We seem to be living in an age of gurus. They’re all over the place, building large followings in domains like politics, self-improvement, spirituality, religion, activism, philosophy and even (occasionally) science. Gurus may not be more numerous now than in the past, but they seem to now more easily garner audiences of hundreds of thousands due to the fracturing of media, social media and YouTube.
If you pay attention to how harmful gurus behave, you’ll start to notice patterns that come u...
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deception
Who is Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) really, and how could he have done what he did? – three theories and a lot of evidence
As you may know, Sam Bankman-Fried ("SBF") was convicted of seven counts of fraud and conspiracy. He now faces the potential of more than 100 years in prison.
I've been trying to figure out how someone who appears to believe deeply in the principles of effective altruism ("EA") could do what SBF did. It has been no surprise to me to see that the actions he was convicted of are nearly universally condemned by the EA community. Could it be that he did not actually believe in EA ideas despite p...
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Some Signs of Harmful or Untrustworthy Relationships
Coauthored with the Clearer Thinking team and cross-posted from the Clearer Thinking blog.
We recently conducted qualitative research by crowd-sourcing over 100 open-ended responses to the question:
"What signs do you look for that help you identify people who are likely to be untrustworthy or who are likely to hurt you if they become your close friend or partner?"
We thought the answers contained some insights that may help you to identify people with whom it would be risky ...
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