I feel like e/acc is ultimately a pretty small subculture of mostly Extremely Online people. Beff Jezos is as you pointed out essentially a grifter—his whole company seems based on flimsy theories and his ideas on entropy are incredibly poor and flawed. As it often happens, these people are visible because they can be loud and because their ideas are so cartoonishly villainous they draw attention. “If the AI kills us it means it’s better than us so it’s fine, evolution must take its course” is a line the average superhero movie scriptwriter would hesitate to pen for fear of being too cheesy.
I don’t think they’re too consequential. None of the really big shots at the main labs are e/acc that I know of. But I do think there’s value in criticising them anyway since their ideas are so bad. Just in moderation and only when they already pop up, lest one boosts them by Streisand effect.
I feel like e/acc is ultimately a pretty small subculture of mostly Extremely Online people. Beff Jezos is as you pointed out essentially a grifter—his whole company seems based on flimsy theories and his ideas on entropy are incredibly poor and flawed. As it often happens, these people are visible because they can be loud and because their ideas are so cartoonishly villainous they draw attention. “If the AI kills us it means it’s better than us so it’s fine, evolution must take its course” is a line the average superhero movie scriptwriter would hesitate to pen for fear of being too cheesy.
I don’t think they’re too consequential. None of the really big shots at the main labs are e/acc that I know of. But I do think there’s value in criticising them anyway since their ideas are so bad. Just in moderation and only when they already pop up, lest one boosts them by Streisand effect.