Understanding the "Scientology of Silicon Valley." (7,700 words)
The sad decline of effective altruism
A once wholesome and inspiring movement has become entangled with cults and has lost years chasing dead-end ideas
Effective obfuscation
Silicon Valley's "effective altruism" and "effective accelerationism" only give a thin philosophical veneer to the industry's same old impulses.
Startup “Cults” — Real Life
Calling tech companies “cults” distracts from the social and economic conditions that empower them
Longtermism: how good intentions and the rich created a dangerous creed
Tech billionaires seem intent on giving away a lot of money. But are those who support ‘longtermism’ and ‘effective altruism’ ignoring the very real problems of today?
Giving Altruism a Bad Name
Effective Altruism’s metrics-driven model of philanthropy is elitist, condescending and — most damning of all — extremely ineffective.
Why it’s as hard to escape an echo chamber as it is to flee a cult | Aeon Essays
First you don’t hear other views. Then you can’t trust them. Your personal information network entraps you just like a cult
What OpenAI shares with Scientology
Strange beliefs, fights over money and bad science fiction
The ‘Shamanification’ of the Tech CEO
From fruit-only diets to dopamine fasting, Silicon Valley founders flaunt self-deprivation like a misguided pursuit of wellness. But there’s more to it.
When Silicon Valley’s AI warriors came to Washington
Effective altruism is increasingly described as a cult. But as the movement’s billionaire adherents pour money into D.C., its obsession with the AI apocalypse is remaking the capital’s tech policy landscape.
The Rise of Silicon Valley’s Techno-Religion (Published 2025)
The Rationalists, a community focused on the risks of artificial intelligence, regularly gather with tech figures and other like-minded people in a complex that covers much of a city block.
How Spiritual Snobs Became the New One Percent
In Silicon Valley, Hollywood and New York’s corridors of power, enlightenment isn’t just a higher power—it’s now a status symbol and bragging right.
Altruism | The Paper Pilot
The Paper Pilot's digital garden of thoughts on philosophy, politics, and sociology
More Everything Forever
This "smart and wonderfully readable" (New York Times) exposé shows why Silicon Valley’s heartless, baseless, and foolish obsessions—with escaping death...
Rationalist Cults
Articles on rationalist-adjacent cults: the Zizians, Leverage Research, and the darker outgrowths of the rationalist / LessWrong-derived / Aella polycule scene that is behind "AI Safety" in Silicon Valley. Working thesis: MIRI and CFAR read as high-control groups (cults) who believe in P(DOOM) and use sex (and power) maliciously — yet they are unfortunately the ones who have captured the framing of "AI Safety," which has little to do with actual safety.
The Effective Altruism Kids Aren’t Alright
My Experience with Leverage Research
What Policymakers and the Public Need to Know About the Cult of AI
banteg (@banteg)
The Techno-Religion at the Center of the A.I. Debate
SE Gyges (@segyges.bsky.social)