I'm insulted that EA/Longtermism is associated with nerds in this article.<p>Before there was EA/Longtermism, nerds explored a tree with 10^150 branches of possible futures and places where other civilizations in the universe might go. Post Yudkosky the rich and powerful, the beautiful people, the sheeple consider one possible branch to the exclusion of all others.<p>EA/Longtermism is a cult. It's a symptom of the decline of traditional religion and it is all the more telling that so many people involved claim to be militant athiests when they are really some mixture of Teilhard de Chardin (God is at the end of the universe) and a Cthulhu cult.