Eliezer’s reminder that even rationalists are human, and so are subject to human failings such as turning a community into a cult, is welcome. But it’s a big mistake to dismiss explanations such as “Perhaps only people with innately totalitarian tendencies would try to become the world’s authority on everything.” There is a huge degree of heterogeneity across people in every relevant metric, including a tendency toward totalitarianism. I can’t imagine that anyone disputes this. And if the selection process for being in a certain position tends to advantage people with those tendencies, so that they are selected into them, that might well explain a large part of how people in those positions behave.
Eliezer’s reminder that even rationalists are human, and so are subject to human failings such as turning a community into a cult, is welcome. But it’s a big mistake to dismiss explanations such as “Perhaps only people with innately totalitarian tendencies would try to become the world’s authority on everything.” There is a huge degree of heterogeneity across people in every relevant metric, including a tendency toward totalitarianism. I can’t imagine that anyone disputes this. And if the selection process for being in a certain position tends to advantage people with those tendencies, so that they are selected into them, that might well explain a large part of how people in those positions behave.