hey so about your favorite boy hank green.
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@ireneista @noiseician @zzt it's not that amorphous and it's closer knit than its marketing pretends
like I used to say "the LessWrong-originated subculture" but "TESCREAL" is a term that means the same thing
do you have particular good bits you're thinking of? cos substantially it's a sea of rancid
@davidgerard @ireneista @noiseician @zzt Ahh, memories of Operation Clambake. And repeatedly shouting XENU every time I passed the Scientology outlet on Tottenham Court Road, London.
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@davidgerard @noodlemaz @noiseician @ireneista @zzt tescrealism is always inextricable from eugenics. if you believe the entire universe can be calculated and optimized then you also believe that the differences between people can be calculated and optimized.
@emenel @davidgerard @noodlemaz @noiseician @ireneista @zzt I think I can hear Benoit Mandelbrot and Nic Taleb screaming off in the distance...
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@bms @noodlemaz @davidgerard @noiseician @ireneista @zzt ong, that's all true and I hate it
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@michaelgemar @davidgerard @noodlemaz @noiseician @ireneista @zzt yeah. that’s the point… “i know kung fu” and etc
@emenel @michaelgemar @davidgerard @noodlemaz @noiseician @ireneista @zzt It does engage appeal to novelty much in its attempt to attract, and this often favours the young. I lent Transhumanism a keen ear around 1999 in the last throes of my Bachelor's degree. That faded quickly mostly due to life getting really busy in other ways. Even so, I'd probably read enough alternative thinking and philosophy to be dissuaded from it, as well as lived experience contradicting its tenets. Now, here we are... I even named my not-yet-pressed-into-service phone "Ryle" for the reason that mind just might require embodiment.
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@noodlemaz @davidgerard @noiseician @ireneista @zzt I can't disagree with all of this in general; specifically, I can nitpick with bits and bobs. transhumanism "shouldn't" be a "philosophy" so much as just the notion that humanity is a malleable characteristic not intrinsic to the flesh and blood of a human, basically as a simple corollary to neurological functionalism.
similarly, none of these should ever really be treated like "core, driving philosophies" but rather as essentially side effects of humans handling the advancement of technology. when they become prescriptive and moralistic, they lose sight of meaningful rationality and become the "rationality" of the crazy pants cuckoo brained folks (Ziz etc).
and also, similarly, these should not be "bundled" together any more than any other broad operating concepts should. Echoing carnap and quine a bit, every advancement and every test confirms and disconfirms the entire framework, model, and method of science. All of it is therefore up for modification or deletion. (some of it likely oughta be already, particularly EA, given that it may best serve as some kind of self help guideline).
but, BASICALLY, TESCREAL as a bundle is weirdo nonsense touted by essentialist bigots and sociopaths of various kinds, and has no intrinsic value worth defending itself.
ahem, in my opinion.
@Crow @noodlemaz @davidgerard @noiseician @ireneista @zzt Have you seen how they mutter "good epistemics" between each other? Terminology is being appropriated yet again. Semantic drift just seems like sloppy euphemism at this point. In all the senses of which the late Christopher Hitchens would have decried.
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@davidgerard @noiseician @ireneista @zzt I don't have a bookmarked piece of writing that's like a tour of why EAs (LessWrong, and the rest) are fkin bananas
Especially for people who outright reject the notion of the 'TESCREAL bundle'.
I wish I had one.
But also I imagine it's just too complicated, messy and bizarre to explain very succinctly
@noodlemaz @davidgerard @noiseician @ireneista @zzt In response to looking for writing to give a tour, all I can offer is a podcast that I have found (especially the first ten or so episodes) to explain so many of the connections.
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hey so about your favorite boy hank green. it’s such a shame that he went overboard with the LLM stuff, that was impossible to see coming, good on him for realizing he was addicted right? well wishes for the good boy!
anyway there’s smoking gun evidence that he was paid by effective altruists to do marketing for the “AI is so dangerous but so revolutionary” flavor of critihype. this is alleged by hank green expert hank green in the washington post, as well as an EA in charge of influencer marketing. he was literally being paid by TESCREALs.
someone in the same community ran a program where TikTokers were required to post an AI critihype video a day in a cult-like environment where they were subjected to “voluntary” waterboarding and other forms of indoctrination. I’m not kidding, this literal thing happened.
here’s @davidgerard’s pivot to AI with the evidence linked: https://pivot-to-ai.com/2026/08/06/the-ai-doomsday-cult-recruits-social-media-influencers/
Do you have any proof he took money beyond you said so?
