Tegmark’s hot take on Ukraine and why we should appease Russia hits
much spicier when you know he was trying* to fund a neo-Nazi
organisation at the time
Remember when Steve Hsu had friendly conversations about genetics with a man and only later realized that this person was actually an open neonazi?
(Sadly I don't recall the actual details, Kevin Bird probably remembers. And I'm not talking about him going on Stefan Molyneux it was a different incident with just a random person irl iirc).
I recall it took place on a train or something. But, I might be misremembering I was thinking about other train encounters with neo-nazis (I have heard of more stories), so searching in the sneerclub archives (which might not help, as we don't really strife for being a 'here we document all the bad thing Rationalists and their Ilk do' (that kind of stuff is super toxic anyway)) for the Hsu saga might help. (I did a very cursory search through birds tweets but didn't find any).
I think one problem these IQ/genetics/Rationalist types have is that they simply don't know (or don't care enough to do the research, hard to get people to know something when their paycheck depends on them not knowing after all) about neonazi ideas/shibboleths/dog-whistles etc. (And when they know often they go into 'but what about communism' really weird to see (this part was inspired by the comments under [this slatestar post](https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/06/16/open-thread-156-25/) where the comments get really weird fast. Also note this remark: "Kevin Bird celebrated the burning of buildings during the George Floyd riots" while linking [to this tweet](https://twitter.com/itsbirdemic/status/1266972132401205250). I'd say that is a bit of a misrepresentation (it gets worse when people are going 'he is advocating for arson!'). I was trying to find a reference to the Hsu didn't realize he was talking to a white nationalist/neo-nazi story and failed but did find that).
but yeah tl;dr: I did a quick search and didn't find any proof so take this with a pile of salt.
For those of you unfamiliar with the Future of Life Institute (FLI),
we are a nonprofit charitable organization that works to reduce global
catastrophic and existential risks facing humanity, particularly those
from nuclear war and future advanced artificial intelligence. These
risks are growing. Last year, FLI received scores of grant applications
from across the globe for the millions of dollars in funding we
distributed to support research, outreach and other important work in
furtherance of FLI’s mission. One of these grant proposals came from the
Nya Dagbladet Foundation (NDF, not to be confused with the eponymous
newspaper) for a media project directly related to FLI’s goals. Although
we were initially positive about the proposal and its prospects, we
ultimately decided to reject it because of what our subsequent due
diligence uncovered. We have given Nya Dagbladet and their affiliates
zero funding and zero support of any kind, and will not fund them in the
future. These final decisions were made by FLI’s leadership
independently of any outside influence and well before any inquiry
regarding the NDF proposal by members of the media.
On December 15, after we had informed NDF that their proposal was
rejected, Expo.se contacted FLI with questions regarding the NDF
proposal. We responded the same day that FLI had decided not to fund the
project now or at any later time.
On January 13 Expo.se nonetheless ran their piece with a clickbait
title combining “Musk” and “pro-nazi”. Among other issues we have with
their article, we consider this headline reference to “Musk” to be
unfair and misleading. He is only one of many prominent members of the
worldwide science and tech communities to have supported the Future of
Life Institute over the years, and plays no role in our grantmaking
decisions. We also point out that the claim by Expo.se that NDF is
“pro-Nazi” [the lede in the article] is apparently not shared by the
(center-left) former Swedish government, which not only certified the
Foundation as charitable but granted 0,000 in government funding and
support to Nya Dagbladet in 2021. This is exactly 0,000 more than the
zero dollars FLI granted to them.
The Future of Life Institute makes no apologies for engaging with
many people across the immensely diverse political spectrum, because our
mission is so important that it needs broad support from all sectors of
society. We will continue to engage the broadest sample of humankind,
whether or not we are criticized by anyone who questions our motives, or
who may have their own agendas. And in this effort, the Future of Life
Institute stands and will always stand emphatically against racism,
bigotry, bias, injustice and discrimination at all times and in all
forms. They are antithetical to our mission to safeguard the future of
life and to advance human flourishing.
pleased to see the replies don't buy his shit either, fwiw
[update post here](https://www.reddit.com/r/SneerClub/comments/10cwr63/tegmark_responds_on_his_offer_to_fund_nazis_and/)
International security and relations has got to be one of the areas least amenable to “I figured it out from first principles”. The list of irrational and downright dumb incidents in this area is not short.
