Its been a good minute since the last thread like this, and with the techno-fascist dystopia being unleashed through the Trump administration, it felt like the time was right to bring this back.

Anyways, this is mostly the same idea as before - find books (or articles) that come down upon the superficial TESCREAL version of cool things like a ton of scientific bricks.

Gonna start this thread off with a few random examples I’ve already found:

• The questions ChatGPT shouldn’t answer (Elizabeth Lopatto) - Goes heavily into OpenAI’s non-existent understanding of ethics, with a paragraph noting AI’s links to LessWrong and effective altruism. (EDIT: Originally said “non-existent understanding of physics” - thanks to @blakestacey for catching that)

• The Fake Nerd Boys of Silicon Valley (Lyta Gold) - A deep dive into Silicon Valley’s fundamental misunderstanding of sci-fi. Not directly about TESCREAL, but still works wonders against it IMO.

• “Main character syndrome” (Anna Gotlib) - Whilst primarily a critique of the titular phenomenon, it does also use longtermism/effective altruism as an example of such.