Top all-time · #5460
Jon Evans
Personal blog · aiascendant.substack.comaiphilosophy
Jon Evans writes Gradient Ascendant, a personal blog at aiascendant.substack.com about ai and philosophy. Since 2022, 15 different Hacker News readers have linked it 29 times, most often “Extropia's Children”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-30, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (12) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
Jon Evans's seven-part Extropia's Children series traces the history of rationalism, Effective Altruism, LessWrong and related Bay Area circles. HN readers link it as background reading on those movements.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 12 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
AI/ML research, applications, prospects, weirdness, cultural impact, history, etc.
Most-linked posts?
- Extropia's Children9 people · 12 mentions · first linked 2022-11-16
- The Inferno of the Nerds3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2022-10-25
What Hacker News says?
Yes, https://aiascendant.substack.com/p/extropias-children-chapte... I agree with your diagnosis as well. It's Dunning-Krueger. They keep re-inventing the wheel poorly due to their ignorance which is maintained because of their confidence which stems from their ignorance.
Comment linking /p/extropias-children-chapter-1-the-wunderkind
on “String of recent killings linked to Bay Area 'Zizians'”Submitted Inconsistency as a Service as a story · 2 points
HN discussionThet're virtually identical. Seven chapter history: https://aiascendant.substack.com/p/extropias-children-chapte...
Comment linking /p/extropias-children-chapter-1-the-wunderkind
on “String of recent killings linked to Bay Area 'Zizians'”Submitted The Many Frustrations of LLMs as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSadly, I completely understand after reading all the links in this thread tonight. The specific theory they're speaking in: https://zizians.info/ Backstory (7 chapters): https://aiascendant.substack.com/p/extropias-children-chapte...
Comment linking /p/extropias-children-chapter-1-the-wunderkind
on “String of recent killings linked to Bay Area 'Zizians'”Submitted Fear and Loathing of A.I as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSome bookmarks from early 2023 that seem relevant now: https://zizians.info https://old.reddit.com/r/SneerClub/ https://aiascendant.substack.com/p/extropias-children-chapte... I do not engage with any of those people nor their weird communities.
Comment linking /p/extropias-children-chapter-1-the-wunderkind
on “String of recent killings linked to Bay Area 'Zizians'”Submitted Provenance and Censorship as a story · 2 points
HN discussionHere you go. It has like 10 chapters, so keep going once you reach the end. https://aiascendant.substack.com/p/extropias-children-chapte...
Comment linking /p/extropias-children-chapter-1-the-wunderkind
on “Why are there so many rationalist cults?”Submitted The Original Large Language Machine as a story · 2 points
HN discussionOh wow, hello! Seems like it was quite a time to be online. I mostly know of it through this version of events. Not sure how accurate you'd find it: https://aiascendant.substack.com/p/extropias-children-chapte... The word "extropy" itself seems to go back several decades before the mailing list, if I'm reading correctly here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extropianism . Still, I wouldn't be surprised if many/most of…
Comment linking /p/extropias-children-chapter-1-the-wunderkind
on “What Extropic is building”Submitted Extropia's Children as a story · 2 points
HN discussion"Effective Altruism Is Not A Cult" sounds like what a cult would say :) Sure sounds like a cult in practice, especially in the whole context ( https://aiascendant.substack.com/p/extropias-children-chapte... the other 6 parts of the series are great reading too).
Comment linking /p/extropias-children-chapter-4-what-you-owe
on “The good delusion: has effective altruism broken bad?”Submitted The Inferno of the Nerds as a story · 2 points
HN discussionYou couldn't be more to the point: https://aiascendant.substack.com/p/extropias-children-chapte...
Comment linking /p/extropias-children-chapter-5-irrationalism
on “The Waluigi Effect: an explanation of bizarre semiotic effects in LLMs”Submitted The Destructo Test as a story · 1 points
HN discussionI don't want to speak for GP, but I doubt it's coincidental. Many if not most people's first exposure to "rationalism" was via Yudkowsky's Harry Potter fanfic. There's a pretty decent rundown of rationalism's history in Extropia's Children [1]. [1] https://aiascendant.substack.com/p/extropias-children-chapte...
Comment linking /p/extropias-children-chapter-1-the-wunderkind
on “Douglas Hofstadter changes his mind on Deep Learning and AI risk”Submitted What's Wrong with Journalism as a story · 1 points
HN discussionA series of blog posts about it[1]: https://aiascendant.substack.com/p/extropias-children-chapte... [1] I think, this is Yudkowsky, Lesswrong, MIRI, the doom cult it became, the crazy revelations like https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/MnFqyPLqbiKL8nSR7/my-experie... and https://old.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/qa14kg/my_e...
Comment linking /p/extropias-children-chapter-1-the-wunderkind
on “The Singularity Is Nigh!”Submitted RecreAIting DemocrAIcy as a story · 1 points
HN discussionThere were 7 parts, and the last one actually addresses exactly the issue we're talking about: https://aiascendant.substack.com/p/extropias-children-chapte... (and I still recommend all 7 parts) It's hard for me to respond to the rest your comments, because I simply don't agree with the framing. To me I see a big trap where people read a lot of words, but don't connect those words to reality, which requires action.…
Comment linking /p/extropias-children-chapter-7
on “The greatest risk of AI is from the people who control it, not the tech itself”Submitted Extropia's Children Redux as a story · 1 points
HN discussionIf you'd like to read more about the roots of Effective Altruism, ranging from old mailing lists, LessWrong, bitcoin, cults, AI and the surprising connections to many well known figures in tech, I highly recommend the 7-part Extropia's Childen series from Jon Evans [1] 1. https://aiascendant.substack.com/p/extropias-children-chapte...
Comment linking /p/extropias-children-chapter-1-the-wunderkind
on “Silicon Valley’s Obsession with Killer Rogue AI Helps Bury Bad Behavior”Submitted We Need to Talk About Deep Delving as a story · 1 points
HN discussionTotally agree. There do seem to be a bunch of accomplished people that have taken "mind bugs" from people whose job it is to write and be popular, and not produce very much. Yudkowsky is a prime example of the latter group. I think I became aware of him through the Roko's Basilisk meme many years ago, and I thought "wow so this is what happens when you have a lot to think about and nothing to do". It's basically non…
Comment linking /p/extropias-children-chapter-1-the-wunderkind
on “Superintelligence: The Idea That Eats Smart People”Submitted The Inferno of the Nerds as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Language is our latent space, and latent space is Plato's Cave as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Extropia's Children, Chapter 1: The Wunderkid as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Extropia's Children as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
