Rationalist Life

Why Are There So Many Rationalist Cults?

Ozy Brennan | Asterisk | 11th August 2025

The rationalist community was drawn together by Eliezer Yudkowsky’s The Sequences, a set of essays about thinking more rationally. Ironically, the same community has played host to groups with very strange beliefs, including claims of interacting with demons. The Zizians, a loose group of vegan anarchist transhumanists, have been linked to six violent deaths. Why? Analysed here by an insider (5,400 words)

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ChatGPT And The Meaning Of Life

Harvey Lederman | Shtetl-Optimised | 4th August 2025

On the dread of a life without work, as more of it is automated. “If mechanised minds consume all the empty space on the intellectual map, lives dedicated to discovery won’t be lives that humans can lead. The post-instrumental world could be a much better place. But its coming means the death of my culture. We may be the last to enjoy this spell, before all exploration is done by fully automated sleds” (5,100 words)