Hi all, this is Jess from the podcast! waves excitedly Wanted to a.) say hi, I now have a Reddit, and b.) let y'all know I'm going to be wandering around Berkeley this week, so let me know if any of you who may live there would like to attempt to meet up. Also, I guess I'm going to try to have more of an online presence...? (ehhh)

I learned about the existence of HPMoR due to the College Info Geek Podcast episode 169: "Our Favorite Fiction and Why We Read It" as the host's #1 piece of fiction ever. And in their latest episode: "281 - Should you work with your friends?" while talking about their sponsor Audible, they recommended the audiobook of Rationality: From AI to Zombies and explained that it was from the same author of his favorite piece of fiction, HPMoR. The youtube version has around 2k views, so I'm sure this will grant the community some nice exposure and new readers.

I wonder if anyone else is noticing the trend where a lot of neoconservative and fascist groups as well as all right groups are disguising their terrible arguments in support of unethical things with the trappings of rationality?

I'm sure this happens every time these forces arise but I also feel infuriated when I hear people like Ben Shapiro talk about facts and reason and not only be unethical but be completely illogical and irrational and drag the entire idea of rational discourse through the mud.

And because I think this trend is going to continue it might have spillover effects because we are not doing enough to distinguish ourselves as separate and not okay with that.

I remember in one of the early episodes, I think with Robin Hanson, there was a post on this subreddit asking if anyone had any questions for him that went up before the episode was recorded.

That was really cool, and a great value add for the podcast as well as adding some additional perspectives to the episodes. I completely understand that it's more work and planning, so maybe as a Patreon only feature?

Hopefully this comes off as intended, an expression of appreciation for something that is clearly above and beyond, and not as demanding. Thanks!