“As we discussed in the previous program, the flow of information on
the Internet is becoming increasingly controlled and censored. The
Internet that once lured us with its inexhaustible wealth of information
is quickly being emptied of all content that does not align with
the”Ministry of Truth”. Every day, huge amounts of search hits disappear
from the major platforms.”
“A report by Per Shapiro”
“Max Tegmark, professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, runs the news site Improve The News.”
What’s more likely, that he wanted to fund a Neo-Nazi group or that
his conspiracy-peddling brother who works for them forged his signature?
(I don’t actually know, I think both are plausible)
I have vastly more empathy with the Nazis' targets than I do for the Nazis or for the fucking idiot who offered to fund them.
You don't, and that does count against you.
Since you seem to know so much about this deal, can you tell us more about it, e.g. who approached who and how
**edit:** oh, so the "big moments in his family life" are that his brother is involved with the Nazis he was offering 501(c)3 money to?
The guy who is asking for money on the street didn't fill in a fucking grant proposal to be examined by a panel who should, presumably, according to best practice, fucking do a single Google search on the applicant.
It's not a personal loan! It's a grant from an *effective altruist* org! Is your actual defense that he was just trying to nepotistically help out a relative, with money that was donated in the expectation it would go to effective causes, with zero vetting or cost-benefit analysis at all?
If you're actually concerned about him, I suggest you persuade him to explain what happened as quickly as possible, because right now it looks really, really bad.
His signature is on the approval letter. There are only 3 members of the grant-makers team, of which Max is one. Max probably knows what the newspaper is, because his brother writes for it and has a podcast hosted on there, and max has appeared on said podcast.
Being silent is not going to help with this. If he has some innocent explanation for this, he's gotta say so now. Massive amounts of ignorance and incompetence is the *best* case scenario here.
to avoid confusion:
Max Tegmarck’s future of life institute (FLI) is the one that appears to have promised 100 grand to a neo-nazi newspaper.
Nick Bostrom’s Future of humanity institute (FHI) is the one that just got into a scandal over Bostroms terrible “apology” for an old racist email.
The two scandals seem to be unrelated. longtermist EA is clearly going very well
Tegmark’s hot take on Ukraine and why we should appease Russia hits much spicier when you know he was trying* to fund a neo-Nazi organisation at the time
tweet, post, our coverage
* ^(I know I know he slipped in the shower had family upset he’s a little birthday boy be kinder)
Weird how this kind of thing keeps happening!
Hot take:
Effective Altruists wanted to fund the Nazi org because EA is sympathetic to their political project.
I know, I know. How brave, how bold of me.
Ahh yes, sending hundreds of thousands of dollars to people who irrationally hate other ethnic groups. That’s what I call peak rationalism 🙄
Tegmark and FLI have released a statement, and holy shit is it bad
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Ah so it sounds like Tegmark tried to use donor money to fund a Nazi Project his brother is involved in. That adds an extra layer of dumbness.
https://folketsradio.se/det-digitala-tyranniet/
I learned that Tegmarck is the guy behind “Improve the News” from a nazi website, what a day.
“As we discussed in the previous program, the flow of information on the Internet is becoming increasingly controlled and censored. The Internet that once lured us with its inexhaustible wealth of information is quickly being emptied of all content that does not align with the”Ministry of Truth”. Every day, huge amounts of search hits disappear from the major platforms.”
“A report by Per Shapiro”
“Max Tegmark, professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, runs the news site Improve The News.”
I can’t figure out who approached who in this scenario and I don’t know which scenario is the most weird one
What’s more likely, that he wanted to fund a Neo-Nazi group or that his conspiracy-peddling brother who works for them forged his signature? (I don’t actually know, I think both are plausible)
Edit: it’s definitely the first one. Too bad.
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