I certainly find it plausible, it fits with my expectations of him, but I'm not throwing around claims like that without stronger reasoning.
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@jmccyoung @xan @cyberquixote @zzt The albacore is now canon.
@bstacey @jmccyoung @xan @cyberquixote @zzt
Way tastier than albatross that's for sure
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Do you have any proof he took money beyond you said so?
I certainly find it plausible, it fits with my expectations of him, but I'm not throwing around claims like that without stronger reasoning.
@pixx @davidgerard did you miss the evidence in the pivot link, or are you playing coy because you disagree that a business partnership between an EA group doing influencer marketing and Green represents a transfer of money and resources from one group to the other?
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@pixx @davidgerard did you miss the evidence in the pivot link, or are you playing coy because you disagree that a business partnership between an EA group doing influencer marketing and Green represents a transfer of money and resources from one group to the other?
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@davidgerard @pixx oh my favorite
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@bstacey @jmccyoung @xan @cyberquixote @zzt
Way tastier than albatross that's for sure
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@davidgerard @ireneista @noiseician @zzt Ahh, memories of Operation Clambake. And repeatedly shouting XENU every time I passed the Scientology outlet on Tottenham Court Road, London.
@bms @davidgerard @ireneista @noiseician @zzt Operation Clambake! Now that takes me back. First newsgroup I ever subscribed to.
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@ireneista @noiseician @zzt it's not that amorphous and it's closer knit than its marketing pretends
like I used to say "the LessWrong-originated subculture" but "TESCREAL" is a term that means the same thing
do you have particular good bits you're thinking of? cos substantially it's a sea of rancid
@davidgerard @ireneista @noiseician @zzt I once read a book about Symbian by David Woods, where about ⅓ is about transhumanism. He claims he is a non-TESCREAL transhumanist, but I have no idea what that even means. (he must have gone to Symbian before I was at PSION)
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@bstacey @eestileib @xan @cyberquixote @zzt My goodness, it *is* canon!
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@davidgerard @pixx oh my favorite
@zzt @davidgerard (dont go back to) blockville
not yall two of course, you keep on keepin on
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@davidgerard I’m very serious about this by the way
if you respect science, you must not forgive hank green. you must spread the word on what he’s done, especially if you used to be a fan. this is corruption in the raw and what he’s done must be known.
if you respect science, you must verify the claims of science communicators independently and reject any who are doing marketing. most of the major YouTube science communicators are doing paid, undisclosed marketing for effective altruists or for political groups. this isn’t hard to spot, but you must be critical and you can’t let yourself be impressed by perceived celebrity, popularity, or production values.
if you respect science, you have to demand accountability. science is actively under attack and if we don’t do anything to defend it, we will be in a new dark age. this is the moment, and you don’t have to do much. you just have to be very loud and very unforgiving.
@zzt @davidgerard It's probably common knowledge, but pretty obviously same for Kurzgesagt.
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No, I was misreading. The phrasing of OP implied to me that the linked post had evidence for the tiktok cult thing, not the hank green claim.
*reads linked post*
and, having read through the linked post and the WaPo article, I don't see anything in there beyond "he did a single video which was a disclosed sponsorship", while also doing other videos where he said he disagrees with it?
Certainly doesn't look good but this feels very much like "internet people being internet people and turning everything into the worst possible version of reality"
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Shame on Green, but if I permanently banned everyone on the internet who did something colossally stupid or bought into some terrible narrative before, I would have no one but a couple of totally insufferable arseholes and some teenagers who joined the internet yesterday to talk to. (And folk wouldn’t talk to me either)
@MichaelTBacon @zzt @davidgerard getting the feeling you ought not talk to teenagers
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@davidgerard @noodlemaz @noiseician @ireneista @zzt tescrealism is always inextricable from eugenics. if you believe the entire universe can be calculated and optimized then you also believe that the differences between people can be calculated and optimized.
@emenel @davidgerard @noodlemaz @noiseician @ireneista @zzt the whole of tech is just eugenics. Stanford sort of started as a eugenics project
