So really this is just a rebranding of Pascal's wager. Which, fine, but do we really need to act like this is a radical enough concept that it could tear you mind apart?Roko’s Basilisk has told you that if you just take Box B, then it’s got Eternal Torment in it, because Roko’s Basilisk would really you rather take Box A and Box B. In that case, you’d best make sure you’re devoting your life to helping create Roko’s Basilisk! Because, should Roko’s Basilisk come to pass (or worse, if it’s already come to pass and is God of this particular instance of reality) and it sees that you chose not to help it out, you’re screwed.
Elizabeth Sandifer, Neoreaction a Basilisk: Essays on and around the alt-rightTheology buffs will recognize this as just a variation of Pascal's wager, which it was, but carefully tailored to work within a particular system, and deliberately framed in terms of the popular meme 'The Game,' where the only rules are that you lose any time you think about the game. But for all that its basic contours are familiar, it's crucial to realize that Roko arrived at his Basilisk honestly and sincerely, assembling premises widely accepted by the LessWrong community until he found himself unexpectedly transfixed by its gaze. The result was a frankly hilarious community meltdown in which people lost their shit as ideas they'd studiously internalized threatened to torture them for all eternity if they didn't hand over all their money to MIRI, culminating in Yudkowsky himself stepping in to ban all further discussion of the dread beast.
Yeah, I read it. It's unnecessarily pesssimistic but also pretty damn funny. Ignore the Donald Trump essay and possibly the TERF one; I think the rest would be right up your alley. There's a little bit of genuine analysis of the alt-right, but mostly it's just pointing out how fucking stupid and inane most of these guys are, and how impossible it is to defeat an ideology that's so fucking stupid. What are you gonna do, argue with them?If one wanted to be snarkily uncharitable--and if it's not clear, this is very much the sort of book that does...