jd_pressman traces rationalist culture to hard sci-fi roots and its decline to fear-driven imagination
In a discussion with Andrew Curran, jdpressman laid out his view on how the rationalist community's culture has evolved. He argues that much of the LessWrong "Sequences" era was essentially a response to the sci-fi novel Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect; and if you loosen the standard, almost every meaningful post-ASI vision comes from rationalist fiction authors — citing works like Friendship Is Optimal, Worth the Candle, and Reedspa….
Confirmed
- The discussion reflects jdpressman's own views. His core theses: rationalist culture traces back to hard sci-fi like Prime Intellect, and the strongest imaginings of post-ASI worlds come from ratfiction authors rather than philosophical treatises.
- He explains the community's staying power: rat culture has proven more durable than other forms of New Atheism and transhumanism because it is rooted in hard sci-fi rather than "scientism" — at heart, an affirmative faith in a utopian, immortal future.
- On decline: that belief later weakened because it went unreaffirmed, and the community let fear dominate its imagination.
- On earlier philosophers: he thinks blaming predecessors for "abandoning their responsibility" is unfair — they did more than anyone else; scolding was precisely the kind of thing that crushed them, and it solves nothing.
Why it matters
- This discussion offers an insider's lens on the rise and fall of LessWrong/rationalist culture: its intellectual roots lie not in pure philosophy but in the sci-fi literary tradition.
- With AI safety discourse increasingly dominated by doom narratives, jdpressman suggests that the loss of imagination and positive vision may be a deeper, community-level problem.
2026-11-11 ~ 2026-11-11 · 7 related posts
Primary sources
- jd_pressman: the best post-ASI visions came from ratfiction, not the rationalists — jd_pressman · 2026-11-11
- [source] jd_pressman: LessWrong's Sequences were a reaction to Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect — jd_pressman · 2026-11-11
- jd_pressman: rationalism outlived New Atheism by rooting in hard sci-fi utopianism — jd_pressman · 2026-11-11
- [source] jd_pressman: rationalism thrived on hard sci-fi utopianism, died of fear — jd_pressman · 2026-11-11
- Past philosophers let fear dominate imagination — scolding them won't help — jd_pressman · 2026-11-11
- There was never a long history of failed attempts at eudaemonia — ASI is a new problem — jd_pressman · 2026-11-11
- Thread: Confucianism and Kant were governance theories first — solved governance is a new problem — jd_pressman · 2026-11-11