I was a co-founder of CFAR in 2012. I’d been actively trying to save the world for about a decade at that point. I left in 2018 to seriously purify my mind & being. I realized in 2020 that I’d been using the fear of the end of the world like an addictive drug and did my damnedest to quit cold-turkey. I’m now doing my best to embody an answer to the global flurry in a way that’s something like a fusion of game theory and Buddhist Tantra.
Find my non-rationalist writing, social media, and projects at my Linktree.
The history of cryonics’ PR failure has something to teach here.
Dozens of deeply passionate and brilliant people all trying to make a case for something that in fact makes a lot of sense…
…resulted in it being seen as even more fringe and weird.
Which in turn resulted in those same pro-cryonics folk blaming “deathism” or “stupidity” or whatever.
Which reveals that they (the pro-cryonics folk) had not yet cleaned up their motivations. Being right and having a great but hopeless cause mattered more than achieving their stated goals.
I say this having been on the inside of this one for a while. I grew up in this climate.
I also say this with no sense of blame or condemnation. I’m just pointing out an error mode.
I think you’re gesturing at a related one here.
This is why I put inner work as a co-requisite (and usually a prerequisite) for doing worthwhile activism. Passion is an anti-helpful replacement for inner insight.