A “no attacks on people’s characters” policy seems like a terrible idea Rationalists: “Its not our fault that we got deceived and manipulated by SBF, lots of people were fooled by him! pay no attention to the fact we repeated the pattern of falling for it with OpenAI and Anthropic also” Also Rationalists: “You can’t jsut call people in or adjacent to our in-group bad people!” Also Eliezer: "There’s a standard Internet phenomenon (I generalize) of a Sneer Club of people who enjoy getting together and picking on designated targets. Sneer Clubs (I expect) attract people with high Dark Triad characteristics, which is (I suspect) where Asshole Internet Atheists come from - if you get a club together for the purpose of sneering at religious people, it doesn’t matter that God doesn’t actually exist, the club attracts psychologically f’d-up people. Bullies, in a word, people who are powerfully reinforced by getting in what feels like good hits on Designated Targets, in the company of others doing the same and congratulating each other on it. "