The gateway into the online rationalist world is often effective altruism, which is grounded in the genuinely reasonable idea that those who donate to charity should get the most bang for their buck. […] The focus of the movement shifted to existential concerns around humanity’s survival, such as multi-planet living (so humanity could survive the end of Earth), and artificial intelligence – both to ensure it doesn’t wipe out humanity once it emerges, but also to make sure it does emerge, because of a belief in its massive potential to fix our societal issues.

As so often happens, this downplays the extent to which the batshit was within them all along.

That included a piece of rationalist Harry Potter fan fiction, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, written by the controversial AI theorist Eliezer Yudkowsky, which deconstructs the contradictions of the wizarding world.

“AI theorist” really does just mean “guy who makes shit up”, doesn’t it? And that seems a generous description of HPMoR, which was really more about inventing problems that the HP books didn’t have while ignoring those that they did, since it was really based on fan wikis instead.