I can't speak for others but I've come to see the Less Wrong / hardline rationalist crowd as having had some interesting ideas despite the Sam Bankman Fried of it all. Rationalwiki can be rather snarky, but can be a good resource.

[–] davel@lemmy.ml 5 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Less Wrong is brainworms , as are the effective altruism and longtermism movements. US tech industry oligarchs like Musk, Thiel, and SBF (as you mentioned) are closely associated with these movements. Look into Less Wrong’s Eliezer Yudkowsky. Podcasts Tech Won’t Save Us, This Machine Kills, and Team Human have covered these movements, their movers, and their associated tech billionaires extensively. Some are grifters like SBF, and some are outright fascists like Thiel.

[–] Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.ca 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I was content to damn them with faint praise and save everyone the hassle. EY is a reasonably good writer who repackaged a lot of good ideas (Kahneman et al) and came up with a lot of less impressive original ideas (all the parts you've highlighted, many more). His most enjoyable work was fiction.