology at the heart of many of its zealots, perhaps summed up by a desired to "recreate religion in their own image". I've walked into many a room of people screaming that teaching children falsehoods is literally child abuse. Any one who knows much of Richard Dawkins, Krauss, et al.'s background with women shouldnt be surprised either.

It's californication into the "rationalist" community as it currently stands is no surprise. Every person I've met deep in this community either seemed to me a narcissist (if male) or, politely and mildly, coquettish (if female). With several relationships I've observed a clear union of the two. I hadn't yet put this so clearly together with the "AI Saftey" crowd, despite being directly adjacent to it all for quite awhile and seeing the cross-proliferation.

My own analysis had concerned their philosophical naivety, general lack of actual computer science knowledge and generic shallowness of understanding of any domain outside their own research and a kind of "science-fiction" version of philosophy and rationalism. I hadn't connected this yet to their strange personalities, but the apoclypticism fits and neatly bridges these together.

So what became of the New Atheist project to create a "secular religion" -- an apocalyptic sex cult furnished by a blend of sci-fi, pop-philosophy, and cute parables from polymath medical professionals. All in all then, it seems they succeeded.

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astrange a day ago | parent [-]

> It's californication into the "rationalist" community as it currently stands is no surprise.

This is the minority split. Most of the online new atheism writers became progressives/social justice/"woke 1.0" people. That trend has receded, so I couldn't tell you what they're doing now. (Probably blocking each other on Mastodon.)

The rationalists are the ones who stayed behind and decided to stick to doing logic and math in their heads instead of thinking thoughts the normal way.

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jackb4040 a day ago | parent [-]

That has not been my impression. Who is the most prominent example? Some of the most prominent figures I know of were Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris - all prominent right-wing figures who were rewarded for using atheism to attack Islam in particular during the Iraq War.

	▲	astrange a day ago \| parent [-]
		> Who is the most prominent example? I don't believe any of these people are relevant or prominent, but the unimportant people I was thinking of were bloggers like PZ Myers, I think they called themselves "Atheism+" or something. > Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris - all prominent right-wing figures Are they? That's um, a scientist whose pop book on genetics I read once, a guy I read in The Nation once, and a guy whose book on Buddhism I read once. I remember the first two evolving into GenX curmudgeons (probably the lead poisoning) and have never thought about the last one again. Still, those aren't the right-wingers I'm familiar with.