This is a list of apostates. The idea is not to actually detail the folks who do the most damage to the cult’s reputation, but to attack the few folks who were once members and left because they were no longer interested in being part of a cult. These attacks are usually motivated by emotions as much as a desire to maintain control over the rest of the cult; in all cases, the sentiment is that the apostate dared to defy leadership. Usually, attacks on apostates are backed up by some sort of enforcement mechanism, from calls for stochastic terrorism to accusations of criminality; here, there’s not actually a call to do anything external, possibly because Habryka realizes that the optics are bad but more likely because Habryka doesn’t really have much power beyond those places where he’s already an administrator. (That said, I would encourage everybody to become aware of, say, CoS’s Fair Game policy or Noisy Investigation policy to get an idea of what kinds of attacks could occur.)

There are several prominent names that aren’t here. I’d guess that Habryka hasn’t been meditating over this list for a long time; it’s just the first few people that came to mind when he wrote this note. This is somewhat reassuring, as it suggests that he doesn’t fully understand how cultural critiques of LW affect the perception of LW more broadly; he doesn’t realize how many people e.g. Breadtube reaches. Also, he doesn’t understand that folks like SBF and Yarvin do immense reputational damage to rationalist-adjacent projects, although he seems to understand that the main issue with Zizians is not that they are Cringe but that they have been accused of multiple violent felonies.

Not many sneers to choose from, but I think one commenter gets it right:

In other groups with I’m familiar, you would kick out people you think are actually a danger or you think they might do something that brings your group into disrepute. But otherwise, I think it’s a sign of being a cult If you kick people for not going along with the group dogma.