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Leverage Research: reviewing the basic facts

Also, that comment was only able to provide mention of a handful of people describing Leverage like a cult, admitting they could not recall any specific details.

I could list a number of specific details, but not without violating the preferences of the people who shared their experiences with me, and not without causing even more unnecessary drama.

These details wouldn't make for a watertight case that they're a "cult". I deliberately didn't claim that Leverage is a cult. (See also this.) But the details are quite alarming for anyone who strive... (read more)

kbog6y12

There's a big difference between feeling cultlike, as in "weird", "disorienting", "bizarre" etc, and exhibiting the epistemic flaws of a cult, as in having people be afraid to disagree with the thought leader, a disproportionate reverence for a single idea or corpus, the excommunication of dissenters, the application of one idea or corpus to explain everything in the world, instinctively explaining away all possible counterarguments, refusal to look seriously at outside ideas, and so on.

If you could provide any sanitized, abst... (read more)

Leverage Research: reviewing the basic facts

throwaway26y9

Given there are usernames like "throwaway" and "throwaway2," and knowing the EA Forum, and its precursor, LessWrong, I'm confident there is only be one account under the username "anonymous," and that all the comments on this post using this account are coming from the same individual.

I don't feel comfortable sharing the reasons for remaining anonymous in public, but I would be happy to disclose my identity to a trustworthy person to prove that this is my only fake account.

Evan_Gaensbauer

Upvoted. I'm sorry for the ambiguity of my comment. I meant each of the posts here under the usernames "throwaway," "throwaway2," and "anonymous" are each consistently being made by same three people, respectively. I was just clarifying up front as I was addressing you for others reading it's almost certainly the same anonymous individual making the comments under the same account. I wouldn't expect you to forgo your anonymity.

Leverage Research: reviewing the basic facts

throwaway26y26

Thanks for making this post, it was long overdue.

Further facts

Connection Theory has been criticized as follows: "It is incomplete and inadequate, has flawed methodology, and conflicts well established science." The key paper has been removed from their websites and the web archive but is still available at the bottom of this post.
More of Geoff Anders's early work can be seen at https://systematicphilosophy.com/ and https://philosophicalresearch.wordpress.com/. (I hope they don't take down these websites as well.)
Former Leverage staff have lau

... (read more)

Jacy6y23

Just to add a bit of info: I helped with THINK when I was a college student. It wasn't the most effective strategy (largely, it was founded before we knew people would coalesce so strongly into the EA identity, and we didn't predict that), but Leverage's involvement with it was professional and thoughtful. I didn't get any vibes of cultishness from my time with THINK, though I did find Connection Theory a bit weird and not very useful when I learned about it.

Evan_Gaensbauer

Do you mind clarifying what you mean by "recruits people?" I.e., do you mean they recruit people to attend the workshops, or to join the organizational staff. In this comment I laid out the threat to EA as a cohesive community itself for those within to like the worst detractors of EA and adjacent communities to level blanket accusations of an organization of being a cult. Also, that comment was only able to provide mention of a handful of people describing Leverage like a cult, admitting they could not recall any specific details. I already explained that that report doesn't not qualify as a fact, nor even an anecdote, but hearsay, especially since further details aren't being provided. I'm disinclined to take seriously more hearsay of a mysterious impression of Leverage as cultish given the poor faith in which my other interlocutor was acting in. Since none of the former interns or staff this hearsay of Leverage being like a cult are coming forward to corroborate what features of a cult from the linked Lifehacker article Leverage shares, I'm unconvinced your or the other reports of Leverage as being like a cult aren't being taken out of context from the individuals you originally heard them from, nor that this post and the comments aren't a deliberate attempt to do nothing but tarnish Leverage. Paradigm Academy was incubated by Leverage Research, as many organizations in and around EA are by others (e.g., MIRI incubated CFAR; CEA incubated ACE, etc.). As far as I can tell now, like with those other organizations, Paradigm and Leverage should be viewed as two distinct organizations. So that itself is not a fact about Leverage, which I also went over in this comment. As I stated in that comment as well, there is a double standard at play here. EA Global each year is organized by the CEA. They aren't even the only organization in EA with the letters "EA" in their name, nor are they exclusively considered among EA organizations able to wield the EA brand. And yet

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